Microsoft Kills Office Anti-Piracy Program

CWmike writes "Microsoft last week killed the Office Genuine Advantage anti-piracy service that first checked — and later nagged — whether customers were running legal copies of Office. ZDNet blogger Ed Bott first reported on Microsoft's move after a tipster pointed him toward a support document on the company's site. That Dec. 17 document simply noted that Office Genuine Advantage 'has been retired,' but offered no explanation. A Microsoft spokeswoman told Computerworld on Monday, 'The program has served its purpose and thus we have decided to retire the program.'"

Comments

Statistics

[DarkOx]

They probably were more interested in discovering how many pirated copies might be out there rather than thwarting them. Microsoft has always been about market share even if they have to give it way to get it. They practically encouraged people to pirate Windows in the 3.x days.

Re:Statistics

[couchslug]

"They practically encouraged people to pirate Windows in the 3.x days."

It worked superbly with Office 97 etc.

If you want to catch fish, throw some chum before the bait with the hook in it. :)

Re:Statistics

[Elbereth]

That's not really true. Microsoft has always been strongly against piracy. However, what you might be thinking about is how easy it was for personal, home users to pirate their products. Microsoft has never raided some guy's house because he was running a pirated version of Windows. However, they certainly have raided businesses. Going after individual pirates doesn't really accomplish anything, but going after the larger cracking groups and corporate users does.

Just because it doesn't make business sense to go after a 15 year old pirate who downloads your product doesn't mean that you are encouraging him to do so.

Re:Statistics

[Qlither]

Still this is way out of normal for Microsoft now. Unless they are hoping to sue everyone who pirates it, or better yet they are leaving the door open for a new DRM - such as having to have an internet connection 24/7 ;).

M$ Office is too much in my mind, most homes i have seen too dont bother paying it anymore and have gone over to OpenOffice for what little they use the damn thing.

Re:Statistics

[DarkOx]

Right but while everyone else was playing with key disks, and what is the third word on the 37 page of the instructions type games Microsoft did not bother. They were smart enough to realize it does not work, and that if people use it at home they will likely want to use it at work and that means business sales where their bread was buttered.

Re:Statistics

[fwarren]

Did you forget the Microsoft Internal document that said they would prefer people would pirate their products over them using something else?

Re:Statistics

[arth1]

I remembering Microsoft distributing Outlook 98 for free. Now you don't even get Outlook with the Home and Student edition, but have to fork over some major cash.
The problem is that people do so, instead of using an e-mail client instead.

Re:Statistics

[splerdu]

It's all good for them. A house running a pirated windows OS, is still a house that ISN'T running linux.

Re:Statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

OGA gave OpenOffice a genuine advantage.

Re:Statistics

[commodore64_love]

>>>instead of using an email client instead

You mean like Mozilla Thunderbird or SeaMonkey or Opera 11? For businesses MS probably throws-in the Outlook free-of-charge as part of the overall package, and therefore no incentive to switch to a freebie like the aforementioned programs.

In any case this is good news. It means I can use Microsoft Office Pirate Edition instead of OpenOffice.org. ;-) Can't believe I was so stupid as to PAY for Office97. What was I thinking? Although it has given me 12 years of use.

 

Re:Statistics

[beakerMeep]

what is the third word on the 37 page

Petunias

Re:Statistics

[bami]

You get a lot of stuff free if you have a valid windows license though.

Outlook Express, the free thing that shipped with Windows XP is revamped to Windows Live Mail. I've used it for a while, got office 2007 (for free through some random student program) and switched to outlook for things where there is no web interface (Exchange webmail is horrible (and broken in some places) in anything but IE, and I don't have the time to install web access to the mail address of my webdomain).

You can always get Thunderbird if you like something free, and for people buying outlook: usually it's in some office package from work, or they know how to use it from work and like to do that at home. Not really smart, but a problem?

Re:Statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

http://wikileaks.com/
?

Re:Statistics

[Beerdood]

I think you're right there. Microsoft may not be happy that people are pirating they're products and would probably rather have every copy paid for. But they'd also rather have people using a pirated version of their competition instead of a competitor's product. That reduces the chances of another competitor rising up because they have such a stronghold on the marketplace.

Also, it's probably not worth the time and hassle to harass personal users of the software (medium-large sized corporations maybe). Take note RIAA!

Re:Statistics

[turgid]

Petunias

Percy Thrower, rest in peace!

Re:Statistics

[sconeu]

Oh no... not again.

Re:Statistics

[increment1]

Apparently even Microsoft realized that having users fumble with a key wheel or lookup a word in the manual every time they started their computer or ran Office would be a user experience disaster.

Not being able to prevent piracy does not equate to encouraging it, regardless of whether they benefited from it or not.

Re:Statistics

[anomaly256]

12 years since office 97? It's too early to do the math as the coffee hasn't kicked in yet, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't add up somehow

Re:Statistics

[thetoadwarrior]

Going after individuals won't allow them to gain millions through a lawsuit and by allowing people to get hooked on their programs they'll want to use them at work which is where their real money most likely is and they have been happy to let countries like China pirate their software with hopes to convert them or at least stop the spread of open source software in high population up coming countries like China.

Re:Statistics

[TheRaven64]

It's even more important with Office. If it's too hard to pirate Office, people will download OpenOffice (or whatever it's called this week). They will start exchanging OpenDocument files instead of Word documents. Other people will have to download OpenOffice to open them, and may find that it's good enough for what they need. On the other hand, if people are pirating MS Office, they'll send Word documents and other people will buy MS Office to be able to open them.

Re:Statistics

[shadowfaxcrx]

2010-1997 = 13

Surprisingly, some people didn't buy it the minute it came out ;)

Re:Statistics

[shadowfaxcrx]

I've gotten to where I don't even use a desktop email client anymore. When I'm home, I'm usually busy doing non-email things, and my phone has a nice, robust client (K-9 for Android) that suits me just fine. Especially since I don't do a whole lot of emailing anymore. That's what Skype is for.

Re:Statistics

[hairyfeet]

And all the FOSS advocates had a living shitfit about piracy, but you know what? It was a brilliant move. What do you need in an office? You need workers skilled in the tools you use. MSFT never made squat off of home users of office products so it was better to "wink wink" look the other way and let them gain familiarity and skill in their office products which corps will then buy to keep from worrying about a BSAA visit.

And I'm sorry I can't find the link, but I once saw a great podcast with Ballmer where he explained his thoughts on piracy. He said "I'm not really worried about some kid at a dorm somewhere that passes a copy of WinXP to his friend. What I AM worried about is some boat coming from Malaysia loaded down with counterfeit copies of XP that even I can't tell apart from the legitimate product. THAT is what we are going after with WGA, because if someone buys a machine from an unscrupulous vendor there frankly isn't any way just by looking at a disc or box to tell."

MSFT knows piracy works to their advantage. Those that pirated as kids end up being customers as adults. They will have experience with MSFT products, know all the shortcuts, and will frankly be an easy sale. That is why I still think Ballmer was nuts to kill the $50 Home Permium program. You'd be surprised how many XP pirates I know are now legit Windows 7 users thanks to the $50 upgrade, and now MSFT has an audience for selling other products, such as the way WMC plugs in nicely into the x360, and for the "anytime upgrade" to Pro or Ultimate. You catch them with pirated free, lure them into the fold with cheap legit copies, and then you have a captive audience to sell to. It is just good business.

Re:Statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all good for them. A house running a pirated windows OS, is still a house that ISN'T running linux.

Yup that would be my house...not counting the Tivo of course.

Re:Statistics

[froggymana]

Since Office 97 was released in November of 1996, it would be very possible for him to have gotten 12 years of use with it, since 1996 + 12 == 2008 :)

I don't know why anyone would want to do that though, but I guess if it works why change?

Re:Statistics

[Pharmboy]

I don't know why anyone would want to do that though, but I guess if it works why change?

Because it uses a simple key check and is very easy to pirate. And it still does 100% of what 98% of the people want. And it was only slightly bloated.

Re:Statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

Or we could just use OpenOffice.org to open the Word documents?

Re:Statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to catch fish, throw some chum before the bait with the hook in it. :)

Dynamite works pretty good, too.

Re:Statistics

[Voyager529]

And it was only slightly bloated.

No, it was still bloated. Remember, a kitchen sink install of 200MBytes was 10% of the 2GB hard disks that were par for the course in 1996. The difference is that 200MB is a fraction of a percent of a 320GB drive now, and also MS provided a very granular installer that made it possible to shave that number significantly down. By contrast, a barely-functional Office 2010 install is still over a gig.

Re:Statistics

[GameboyRMH]

I stopped using email clients in the early beta days of Gmail. I'll switch to roundcube on a VPS next, but I don't see myself using a mail client again in the future.

Re:Statistics

[anomaly256]

For some reason I was thinking 2007.. my dependency on coffee is frightening. Dunno why that deserves getting modded down though... I guess badmouthing coffee is worthy of karma loss. (Like asking a legitimate question in the Opera thread was too)

Re:Statistics

[Pharmboy]

But the question is 'why still use it today', and no one today installs the whole thing with clip art now. The whole thing without clip art or frontpage is closer to 65mb, which isn't much of a 1tb drive. Even open office takes up more space.

Re:Statistics

[Whiternoise]

I remembering Microsoft distributing Outlook 98 for free. Now you don't even get Outlook with the Home and Student edition, but have to fork over some major cash. The problem is that people do so, instead of using an e-mail client instead.

http://www.microsoft.com/student/office/en-us/default.aspx Erm... you do get Outlook with the student version...

Re:Statistics

[aztracker1]

To be fair, you don't get much out of Outlook without Exchange on the server.. IMHO Outlook should have stayed with the Exchange team.

Re:Statistics

[aztracker1]

On the bloated front the last two versions of Office, have been very lean compared to it's counterparts (OOo, and Corell).

Re:Statistics

[aztracker1]

I still use my mail client when I need to churn through a lot... usually use webmail when I'm just waiting for a quick message... though haven't been as active in email discussion lists as of late.

Re:Statistics

[arth1]

I wasn't talking about students -- I was talking about Microsoft's lowest cost Office package available to everyone, which name is Home and Student edition, and why I said "Home and Student edition", not "Office Professional Academic Edition".

That edition is a completely different beast, and not available to non-students, or all students for that matter.
If you don't qualify, or if you need more than one license, Office Professional is $500 -- more than many paid for their computer and operating system.
In which case, it would make more sense to just buy Outlook at $140 if all you want is Outlook.

Or look elsewhere for a more reasonably priced program.

Re:Statistics

[marcosdumay]

"For businesses MS probably throws-in the Outlook free-of-charge as part of the overall package"

If the business buys Exchange and Office for all employees and computers (respectively), it will get Outlook as part of the deal. Hardly qualifies as free, since only the exchange licenses needed for making all that work will cost more than some MS Office package for the home that comes with Outlook included.

Or, at least that was the situation in 2007. I've never had to know their prices again.

Re:Statistics

[Whiternoise]

Fair point, kudos for Microsoft for poor naming convention. You can usually save a bit of cash getting an OEM copy. The Home and Student copy (just they key) in the UK costs £75 inc VAT which isn't outrageous. 99% of people don't need Access or Publisher at home and can get by with Exchange for their emails, or even Windows Live Mail. Of course people use Thunderbird, etc as well. Office Pro 2010 is around £160, key only, which is still a good deal. Assuming you don't need to upgrade office at all, unless they bring out a new file format, I'm happy to pay £150 for it. Prices from www.scan.co.uk

Re:Statistics

[marcosdumay]

Halloween Documents. And those were "leaked" by a court order, nothing alike.

Re:Statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

>> "(or whatever it's called this week)"

Implies a very limited familiarity with the subject. OpenOffice.org is going through some turmoil as a project lately, but it's been a stable project for a number of years. OpenOffice.org was officially released in 2002 with its roots being tied to StarOffice, which was originally a product from StarDivision, a German company. StarOffice goes back to some time in the mid 80's, and Sun bought it in 1999. I remember using their free version of StarOffice on Slackware 7 systems (Sun offered a free version and a pay-for/with support version back then. Later continuing the pay for StarOffice version along with the free OpenOffice.org version.) Now that Oracle snapped up Sun there are lots of issues going in the background with mysql, Solaris, OpenOffice, etc. so yes, for those who, for instance, live in the Microsoft environment this matter of LibreOffice may seem like a trivial '...whatever...' moment but that's hardly the case.

Re:Statistics

[jellomizer]

I think it may be more to the fact that because of the strictness of GA it most likely drove a lot of people to open office and google docs. Where before they would get someone buy a copy and share it with three or four people. But they would be using office and demanding office files.

Re:Statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, but we can pirate Windows and Office at home and then go to work (where they monitor software licenses very carefully) and ask the boss to spring for 30 Office 2k10 licenses. Not that I know anything about that.

Re:Statistics

[Myopic]

The error in that logic would be assuming that he got Office 97 in 1997, all the more so because it was released in 1996. The only evidence at hand -- his testimony -- is that he got it in 1998.

Re:Statistics

[Voyager529]

http://i51.tinypic.com/jkhkl0.png

A complete installation of Office 97 (yes, I just dusted off my copy of Office 97 Professional and took that screengrab) is a shade over 193MBytes, the Clipart collections appear to take up around 4MBytes, and this flavor doesn't include Frontpage. Office 2010 installs a trivial amount of Clipart itself; while Office '97 included the vector art packages on the disc, Office 2010 does it online - neither of which make a pit stop at the hard disk.

Honestly, with the exception of Outlook, I could probably do my day to day activities with the '97 versions of the rest of Office. Like you said yourself, OpenOffice is larger than Office 97 (and takes up plenty more RAM). People who have Office 97 still in use are probably in circumstances where they have either paid for (or not paid for) that version of Office, and on top of it, likely have hardware of a vintage that can't handle more recent office suites as gracefully.

Re:Statistics

[shadowfaxcrx]

I've found (hey check this out - someone's gonna mod this one as offtopic or flamebait) that if you pay attention to the mod points on this site, you just get irritated. There's a reason other sites actually screen who gets to moderate. . .

Re:Statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had modpoints right now I would mod you down as flamebait just to prove your point for you :)

Re:Statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

You should always flush after you've left number 2... Right Microsnot?

Re:Statistics

[TheRaven64]

Well, it was called OpenOffice for a bit, until they realised someone else owned that trademark. Then it was called OpenOffice.org. And Sun's version kept the StarOffice brand, even when there was almost no difference in the code. A few of Linux distros have been shipping Novell's fork for a while, which was called go-oo, or something equally silly. If you're on a Mac, for a while the version that actually worked was NeoOffice. Then it was forked and so some people claim that LibreOffice is the 'real' version (in spite of the fact that 80% of contributions came from Sun, and those people are still working on the non-forked version).

Re:Statistics

[deniable]

At that point they still had real competition. Now, the number two in the market is ripped off copies of their stuff. Microsoft always competes and this is how they handle their biggest rival.

Re:Statistics

[commodore64_love]

Precisely.

Prior to 1998 I was still using Commodore Amigas and Macs. Then in 98 I bought my very first IBM PC-compatible (gag) and also MS Office so I could keep my resume updated.

Re:Statistics

[SenseiLeNoir]

But If you buy the box version of Office Home and Student versions actually give three liscenses with the key (allowing it to be installed on 3 computers).

I dont think the OEM key includes the 3 installations thing.

Re:Statistics

[mcgrew]

I no longer use gmail. They accused me of violating their "terms and conditions" despite the fact that I only emailed a few friends, family, and slashdot editors and they deleted the account and all my correspondence, and invited me to register a new user name. No explanation of what terms I supposedly violated; first thay asked if I thought my account had been compromised. Maybe it had, but I had no indication of such.

No thanks! I'll keep my correspondence on my own machine from now on. Gmail won't fuck me over again.

Re:Statistics

[GameboyRMH]

Huh, I was planning on migrating away from Gmail to a VPS for privacy reasons, but after hearing that it puts a lot more urgency behind the issue. I'll have to warn my relatives too, my dad would lose his shit if that happened to him. And to think I recommended and invited everyone to Gmail back in the early days...

Re:Statistics

[mcgrew]

THAT is what we are going after with WGA, because if someone buys a machine from an unscrupulous vendor there frankly isn't any way just by looking at a disc or box to tell.

An experience I just had over the weekend made me once again decide to NEVER EVER buy another Microsoft product until they changed their stupid anti-customer bias.

Five or so years ago I paid good cash for a copy of Win XP, which I ran dual-boot with Mandrake (or maybe Mandriva). Eventually the power supply in the computer went titsup, and I resigned it to the pile of spare parts in the basement.

I recently had my laptop and netbook stolen, and was without a computer for a while. A friend gave me a broken one with a bad hard drive and CPU fan unplugged. I took the hard drive out of the basement, installed it, booted it, and XP told me I'd changed too much hardwar and had 3 days to reregister it.

Well, I shut it off, put in an old video card that has an svga port so I could watch movies from it on the TV, and on reboot WGA locked me out of my own files!

I can't reregister, I've moved a few times since I paid good cash for the OS and the magic number is missing, probably misfiled somewhere.

I feel like Microsoft STOLE that hard earned money I paid for the OS; it's like if my car manufacturer repossed my car because I changed the tires and fan belt.

Piracy just cost Microsoft a formerly cash-paying customer, so piracy IS costing the paranoid idiots money. I have the old Linux distro on it now, but there's not much room on the drive; most of it is the unusable Windows, and there may be data I want (MP3s & the like). There's no reason whatever a paying customer should be treated like a thief, and Microsoft can shove it. Never again.

Re:Statistics

[mcgrew]

However, they certainly have raided businesses.

Yes, they have.

Sterling Ball, a jovial, plain-talking businessman, is CEO of Ernie Ball, the world's leading maker of premium guitar strings endorsed by generations of artists ranging from the likes of Eric Clapton to the dudes from Metallica.

But since jettisoning all of Microsoft products three years ago, Ernie Ball has also gained notoriety as a company that dumped most of its proprietary software--and still lived to tell the tale.

In 2000, the Business Software Alliance conducted a raid and subsequent audit at the San Luis Obispo, Calif.-based company that turned up a few dozen unlicensed copies of programs. Ball settled for $65,000, plus $35,000 in legal fees. But by then, the BSA, a trade group that helps enforce copyrights and licensing provisions for major business software makers, had put the company on the evening news and featured it in regional ads warning other businesses to monitor their software licenses.

Humiliated by the experience, Ball told his IT department he wanted Microsoft products out of his business within six months. "I said, 'I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses,'" recalled Ball, who recently addressed the LinuxWorld trade show. "We won't do business with someone who treats us poorly." ...

I became an open-source guy because we're a privately owned company, a family business that's been around for 30 years, making products and being a good member of society. We've never been sued, never had any problems paying our bills. And one day I got a call that there were armed marshals at my door talking about software license compliance...I thought I was OK; I buy computers with licensed software. But my lawyer told me it could be pretty bad.

The BSA had a program back then called "Nail Your Boss," where they encouraged disgruntled employees to report on their company...and that's what happened to us. Anyways, they basically shut us down...We were out of compliance I figure by about 8 percent (out of 72 desktops).

How did that happen?
We pass our old computers down. The guys in engineering need a new PC, so they get one and we pass theirs on to somebody doing clerical work. Well, if you don't wipe the hard drive on that PC, that's a violation. Even if they can tell a piece of software isn't being used, it's still a violation if it's on that hard drive. What I really thought is that you ought to treat people the way you want to be treated. I couldn't treat a customer the way Microsoft dealt with me...I went from being a pro-Microsoft guy to instantly being an anti-Microsoft guy.

Did you want to settle?
Never, never. That's the difference between the way an employee and an owner thinks. They attacked my family's name and came into my community and made us look bad. There was never an instance of me wanting to give in. I would have loved to have fought it. But when (the BSA) went to Congress to get their powers, part of what they got is that I automatically have to pay their legal fees from day one. That's why nobody's ever challenged them--they can't afford it. My attorney said it was going to cost our side a quarter million dollars to fight them, and since you're paying their side, too, figure at least half a million. It's not worth it. You pay the fine and get on with your business. What most people do is get terrified and pay their license and continue to pay their licenses. And they do that no matter what the license program turns into.

Re:Statistics

[mcgrew]

Now, the number two in the market is ripped off copies of their stuff.

Is it

1. You've never heard of Open Office?
2. You think Open Office is a ripped off copy of MS Office?
3. You think there are more pirate copies of MSo than Oo?
4. You're just trolling?
5. Other?

Re:Statistics

[Lord Kestrel]

Man, I remember that. It was a 30MB download, which didn't take too long on dual-channel ISDN. It was a huge change coming from Eudora, but was actually quite functional. I think within a few days of starting to use it I never went back to Eudora again.

Re:Statistics

[Dog-Cow]

Considering all the tech trouble you've claimed to have had throughout the past dozen stories or so, you are either the least competent or the least intelligent person on the planet.

Re:Statistics

[deniable]

I wasn't just talking about Office, but option three sounds right. When they started with Office activation in 1999 or so, pirate copies of Office outnumbered Star Office. OGA was just a continuation of that plan.

Re:Statistics

[mcgrew]

More here for your LOLs.

Re:Statistics

[tehcyder]

LOL you're probably the only person on slashdot who has ever admitted buying MS Office, even though everyone has used it.

Re:Statistics

[tehcyder]

But If you buy the box version of Office Home and Student versions actually give three liscenses with the key (allowing it to be installed on 3 computers).

I dont think the OEM key includes the 3 installations thing.

I'm not sure it's even legal to discuss Microsoft pricing in a calm manner on slashdot.

At he very least you need an "I only use open source software at home where I have the choice, of course" postscript.

Re:Statistics

[tehcyder]

I think it may be more to the fact that because of the strictness of GA it most likely drove a lot of people to open office and google docs. Where before they would get someone buy a copy and share it with three or four people. But they would be using office and demanding office files.

If you can do something in google docs, why not just use the notepad and calculator provided free with Windows?

Similarly, photoshop is just a glorified Paint.

people are using google apps

[alen]

time to let everyone pirate software just like in the 90's. next step is to change the serial # back to all 1's

Re:people are using google apps

[transporter_ii]

I started putting copies of Open Office on computers I worked on or when people asked me for a copy of office. Most people are happy with it, outside of a friend who was a medical transcriptionist and had some special apps that were tied into MS Office.

Back in the day, whenever I set up a new computer, the first disk I reached for after the OS install was MS Office. Things have changed so much now that I can hardly remember the last time I fired up a word processor and actually used it. If it wasn't for the occasional spreadsheet at work, I could easily do without any office suite. I can now put together a new PC for myself and it is months before I realize I didn't install any type of "office" software on it.

And even the spreadsheets we use at work now, I'm in the process of migrating to a database with a web-based front end.

Times change and this is one area that changed a lot. And Open Office works pretty well for the light duty things still hanging around.

Re:people are using google apps

[Barny]

I work at a small computer company, and had the decision of putting forward what apps and tools to integrate onto our pre-install image.

My boss said, "Wait, you mean we can give people this open office thing free?". Yeah we lose the odd sale of MS Office or two, but we sell more PCs because customers get the stuff they want without having to go looking for it.

That aside, I used to be like you, I went for six years without any sort of office software on my pc. However I started writing as a hobby, and now, well, all my PCs have OOo installed.

Re:people are using google apps

[Nefarious Wheel]

... I started writing as a hobby, and now, well, all my PCs have OOo installed.

If you started writing as a hobby, you might want to look for Storybook. It's FOSS and I believe it's on Sourceforge.

Re:people are using google apps

[Barny]

Will do, the only real requirement is that it supports English Australian dictionary.

Re:people are using google apps

[tehcyder]

I didn't know English and Australian counted as two separate languages.

Any bets...

[KublaiKhan]

...on what large account threatened to go to OpenOffice if Microsoft kept nagging 'em?

More seriously (because I know how enterprise licensing works, and I know that an enterprise account was not likely the reason behind this) I dare say that the program simply wasn't profitable--that people either cracked the program to stop nagging 'em if they pirated it, or went to some competitor. No profits = no use nagging.

Re:Any bets...

[tophermeyer]

Yeah, I feel like what has been happening is that individual users who aren't going to be paying money for business software on their personal machine anyway (like myself), were responding to Genuine Advantage by adopting OpenOffice rather than sticking with MS Office.

As individual users move towards OO, small businesses move towards OO. As OO gets more common, more people feel like OO is an acceptable option. You see where I'm going with this.

Seems like it would be better for Microsoft to keep users on MS Office than push them off MS Office altogether.

Re:Any bets...

[KublaiKhan]

I think that Google Docs, for better or for worse, will end up having a bigger impact than OpenOffice (or any forks thereof): it comes from a recognizeable 'brand name' and it's got an interface that people are reasonably familiar with. It also "just works"--nothing to install or configure or whatnot.

When it comes down to the end user, that's going to be one of the biggest criteria for what platform to adopt--and if it were a choice between google docs and MS Office, most people I know would pick the cheaper and easier option.

Besides, MS doesn't package Office with Windows--but they do package 'the internet'.

Re:Any bets...

[Monkeedude1212]

You know, its funny how these Slashdot articles line up with work.

I just got back from a weeks vacation to learn that we have an upcoming Microsoft Audit here in January. They're going to be viewing our server licenses, office, all that kind of stuff. We're not too concerned since we purchase these things OEM bundled all nice and tidy, but on the odd occaison where a re-install of Windows was necessary and the Office Product key lost, we had this neat version of Office 2003 that didn't need a key to install, imagine that.

On top of that - we actually have about 150 thousand dollars worth of Client Access Licenses in use on our exchange server that aren't paid for, JUST in our disabled accounts (whose email store we haven't removed since the CEO wants to be able to access them at a moments notice, and we just started the process of archiving them a couple months ago).

I have told my boss numerous times that we could have switched to OpenOffice or LibreOffice long ago. Almost no retraining really required, the layout is largely the same. No licensing fees. But he pushes back that what they are paying for is insurance. When something doesn't work between MS Office versions he can blame Microsoft. Perfect deflection. He doesn't want to be the guy who made everyone switch off Microsoft and then be expected to fully support it more than MS Office. Its alright, he has his reasons. I don't blame him. I would take the flak and argue the savings - I've personally had enough trouble just getting MS Office to work properly I couldn't see any of the other products possibly being any worse (Especially since OpenOffice can now be deflected to Oracle, Huzzah!).

I -WISH- my company was a large account that threatened to go somewhere else if Microsoft kept nagging us... My coworkers say that what'll probably happen is that the guy will come in, survey, ask for a dollar amount, the company will write a cheque, and IT won't get Christmas bonuses this year.

Time to look for a new place to work? Yeah it's going through our (the IT Department's) minds quite a bit. Resumes in hand.

Re:Any bets...

[Riceballsan]

Dosn't need a large account, Home users aren't a proffit margain for MS the way businesses are. They most likely could care less if you spent the 150 on a home edition of MS office, they are more worried about the 45k giant business contract they have with your company. Have nothing in common you think? Here's microsoft's fear. Joe Midlevel in the company goes home, can't afford or can't justify spending 150 on something he only uses for work, because some reason the company won't buy him a copy, he discovers open/libre office or google docs. Lets others in the company try it, they discover there are no features they use in MS office that they are lacking. Maybe someone in the right place even likes the interface better. cost on the line, 20k-500k depending on company size Scenerio 2, Joe Midlevel goes home finds a pirate copy of office, uses that instead, lost income $150

Re:Any bets...

[DaMattster]

Why does that sound awfully like a mafia protection racket?

Re:Any bets...

[Stregano]

I had a legit copy and was only told once about activation and never nagged. I don't know what versions others have, but if you want free, maybe you should go with OpenOffice instead of running your trial out on Office. It is seriously odd, because I have a MSDN membership, and got Office through there, and it said something when I first installed office, but after that, it has completely left me alone

Re:Any bets...

[darkonc]

..... I have told my boss numerous times that we could have switched to OpenOffice or LibreOffice long ago.....But he pushes back that what they are paying for is insurance. When something doesn't work between MS Office versions he can blame Microsoft. Perfect deflection.

Has he ever read MS's EULA? If it breaks, you can blame Microsoft (just like you can blame Oracle if Open Office breaks), but you can't ask for any reparations. You have no better protection against broken code with Microsoft than you do with freed software -- Actually Microsoft is worse.

Going with Microsoft, you're not allowed to look at the broken code, much less fix it nor are you allowed to sue them for the costs of broken code -- even if you can prove negligence... and, on top of that, you have to deal with things like license audits that will cost you random amounts of money on top of their 'insurance' fees. With freed software, you still don't have the rights of suing for broken code, but you do have the right to (pay someone to) look at the broken code and fix it. At that point Even if the product's originator (Oracle, in this case) doesn't like your fix, you can always keep a (not so) private fork with your improvements. Try and do that with Micorosoft Office code.

Re:Any bets...

[blarkon]

Most people weren't going to Open Office - they simply put up with the nagging - because in the end the nagging was less annoying than using Open Office.

Re:Any bets...

[bhcompy]

The problem is that Google Docs is a pain in the ass compared to a local application. OO does have an Oracle flash screen which most people that work in a corporation after familiar with, and it looks like Office 97-2k3 rather than "Ribbons". For most people that are not just entering the market, the brand name and the familiar interface make it a better choice than a browser run application.

Re:Any bets...

[Anonymous Coward]

I -WISH- my company was a large account that threatened to go somewhere else if Microsoft kept nagging us... My coworkers say that what'll probably happen is that the guy will come in, survey, ask for a dollar amount, the company will write a cheque, and IT won't get Christmas bonuses this year.

Large accounts would likely have a volume license key of some sort, with X licenses attached.

Re:Any bets...

[Froggels]

How many users out there are actually in a position to actually look at the the code in open source software out there and really "fix" it? 99% of the population hasn't a clue how to "fix" "broken" software.

Re:Any bets...

[TheRaven64]

Irrelevant. MS Office is their current standard. If there's something wrong with it, it's easy to deflect blame because it's what was already in use, and what everyone else is using. If you make the company switch to OO.o, then any results of that switch (good or bad) are your responsibility. If there are negative results, then it is your fault. Sticking with MS Office costs money, but it's money that's been in your budget for years, so you don't have to fight for it. Switching will save money, but you probably won't get much credit for that and your boss will remember when considering you for a promotion or raise if anything went badly, even if the bad was completely offset by the cost saving.

Re:Any bets...

[Anonymous Coward]

Youve made a statement that goes against common sense, and then make a dig at open office like its hard to use.

I think your wrong, so do most of the other ppl here. You must feel so special now.

Re:Any bets...

[westlake]

As individual users move towards OO, small businesses move towards OO. As OO gets more common, more people feel like OO is an acceptable option. You see where I'm going with this.

Nowhere fast.

If your employer is part of Microsoft's Home Use Program then your personal copy of MS Office Professional is a $9.95 download for Windows or the Mac.

[U.S. - The price will be about the same, localized for just anywhere eles in the world. DVD media is available]

Microsoft Office Professional Academic is $80 direct from Microsoft with student ID.

There are better deals to be had through your school.

MS Office Home & Student - for Windows & the Mac - remain comfortably in the top five or top ten software bestsellers at Amazon.com. It's unlikely you'll find a PC game other than Scrabble or Oregon Trail in the top one hundred.

Retail sales of MS Office are the tail the wags the dog.

Getting Started with Open Office .org 3: OpenOffice.org 3.0 by the OO.org team is #67,694 in books at Amazon.com.

Amazon.com stocks 742 books on Microsoft Office 2010 products alone.

49 books on OpenOffice.org, all versions, all topics.

Re:Any bets...

[Joce640k]

The problem with local applications is that they're a pain in the ass for corporations to administer.

Re:Any bets...

[nurb432]

Don't discount the value of the ability to point the finger, even if you have to pay for a fix. It can save your job/career when things go south due to no fault of your own..

Re:Any bets...

[Anonymous Coward]

What it the world is a Microsoft Audit? And why are you receiving one?

Re:Any bets...

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to buy Microsoft Office software upgrades religiously. But as soon as they introduced the Windows Genuine Advantage I stopped buying and switched to Open Office. I didn't like the idea of being treated like a thief, so they lost my business.

Re:Any bets...

[Anonymous Coward]

In most states those EULAs are worth the same as the paper I use to wipe my ass. You can still sue and largely successfully. The EULA is there to set up the rules of operating that software and if you haven't broken it's rules and you still lose data/customers/large amounts of money you can sue their ass off and win.

Re:Any bets...

[dakameleon]

Except for the part where local applications have been administered by IT departments of corporations for years. Incumbency is a huge advantage.

Re:Any bets...

[elashish14]

I think that's somewhat besides the point. What GP was saying is that the manager wants to have someone else to blame, not someone else to fix it. Wrong mentality, sure, but how else do you get to be a manager?

Re:Any bets...

[bhcompy]

Corporations don't have their users use Google Docs. Data security 101: Don't let a simple username and password on a public website be all that is needed for someone to have access to corporate data

Re:Any bets...

[index0]

But with opensource they can hire anyone they want to fix their software, just like they can hire any mechanic to fix their car. Are you saying that it is better that people have no choice? Most people believe the best thing about opensource is the price. They are wrong.

Re:Any bets...

[Joce640k]

Corporations set up their own internal server.

Re:Any bets...

[Joce640k]

Only because there was no other way to have Microsoft Office on their machines. The cost of installing/maintaining/patching/upgrading is huge. Putting the apps on a central server will save a metric asston of money.

Re:Any bets...

[LostInTaiwan]

I am kind of the IT person in a small company with about 20 users and I switched everyone over to OpenOffice 4 or 5 years ago and we have never looked back. OO has certainly came a long way since we started using it. There's a few access programs we use to run reports that I haven't been able to convert to postgresql, but I only need on copy of MS office running on the W2K server and that pretty much solved our report generation.

With the money we saved from using open office and the various linux email/web/sql servers, I managed to upgrade everyone to dual 20" screen desktops. The hylafax fax server I installed almost 10 years ago is still running today. Nothing MS made ever lasted that long, because like it or not you're forced to upgrade every few years.

BTW, I stay away from any external web based application because we simply do not have enough bandwidth to handle the traffic volume. As much as I like gmail, it's a lot faster to send a 3mb email attachment to an email server on the dmz. We're still limited by the T1 bandwidth, but at least I am free to do other tasks instead of waiting for the attachment to upload.

Re:Any bets...

[js_sebastian]

Most people weren't going to Open Office - they simply put up with the nagging - because in the end the nagging was less annoying than using Open Office.

I agree openoffice is annoying, but so is microsoft office. Personally, I think powerpoint is much better than impress, but I also find word is much more annoying than openoffice writer. So the question is, what is more annoying, microsoft office + nagging, or openoffice with no nagging?

Re:Any bets...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you're the type of person that likes to take companies you already have a bias against for non-trivial, entirely subjective reasons, and liken them to concepts which are more rationally and universally despised, in some vain attempt to garner public support for your prejudiced beliefs.
I bet if you looked hard enough, you could liken Microsoft's insistence on people paying for their products to the Spanish Inquisition, CIA waterboarding, 9/11, the Holocaust and other fun activites too.

Re:Any bets...

[deniable]

We had people looking for the current policies for use of Google Docs/ Dropbox / other stuff for hosting of official records. They got a 'warm' reception.

Re:Any bets...

[deniable]

And use it to deploy packaged applications.

Re:Any bets...

[deniable]

Dear God, I don't want any of our programmers touching the office apps.

Re:Any bets...

[orasio]

How many users out there are actually in a position to actually look at the the code in open source software out there and really "fix" it? 99% of the population hasn't a clue how to "fix" "broken" software.

Duh. But they might have money to hire some of the remaining 1% to do it, starting with the money saved from MS licenses.

Re:Any bets...

[Ollabelle]

I remember there was a similar mindset for a while: "No one ever got fired for choosing IBM."

I wrote them off when I was choosing some small accounting software back in the mid 80s and the damned software couldn't even display decimals, all the money had to input in pennies. When we decided to go with other software, that was the salesman's last ditch plea.

Re:Any bets...

[bhcompy]

Google doesn't sell/provide the server application.

Re:Any bets...

[tehcyder]

That is all entirely hypothetical while google docs is in its current primitively painful state.

Re:Any bets...

[tehcyder]

I didn't like the idea of being treated like a thief, so they lost my business.

For the millionth time, copying software is not theft, it's copyright infringement, so Microsoft were treating you like a copyright infringer, not a common thief.

Big difference.

It didn't work

[thetoadwarrior]

It cost money to maintain and stopped no one. There is no point to it.

Re:It didn't work

[Yossarian45793]

Citation needed

Re:It didn't work

[Anonymous Coward]

[2] http://thepiratebay.org/search/microsoft%20office/0/99/0

Re:It didn't work

[Anonymous Coward]

[3] Your Mom (again)

Re:It didn't work

[thetoadwarrior]

I know numerous people that use downloaded copies of office and most of which were barely computer literate.

Re:It didn't work

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, please. You call that citing?

[1] Mom, Your (2010), Report on the Effectiveness of OGA in a heterogenous business environment, Journ. of Sex. Interc., 1, 5-911.

See? Now everyone can look it up.

Re:It didn't work

[Anonymous Coward]

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6044879/Microsoft_Office_2007

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6028806/Microsoft_Office_2007_Enterprise_%5BbYhIm%5D_Real_x86

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6038502/Microsoft_Office_2010_%2832b%29_Professional__

That took me all of 15 seconds.

Re:It didn't work

[hairyfeet]

Yeah I have to give the pirates credit, as yet again I'm more impressed by their "product" than I am the original. I had a friend that was one of those "just knows enough to be dangerous" types hand me a couple of DVDs with a "yo, check this out". Now I remember when pirates actually had to deal with cracks, reg entries, all sorts of BS, but these things were just amazing on how stupid one could be and still work it.

The first was a copy of Office 2K7 that had every single version, from Student o Ultimate, and every single program, all wrapped with a nice GUI that popped up a txt file that said "Here paste this" for the key when you picked which one you wanted and even told you what key combo for copy and paste. Damn my grandma could work that! The second was a Windows 7 that had ALL the versions, from Basic through Ultimate, both X86 and X64, again dumbed down completely. This one didn't even need a key, just pick which version you wanted. It even had pre-activated WGA. I'll admit if I didn't already have all my software fair and square the levels of easy on this thing was just mind blowing.

So it really doesn't surprise me that MSFT gave up on OGA. Home users sure as hell ain't gonna shell out $90-$150 for software they just don't use that much, and by making Office a PITA to pirate all they were doing was giving OO.o or whatever the hell they are calling it this week a shot. MSFT hasn't been making their bread and butter off home users in ages, so better to keep them in the MSFT fold than to risk them getting skilled at Open Source office software.

Theory

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

My theory is that they are scrapping it because it worked. If it works, people can't run their pirated copy of Office whatever, and instead of running out to the store like a good little lemming to buy the latest MS Office. They instead go and download OpenOffice, LibreOffice, or just start using Google Apps.

LibreOffice is good enough for me.

Re:Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you won't catch me using Microsoft Office ever again. Damn format lock-in, etc.

I now use iWork and it's much better!

Re:Theory

[MonsterTrimble]

I was just going to reply 'Two words: Open Office' to the parent but yours is much better.

Re:Theory

[DigiShaman]

It's always been my experience that the only people that use MS Office are employees required to use it. I rarely see home users go out and actively purchase MS Office unless it's for business use. In short, corporations don't pirate software nearly to the same degree as any other group. Besides, why bother with GA scheme when you can rely on the eyes and ears of a disgruntled employee to rat out their previous employer? Hell, it's easy. Just visit http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/reporting/default.aspx

Re:Theory

[Senes]

Well it didn't work in the way you would think it worked.

It worked in the sense that it probably flagged a few businesses which MS could audit, at the businesses' own expense, and then slap with fees because some cubicle drone was fooling around with something he wasn't supposed to have been.

They know it won't stop intentional piracy because the intentionally pirated versions now come packaged with circumvention measures. But if they can keep charging businesses those fees, then they still make a hefty profit.

Re:Theory

[Charliemopps]

Yea no, if you're savy enough to pirate office, you're also savvy enough to get around something as silly as WGA/OGA. Most pirated copies already include software to disable these "features" on install. So it had absolutely no affect on pirates. I imagine their were plenty of false positives however that lead to a lot of ticked off actual customers. I remember a long time ago a lot of Canadians couldn't get direct TV, it wasn't sold there. So they started making bootleg access cards and getting it for free instead. Finally DirectTV sent some signal that fried the boot leg cards... and also unfortunately fried a LOT of valid cards as well. This was less than a week before the superbowl. What did DirectTV gain in all that? A lot of pissed off customers... and that's about it.

Re:Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Worked?! I remember a when I installed a hacked version once, and a little box came up informing me that "You may have been a victim of software piracy". I looked blankly at the screen for a moment and almost said aloud, "No, Microsoft... YOU have been a victim of software piracy!" As I recall it worked just fine, it just complained every now and then and I clicked "Okay".

Re:Theory

[pinkushun]

My theory is that it was because so many people got pissed off at GA incorrectly marking them as illegal, and causing trouble for many folks.

Office Genuine Advantage has served its purpose?

[clone52431]

Did they mean there’s no longer any advantage to using Genuine Office?

It's only $149, why pirate?

[1800maxim]

Get MS Office Home & Student edition, pay a rather reasonable cost of $149 (CDN) and live and breathe free! This version will satisfy most people's needs with Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[KublaiKhan]

I don't have $149, and am neither a student nor Canadian.

I'll stick with a competing product that works and costs less, thank you.

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[noidentity]

Get MS Office Home & Student edition, pay a rather reasonable cost of $149 (CDN) and live and breathe free!

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[mmaniaci]

The software you listed is worth nowhere near $150. I'd pay $30 and maybe up to $60 if I was an early adopter. Its a text processor, spreadsheet program, and slideshow program. Woop-de-fucking-do.

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[taucross]

It gets even better. My corporation is covered under the Microsoft HUP, which means I can get a disc or download of Office 2010 for $AUD15. The cost is so small that it is piracy for all intents and purposes.

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have two friends? You can get a three user license for $105.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116856&cm_re=office_2010-_-32-116-856-_-Product

Office does much more than that. It is also highly scriptable, easy to extend, has decent pen input/speech recognition capability, and includes OneNote. Plus access to the web versions of the office suite so you can access some of your documents for anywhere.

$150 is not completely unreasonable, but $35 is just a good deal.

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Get openoffice and pay 0$. Now that's being free!

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[trickyD1ck]

As a student, I got my Office 2010 Professional for only €69 through the Ultimate Steal: http://www.microsoft.com/student/office/en-us/default.aspx
We also get Visio, Project, OneNote and much more for free through MSDNAA. Can't compete with that!

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[eepok]

Ya, I use LibreOffice (having just made the move from OpenOffice) at home. I'd actually buy and use MS Office if it was worth what they charged. I'd pay $30 in a heartbeat for a legal installation of Word, Excel, Powerpoint. It's just good to have when dealing with other people's documents or when troubleshooting other people's software illiteracy.

But I'm certainly not paying $100+ for 3 programs that are now so effectively duplicated.

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[Anonymous Coward]

if you can't afford £79.99 (Amazon UK) for 2010 (three licenses), then you don't really need an Office product and might as well use Wordpad.

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[Monkeedude1212]

I don't have $149, and am neither a student nor Canadian.

Man, you have it rough. I mean, if you don't even have $149 dollars - I have trouble seeing you owning a PC in the first place... Maybe you meant "$149 freely to spend on whatever" - but I'm going to take it to mean you live from paycheck to paycheck, never having more than $149 in your bank account. Probably heavily in debt.

And I mean, if you ARE in debt, that would totally make sense if you were a student. Tuitions only seem to be going up and up, with less subsidy from the government. Those riots in the UK? Yeah I'd be pretty upset too. Going from free education to more expensive than a Canadian University then going to 3 times that - I think the social instability is entirely warranted.

But I mean - on top of all that... I mean... being in debt, not having much money, and not being a student... To make matters worse, you aren't even Canadian? Are you American? Is your beer watered down and your hockey team playing at the same place as your basketball team? Are you forced to drop the u's from your favourite words? Or are you from somewhere in Europe - where you don't even HAVE dollars. That might make sense, of course you wouldn't have $149, you'd have like ~ £95.

I feel for you man. Not being Canadian is probably one of the worst things one can Suffer.

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[1800maxim]

First of, if you're sticking with a competing product for free, you're not a pirate.

Second, Student & Home edition is not just for students.

Vast majority of pirates in the US and Canada could afford to buy a S&H edition of Office for $129/$149. Otherwise, stick to OpenOffice.org.

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which one is that?

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[Ash-Fox]

I got my Office 2010 Professional for only 69 through the Ultimate Steal

I got libreoffice for free.

Can't compete with that!

Free worked for me.

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Get LibreOffice for free, and add Scribus as a Publisher replacement.

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[Anonymous Coward]

The software you listed is worth nowhere near $150. I'd pay $30 and maybe up to $60 if I was an early adopter. Its a text processor, spreadsheet program, and slideshow program. Woop-de-fucking-do.

Baloney. And you buy all your pet food from Wal-Mart, don't you? MS Word is NOT a "text processor", it's a "WORD processor" which is another step up, although not up to the level of Desktop Publishing. I can't help it if most people use Word like it was a typewriter.

It wasn't all that long ago that $150 for a Word Processor wasn't considered an extreme price to pay, although it was long enough ago that the modern monetary equivalent was closer to $300 in today's prices. And that would have been just the word processor, no spreadsheet (look at the cost of Lotus 1-2-3 in old ads!), or a slideshow.

The main reason that you can buy Office for $150 is that Microsoft has long since recouped the expenses, just as economies of scale have led to high-powered $300 computers. And because they now pay pittance wages to offshore development teams to keep it going.

Open/Libre Office has likewise recouped its costs, but unlike Microsoft, they're not as interested in a cash cow.

The point is, high-powered suites like these are definitely "worth" more than $150. But we're spoiled by Lower Prices Everyday and even Microsoft isn't rapacious enough to charge more.

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[Anonymous Coward]

The software you listed is worth nowhere near $150. I'd pay $30 and maybe up to $60 if I was an early adopter. Its a text processor, spreadsheet program, and slideshow program. Woop-de-fucking-do.

But what about the AMAZING case that takes 20 mins to figure out how to open the first time? That sense of accomplishment HAS to be worth it.

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[Z80xxc!]

If all you need is "a" text processor, spreadsheet program, and slideshow program, then go ahead and use another text processor, spreadsheet program, and slideshow program. There's plenty of them out there. Office is a bit more complex than you make it out to be there. The integration between office programs (ability to edit excel graphs within word for example) and features like sharepoint server, office is quite a bit more than just those things though. Simple documents, spreadsheets and presentations don't require office, though some may find office easier to use. But for complex things, it does its job well, and may be worth the price.

Furthermore, office home and student (the version which costs $150) can be legally installed on three computers at once. That's a mere $50 per license, which makes it a good deal for families. It's also often on sale at both retail and online stores - right now newegg has it for $105. That's $35 per license. Which is barely over your stated price of $30. Maybe not such a bad deal after all, eh?

Re:It's only $149, why pirate?

[robogun]

That's a great deal if I'm a student.

How much is it if I am not a student?

How about they kill activation too?

[mlts]

How about they kill activation too while they are at it, especially for VLK licensees? Why businesses have to bounce machines off of MS's activation servers when they will end up getting rebuilt anyway, or have to set up core MAK servers for six month activations at a time is insane. A business is under the barrel of the BSA anyway, so they won't be pirating Windows/Office (at least if they want to stay in business after firing an employee who rats them out.)

OGA/WGA/activation is pointless. It annoys the legit users while the pirates are happily ignoring it.

Re:How about they kill activation too?

[Twintop]

OGA/WGA/activation is pointless. It annoys the legit users while the pirates are happily ignoring it.

Exactly. I'm running a legit copy of Sever 2008 R2 and after my latest reinstall (on to a SSD), it wouldn't activate without calling an automated number and following prompts. I tried 3 times to get it to activate through this method but it 'failed' every time. After the 3rd try, I let the automated service send me off to talk with a human rep...except for one problem: the extension the system sent me to was a disconnected number. After having wasted 45 minutes on the "simple and automated" system, I found a WGA crack (or whatever the hell they're calling it now) and have been puttering along for the last several months with no problems at all.

Re:How about they kill activation too?

[postmortem]

It is not entirely true. Consider this : fake antivirus is good business. They make good money (millions) by scaring people away that they have viruses. Similar thing WGA/OGA does. Not everybody is proficient user. Some people who had pireated copies didn't even know they had them: system builder/eller put them. For example they can get afraid that pirated copy is not as good as original, and that they better buy original.

Re:How about they kill activation too?

[RulerOf]

OGA/WGA/activation is pointless.

It's not pointless, but it is annoying.

I take it that you've never used KMS before. As someone who has deployed both XP with a VLK and 7 with KMS, I have to say that KMS is the one thing that Microsoft has finally gotten right about license management. You don't even put keys in your images or scripted installs anymore. It's completely automatic.

Re:How about they kill activation too?

[mlts]

KMS is actually nice. But it has a few caveats which are annoying:

1: To have a KMS server, you need 20 (IIRC) clients or 5+ servers.
2: Activations expire every six months.
3: You have to make sure your infrastructure can connect to the KMS server, so machines can get their needed keys.

Its better than MAK, but the best (IMHO) was XP Pro -- pay for a VLK/SA, and not worry about activation, and the infrastructure changes for it.

Re:How about they kill activation too?

[egamma]

OGA/WGA/activation is pointless.

It's not pointless, but it is annoying. I take it that you've never used KMS before. As someone who has deployed both XP with a VLK and 7 with KMS, I have to say that KMS is the one thing that Microsoft has finally gotten right about license management. You don't even put keys in your images or scripted installs anymore. It's completely automatic.

Windows KMS IS nice--the problem is that you don't use it for Office 2010, you have to use the "Volume Activation Management Tool". Which isn't automatic, it's annoying.

Re:How about they kill activation too?

[RulerOf]

I don't know where you read that, but Office 2010 uses KMS too. I don't know if they can be on the same server though... we use MAK for Office because it has a significantly lower deployment in our enterprise when compared to Windows.

Re:How about they kill activation too?

[Spad]

They can be on the same server; a single KMS server can activate Vista, Win 7, Server 2008, Server 2008 R2 & Office 2010 quite happily.

Re:How about they kill activation too?

[tchernobog]

The whole point is to make it annoying, so that the easily-scared father of a family will feel ill at ease when confronted with a big warning he is doing something illegal (--> deterrent, it makes you feel a criminal), or give up because he has to find a crack through a website full of pr0n, or call in a kiddie next door. I'm not saying it works very well, just that the rationale is that for the 1% that fall for it.

In other words: having to input a key, legit or fake, makes you acquire *conscience* of what you are doing, either legal or illegal. Clicking on the "next" button when confronted with the EULA doesn't, since you to it mechanically and never read through it anyway.

Re:How about they kill activation too?

[RulerOf]

Ah okay. I thought so, but I might very well be thinking back to the "use cases" I read for putting them on different servers. Something about caching KMS servers, if you use different ones you want to turn it off so they round-robin until activation is successful I think.

Either way, the one thing that MS has botched with respect to KMS is administration. KMS really should be a Server Role that's administered through MMC instead of a bunch of wildly spread out VBScripts :P

Re:How about they kill activation too?

[mlts]

Activation on server products is a gripe of mine. For production critical operating systems, why do they cause potential problems with paying customers? The pirates happily have this disabled. It is the people who pay the good money for the server editions, only to find they have to call in and get shunted to /dev/null who are screwed.

Thankfully MS doesn't completely disable the OS like they used to, so an unactivated Windows copy is more of an annoyance than downtime.

Re:How about they kill activation too?

[mlts]

The problem is that people are getting dulled by all the warnings popping up on a computer. There are WGA warnings, OGA warnings, warnings that the AV software has expired, warnings that the AV software will expire in a year, but should be upgraded to the premium, deluxe, pro version, warnings that the disk is almost full.

If WGA has to be an issue, pop up a notice at boot time about the authenticity of the PC, offer a method of squelching the dialog completely, and moving on. A user determined to pirate will do so; so might just alert a legit user who might have gotten a non-legit copy once, and move on.

Re:How about they kill activation too?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because everyone and their brother would install Win 7 PRO VLK and that's it !

Too late - the youth have moved on

[WillAffleckUW]

An amusing thing is that I bought Windows 7 for my quad core 8GB v1GB d1TB machine.

But because Microsoft Office is such a hassle, I only run Open Office on it.

The "anti-piracy" app is part of why most young people can't be bothered with Microsoft products.

Bitstream that!

Re:Too late - the youth have moved on

[wsxyz]

Yeah, 8GB of RAM seems like it's probably just about sufficient for OpenOffice to run halfway decently. But what do you do with the other three cores?

Re:Too late - the youth have moved on

[WillAffleckUW]

Dude, it's bare bones quad core with DDR3 - faster than your DDR2 32GB machine - the vid card with 1GB is what matters.

I'll buy DDR3 RAM when it's cheap - which will be late Feb 2011.

Re:Too late - the youth have moved on

[ljgshkg]

I do that (use OOo), but that's definitely not the majority. Most people I know don't use OpenOffice even if they don't pay for MSOffice. They'd just use a pirvated version of it. For us who're more technical, they all looks the same for word processing. But for people in school who're not technical, they just worry about this and that, and does not like OOo's look etc. etc. etc.

Let alone sometimes, those business courses etc. need to you use some MSOffice plugins, which can't be run on OOo. Simply put, OOo is an option to us, but not the majority.

Re:Too late - the youth have moved on

[indi0144]

My AbiWord starts in 3 seconds on my Pentium 3 M coppermine and 256Mb of PC100 ram, how long does it take to start OOWrite on your PC? ..

Oh right, woooooooooooooshh

Re:Too late - the youth have moved on

[WillAffleckUW]

No idea, I'm running eight programs at once most of the time.

Web Office?

[Giga-Byter]

I think it is more about resource optimization than encouraging piracy and fighting OpenOffice. In several years it seems Office suite would move to the cloud where is no need for such anti-piracy measures at all.

Where will this end?

[lennier1]

It just wouldn't be Microsoft without detection tools that let pirated copies pass and cause trouble to the owners of valid licenses.

since no one else is being serious here

[Anonymous Coward]

ZDNet blogger Ed Bott

So if his family are holding hands, is it a bottnet?

Outlook's icon is a clock

[tepples]

The problem is that people [buy a copy of Microsoft Office just for Outlook] instead of using an e-mail client instead.

Does the e-mail client have an appointment calendar? For example, are Thunderbird users aware of Lightning, a version of Sunbird packaged as a T-bird extension? There's a reason that Outlook's icon is a clock, and not just because the rim and hands spell "OL". And can it connect to Exchange at work, where IT has disabled standards-based connection protocols for nebulous "security reasons"?

Re:Outlook's icon is a clock

[Hardolaf]

If people were to use any of the KDE applications, there is a great all in one organizer application called Kontact which includes an e-mail client fully integrated into it. So yes, there are OpenSource e-mail `clients` with an appointment calendar. As for Exchange at work, I don't know of any good program that can tie into it, only replace it completely.

Re:Outlook's icon is a clock

[gadget junkie]

The problem is that people [buy a copy of Microsoft Office just for Outlook] instead of using an e-mail client instead.

Does the e-mail client have an appointment calendar? For example, are Thunderbird users aware of Lightning, a version of Sunbird packaged as a T-bird extension? There's a reason that Outlook's icon is a clock, and not just because the rim and hands spell "OL". And can it connect to Exchange at work, where IT has disabled standards-based connection protocols for nebulous "security reasons"?

I work in a small office (My own!!). My partner is a thumbfisted computer user, take Excel off his computer and he usually would use it as a lamp. BUT, after I installed Thunderbird+ lightning + shared gmail calendar, he was hooked.

Training time: 0

His happy face when he clicked his way to setting up a shared event: priceless

Re:Outlook's icon is a clock

[Dr_Barnowl]

nebulous security reasons

They are not so nebulous - when we put Outlook on the internet, it got pwned. They don't dare put Outlook on the internet naked anymore - we have it behind this secured XMLRPC gateway that MS bought from an Israeli security company ("Internet Application Gateway").

I agree that some of the reason is just pure spite against other software. We previously had an IMAP server, so I could pick up my mail using Thunderbird from anywhere. Now we have Outlook, it's the only program that implements the IAG client, so it's either some horrible crippleware webmail, or Windows + Outlook.

Re:Outlook's icon is a clock

[tehcyder]

His happy face when he clicked his way to setting up a shared event: priceless

As it would have been if he'd used Outlook. I'm not sure what your point is here.

Letter on the mantlepiece

[Anonymous Coward]

So much championing of "there was no point" and yet no one is mentioning the obvious.

Office was recently moved to the cloud. Soon, the only way to use Office will be via the cloud. Good luck pirating from the cloud? ;)

I wonder

[DaMattster]

I wonder if the OGA system was decommissioned because Microsoft sees a new trend in server-based, cloud computing versus the decentralized system we have now. Microsoft might really moving towards offering Software as a Service. Very soon, you might use Microsoft Office online only and pay a subscription fee to use a cloud-based form of the office system. In anticipation of this move (and this is purely conjecture) it makes no sense to keep spending money on the infrastructure necessary to maintain the OGA system.

Re:I wonder

[Spad]

Hooray, more Software That Doesn't Need To Be As A Service As A Service.

I found...

[Anonymous Coward]

The only people it bothered were the people who didn't download versions without the genuine advantage tool from software sharing websites.

Bill Gates on Microsoft Piracy Policy

[h00manist]

That's not really true. Microsoft has always been strongly against piracy.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article2098235.ece "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not," the Microsoft co-founder and chairman told Fortune magazine.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/node/2803
WSJ: But those were stolen, correct?
Gates: Stolen's a strong word. It's copyrighted content that the owner wasn't paid for. So yes.

Hey, Steve, just because you broke into Xerox’s store before I did and took the TV doesn’t mean I can’t go in later and steal the stereo.”
–Bill Gates

“In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating systems.” –Bill Gates

Bill Gates on Piracy: "They'll get addicted, and then we'll collect"

Microsoft doesnt push piracy - on Terminal Server

[h00manist]

If you try to run a Terminal Server without your own license, it won't be anywhere near as easy as running Windows or Office. It shows they know how to lock down software when they want to.

This may explain it

[falken0905]

I received an email from Chase Online Banking today saying Microsoft is retiring their Money software. Here's the text...

We have been notified that Microsoft® is retiring their Money and Money Plus software. As a result, we will no longer support Microsoft Money at chase.com. Starting January 31, 2011: * We will remove or disable all online banking features within Money. * You will not be able to use Money to download transactions from Chase Online. * You will still have the ability to download your transactions from chase.com as a file to import into your Money software. * Any charges you are currently charged by us in order to use Money with Chase Online will end. Please note that if you choose to continue downloading your Chase Online transactions into Personal Financial Management (PFM) software to pay bills or make transfers, you’ll need to switch to another software, such as Quicken® or QuickBooks®. PFM software fees to use other software with Chase Online may still apply.

Re:This may explain it

[DarkMagician07]

I thought Money was retired in 2008. I know you couldn't purchase a 2009 version of it, as they didn't make it.

The saddest thing about that is that Money was actually one GOOD piece of software, especially compared to Quicken and the other bill management software that's been out there.

Re:This may explain it

[erroneus]

It does say something to people who bought MS Money alright! It means after you buy software, the vendor has plenty of ways to take it away from you later. Sure you can still run MS Money to manage your accounts and such, but when feature support is dropped by the companies you use it with, you begin to realize that Microsoft is still in control of the Money you spent your cash on. People who use MS Money are also people who are more careful with their money -- otherwise why else would they use a program like that in the first place? It doesn't take long for people like this to see the larger implications of a move like this. They see that this can happen with other MS software as well... MS Office... MS Windows... This, in addition to the fact that people are a LOT more resistant to "upgrading" to another version of Windows beyond XP.

People were once trained to just upgrade when a new version came out. Nearly all have learned that's not so good and certainly not necessary. Now Microsoft is left with dirtier ways for force people to upgrade. These dirtier ways are making Microsoft even more unpopular and people are looking around at alternatives. OO.o is growing. And then users find that OO.o works with other OSes too. That's a direction Microsoft definitely don't want people looking.

Re:This may explain it

[Cro Magnon]

I thought Money was retired in 2008. I know you couldn't purchase a 2009 version of it, as they didn't make it.

The saddest thing about that is that Money was actually one GOOD piece of software, especially compared to Quicken and the other bill management software that's been out there.

Maybe it took Chase 3 years to realize that Money was dead.

IMO, Money was about as good as Quicken. Maybe slightly better, but not enough to get me to switch.

Uninstall OGA?

[antdude]

How do we remove OGA installations left behind?

Re:Uninstall OGA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Search for OGANotifier.cab, which will be leftover from the installation, extract OGANotifier.msi, right-click it and select uninstall.

Re:It's only $0.0149, why pirate?

[darkonc]

or, you can pay $0.0149 to download Open Office . Then you'll really live and breathe free!

You won't have to worry about MS License police deciding that you're not (any longer) qualified for the student discount and should pay $x0,000 in license fees and penalties.

Whoosh...

[Anonymous Coward]

At least I hope that was a whoosh...

Bye Microsoft office, Hello Open Office

[ZappedSparky]

My computer like a few came with MSO pre-installed. I didn't mind the initial legit check (I still have the licence key) and subsequent download of updates. It's when a few months later it asked, nay, demanded to check again. Later I opened a document and it asked again, and again, and again so on and so forth. An e-mail natter back and forth with someone whose spelling could be better at Microsoft help got me nowhere. "Have you entered the correct licence key?" "Have you un-installed and re-installed, then re-entered the licence key?" There must be something better I thought. So I gave Open Office a try. A free office program? It must be a bit naff, full of bugs I thought. Well I was surprised, I've had no problems with it and it covers all my needs. I haven't looked back since.

Re:Bye Microsoft office, Hello Open Office

[Anonymous Coward]

When I installed linux on my machine instead of Windows, I had a couple options: make a windows VM with office, or try some free office.
I had tried Google Docs before, but it didn't seem as natural writing one from scratch, but I didn't even think about how to open internal documents in it.
So I tried Open Office and it seemed to have all the features I wanted and not any more buggy than MS Office.

Re:Bye Microsoft office, Hello Open Office

[adolf]

You gripe about spelling, but yet have no concept of paragraphical form?

I don't know if Office's electronic Grammar Nazi corrects such things or not, but if it does, you might do well to give it a shot.

Re:Bye Microsoft office, Hello Open Office

[ZappedSparky]

I did hit the return key a couple of times, preview was OK. Yes, the submitted looks naff.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Not really the goal

[Sycraft-fu]

The goal with MS's stuff has always been to find distributors who are committing fraud. While I'm sure they don't mind stopping individuals doing casual piracy, they realize that'll never happen on a large scale. So the real objective is stores ripping people off.

What you discover is that still around half of all computers sold are done by small shops. May have shrunk some since I last checked stats, but it is a lot. People go to their local computer store and get a PC built. Fine and well. The problem is some of these shops decided to pad their bottom line by handing out pirated software. They don't tell their customers, of course. You think you are getting a legit Windows license and aren't.

So MS started WGA to combat that. Well when WGA tripped, if you called MS, they asked you questions regarding where you got Windows, and then issued you a legit license (had to do this at a client's site). What they were after is who is handing this stuff out. If they get a bunch of information that indicates a given store is doing it, then they can go after them. They apparently had success with this.

Well my guess is that what they've found is that stores are not doing this with Office. They implemented it, hoping to have the same kind of thing happen, but have found that stores are not doing it.

Makes sense. Most people, when the buy Office, buy it as an addon to the system. You pay a specific price for it. However Windows is an assumed part of the price of a computer. So in the case of Windows easy for a small business to decide they want to just not pay and pad their margins (or reduce the price to make it more attractive). Less likely with something sold as a separate addon.

Re:It's only $0.0149, why pirate?

[VGPowerlord]

You won't have to worry about MS License police deciding that you're not (any longer) qualified for the student discount and should pay $x0,000 in license fees and penalties.

Then just claim you're a home user.

You are aware that it's Home and Student Edition , not just Student edition?

Of course, this is ignoring MS's policy that you only need to be a student when you receive their software and can continue using it afterward. This applies to things like Windows, Visual Studio, etc... that are available through MSDNAA and DreamSpark.

I recently had to make a purchase decision...

[PinchDuck]

and decided to go with OOo and Google Docs (free). So far I haven't regretted my decision one bit. Heck, when I got an iPad, I was glad I had a Docs account, as Documents2Go synced perfectly with Docs. I tried the web version of Office, and while it looked great, it was far less functional than Docs.
Admittedly, I don't have incredibly complex document needs. Basic word and spreadsheet, and so far Google Docs and OO have handled my formatting needs just fine. I export as doc or docx or xls when necessary, or just send clients PDF's.
I tried kicking the Office habit before, and ended up buying a copy. This time I've found no instances where I needed it, and I fell that this is it. I'm a typical slashdotter, which means that I'm a bit ahead of the curve when it comes to technology adoption, but this just means that MS's licensing revenue will plummet in the next decade, as an increasing number of people take the same path I did.

Perpetual license fight is coming

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

As far as individual users are concerned Microsoft does not care if they pirate it or not, as long as they use Ms Office. But they care about the corporate accounts. So many corporations have bought perpetual license for Office 97. Office 2000, Office 2005 etc. They are all running them in virtual WinXP created by VNC or some such virtualization product. They don't see any reason to upgrade Win, or even get security updates because, all the security policy is imposed and handled by the virtualization server. So pretty soon huge corporate accounts are going to get off the upgrade treadmill.

I expect a huge fight between Microsoft and the corporations over whether or not the original license allows them to use the product on a virtual machine. The compromise is going to be one last payment to Microsoft to regularize the licenses and that would be the last golden egg laid by the MsOffice goose. After that it will be cooked I suppose.

"Genuine Advantage" is only active where it suits

[erroneus]

Microsoft didn't worry about end user copying and sharing until they gained what they call "critical mass." After that, they are free and comfortable to abuse their customers by wielding their monopoly powers in various ways with impunity. This was most notably true with MS Windows. The moment OS/2 was effectively dead, they went with their anti-copy measures and it didn't matter to them who it inconvenienced. And once Microsoft locked up their MSOffice monopoly, they did the same thing there.

So what changed? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see it. Governments are calling for open standards. End users simply don't want to pay hundreds of dollars for MS Office at home and are opting for the "compatible" and "very similar" OpenOffice.org. Microsoft allows office workers who use MS Office at work to also use it at home on their own computers -- again, no accident and no mere courtesy either -- but these days, with all the software audits and such concerns as these, along with crackdowns on file sharing sites, people are growing more cautious and careful about the software they are using. (The antipiracy stuff is working! And now they are getting fewer customers as a result!! Who would have predicted THAT outcome?!) So now, Microsoft is loosening their grip on users of MS Office in order to cultivate and strengthen their "critical mass."

Will they get it back? It's hard to know. But we will know soon enough whether or not it is working. If it's working, Genuine Advantage will return. If it's not working, you will see MS announce "MS Office Express" for free that offers a "lite" version of MS Office and an enhanced version of Outlook express that supports social and family sharing features not unlike MS Outlook.

I know this prediction is pretty unlikely in some ways. MS will have to be very careful about how they limit MSO Express. They will have to make it compatible enough to maintain their vendor lock-in in offices everywhere without tempting businesses to switch over to MSOE entirely. (So no, Giving away MS Works for free isn't something I would expect though I am surprised that it still exists at all.)

But after decades of watching how Microsoft operates, they have become pretty obvious to lots of people.

Re:Microsoft doesnt push piracy - on Terminal Serv

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but that's cos no-one runs term services at home - and /most/ businesses don't run pirated software, so there's no market for it.

Re:It's only $0.0149, why pirate?

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't have to worry about MS License police deciding that you're not (any longer) qualified for the student discount and should pay $x0,000 in license fees and penalties.

Please provide a reference to that actually happening.

Re:Microsoft doesnt push piracy - on Terminal Serv

[jbolden]

Of course they know how! For a while they were experimenting with serious measures, you remember trusted computing / paladium?

Re:If U don't get malware how are malware going to

[hairyfeet]

Correlation != Causation. I can set up an XP Sp2 machine with NO patches, NO AV or antispy, and then change the background to a LOLCat. Then when I use the machine only on the LAN I will have NO viruses, but I don't really think I can claim my magic LOLCat picture done saved me, do you trollie?

Here is some more to rub your little nose in, but if you were actually capable of logic you could see why the entire HOSTS file concept is a fallacy.

Now do try to keep up: For the HOSTS file to provide a truly effective protection he will have to have ALL the websites that he crosses that can infect him, as well as any and all of the sites THOSE link to, all loaded into his magical HOSTS file. Now considering we are talking on average 100,000 to 200,000 websites PER day in a list that will literally change by the minute, with a site that was safe 20 minutes ago being dangerous now and vice versa, even if Trollie had four hand with 20 fingers on each and typed 36 hours a day he will STILL LOSE. It is simple mathematics and I really shouldn't have to give a fifth grade statistics lesson on why the odds simply aren't in his favor.

But as I said to you before Trollie, PLEASE, believe in your magical woobie. Toss ALL your AV and antispy, hell you don't even need a firewall thanks to your magical woobie. Please do so as both the repairmen and malware writers just looooove stupid people. It makes us lots of $$$. I only hope you don't end up part of a botnet running illegal activity, because those conversation with the men with crewcuts and guns really isn't pleasant from what I've been told.

Re:Hairyfeet, why don't you reply there instead?

[rtyhurst]

Scared anonymous wombat!

You lie like peeg!

This is not thread hijacking but the very heart of the matter.

They share contacts

[tepples]

Why would I need an appointment calendar inside my email client?

I guess because you often want to set up appointments with the same people with whom you correspond through e-mail.

Re:Hairyfeet, why don't you reply there instead?

[hairyfeet]

You want to know the sad part? This HOSTS file troll has been wasting a week of his life so far posting on every thread I do just to hurl insults because I have mathematically proven that his magical HOSTS file won't save him. I have showed him links, showed him the math, showed him multiple sites that say HOSTS FILES DON'T WORK with bright neon letters and pretty colors, but still he hangs onto his "magical thinking" like it is a woobie. And you'd think he'd at least use a modern woobie, like IDS or behavioral analysis to bet his ass on, but no, a tech from 1989 that was abandoned by anybody with a brain before even WinME came out.

It just goes top show you that Anonymous + Magical Thinking = Batshit loonie. It isn't even an interesting loonie one can enjoy, like the flat earthers or the ones that think we rode on dinosaurs, no just loonie about an ancient tech nobody uses anymore. It would be like saying Windows 3.11 was the height of security or something. Kinda sad really.

yeaaaa it does work

[chronoss2010]

Microsoft.Office.2010.VL.Edition-ZWTiSO

Re:Mod

[TaoPhoenix]

Sorry man.

You can have my algorithm for instant +1's if you want it.

I may have a superior algorithm figured out...

[guyminuslife]

Post early, then post one of the following:

Linux is better than Windows, and people will eventually demand open-source. But people don't care about open-source, they don't have time for all that geek stuff, they just care that they can check their email.

By the way, it's GNU/Linux, because it's the GNU system that Linux Torvalds hacked to add his kernel onto, not the other way around. But, nobody cares about that stuff, how many syllables can you muster in a name?

The GPL is a viral piece of software. I get the freedom thing, but it seems like if your software were really free, people would be able to use it as they wish---including in a commercial product. But freedom isn't free, we're well within our rights to exercise certain restrictions over our code, and those are to promote freedom.

Google is a brilliant and inspiring company. Google is an insidious Big Brother.

Apple makes superior products. that are overpriced, locked-down crap that I wouldn't give to my retarded dog.

People who say that Barack Obama is a socialist don't know what socialism means, but Barack Obama is a socialist.

Microsoft is greedy and imperialistic. (Nobody argues with this one on Slashdot.)

Usually it will work. However, if you're whoring for a "Funny" mod, I can't help you, though, because I think that was friggin hilarious, and nobody else will think so.

Another thing that often works is to express a popular point of view as if it's an unpopular point of view. For instance, "I know I'll get modded down for this, but I think teddy bears are soft and cuddly."

FYI: Outlook "Phones Home"

[mpapet]

They have plenty of stats already.

I had a 2003(?+/-) version of Office that contacted a server at port 80 every time the send/recieve went off. This was in a bulk-licensed office. I could deny the activity with the software firewall I had, but that stopped Outlook from downloading mail.

My current employer's Office 2007 license is the super-duper-no-holds-barred license bonanza for Microsoft version. I don't recall if it phones home.

Another nice one is the windows update still phones home even with the Windows Update service shut off. This is on XP and Server 2003. I don't know what it's doing, but it sure is doing it.

  I think Microsoft's management is strangling any notion of new and exciting features that might/might-not grow the product beyond a single quarter. Instead, more hard to explain features requested by customers number 1 and 2 that don't mean much to the rest of the world. The only thing left to do is make it cheaper/easier to get and look the other way.

Re:"Genuine Advantage" is only active where it sui

[rodgster]

With Office 2010 MS already has Office Starter edition. You're not supposed to really talk about it and definitely not use it as a selling point. You're also supposed to pre-install it with MS Sec. Essentials, Windows Live, other stuff too. The end user either buys a license from the OEM, a retail or just decides to use the starter edition (Word & Excel "lite editions").

Blocked updates only helped botnets

[mcnoch]

The problem with the anti-piracy program was that it was only partly successful. It didn't prevent the user from using pirated copies, but it blocked their access to security updates and so opened a very big pool of PCs that could be turned to botnet-drones. So the security experts were lobbing for months to stop these kinds of anti-piracy programs that are blocking in most cases security updates.

Re:Blocked updates only helped botnets

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure that that's true. I don't think it blocked security updates. I did a quick search on the web and found this: http://blogs.technet.com/b/ecostrat/archive/2010/03/11/who-gets-it-and-who-doesn-t-windows-genuine-advantage-and-security-updates.aspx

WHOOOOSH!

[Anonymous Coward]

-nt

An Open Office casualty?

[almondo]

I suspect there is some behind the scenes aspect to this they don't want you to know. I raise this possibility because I have advocated and implemented it as a solution for others. When relatives asked me 'how to get rid of the billy office nag or the billy I can't read my own file format sickness' I just tell them "toss it and get Open Office. It supports the current formats, is more interoperable, and is free!". It works every time. If MS is counting the pirated copies as market share (which I have no doubt they are) then my action and those like me results in depletion of that 'market share'.

Microsoft Office has gone the way of Trumpet Winsock in my book, overchargus obsoletus extremus.

MPAA/RIAA Statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

So the RIAA/MPAA can get a steady income while letting you pirate their product at home, get hooked and then charge your boss for the privilege of letting you consume at work? Brilliant!

FOSS in startups

[Compaqt]

The stuff you mention is basically why FOSS usage in a company has to come from the top, from the company founders. Create a new Internet startup, use only FOSS (PHP/Java/Python, etc. for infra, OpenOffice/Google Office for documents, etc.).

Have it in the company culture from the beginning. And you don't have weird legacy VBA scripts or XLS to deal with.

Re:FOSS in startups

[adolf]

. Create a new Internet startup, use only FOSS (PHP/Java/Python, etc. for infra, OpenOffice/Google Office for documents, etc.).

Have it in the company culture from the beginning. And you don't have weird legacy VBA scripts or XLS to deal with.

Or any scripting at all that's worth scripting, for that matter. Your argument implies that we either be programmers, or that we turn back to manual tabulation.

An Excel sheet that performs its job properly is far better than the Python script that never got written.

Re:FOSS in startups

[Compaqt]

No, I realize that (time already invested in spreadsheets). But that's for existing companies.

For new companies, you can make all your stuff in FOSS programs (like OO Calc spreadsheets) in the first place.

It's also true that Excel has an easier macro system that OO (which I've posted on before here).

Here's what I wish Microsoft would kill....

[BulletMagnet]

As a Network Manager with a 25K/year Open Value agreement with Redmond, I was rather disheartened to see what's changed in two versions since we skipped Vista and Office 2007 and went from XP/Office 2003 to W7/Office 2010. In that time Microsoft decided to go from easy to use Volume License Keys for Office (the ones that you inserted the magic 25 digits, auth it once, and never got bothered again) to this lovely piece of crap called Key Management System or KMS. KMS will ONLY run on Server 2003 or 2008R2, NOT standard 2008 - Microsoft came up with some bullshit excuse as to why it doesn't run on Standard 2008, so I'm sort of between a rock and a hard spot. All of our 2003 boxes are getting forklifted out and replaced with 2008R2 VMs sometime in the next 4-6 months and we have a grand total of ONE 2008R2 server in place now, so I didn't have much choice to install KMS on. NOW IF THE PIECE OF SHIT WOULD ONLY FUNCTION. I've gone round and round with trying to get it to activate our first 5 machines and it doesn't feel like it. I even bothered to call their licensing group for some assistance to try to figure out why our clients won't see the KMS server and in broken English I was told to reinstall Office. No Jack, that's not the problem. the online KB's speak of KMS is basically an install-and-go whereas Microsoft's KB's have you pulling up DOS Prompts to do all sorts of things to get it to do something....I only have a certain amount of MAK (basically VLK keys that phone home and actually keep count for you) before I need to call Licensing again and beg and plead for them to reauth my Office MAK key footprint....Few passes of images for trickling down our machines and we're out of MAK keys... Their VAMT tool isn't helpful either, other then telling me it can't talk to the KMS server.

Really, THIS IS PROGRESS? What happened to Trust, Steve? .....What was an afterthought before (install Office, patch, image, move on) has now turned into a nightmare of getting this authentication bullshit contraption to work and having to rearm my Office installations so they don't time out, is about the biggest headache I have to deal with. I've ALWAYS kept within my license footprint for years and you spring this hokey kludge on us? It's no wonder if organizations can leave the Office platform behind, they can and will (our vertical market software basically requires Windows and Office, so *NIX and XXXXoffice are out of the question)

My organization does not pirate ANY software....Yet Microsoft immediately assumes we do with this nonsense. And increases my workload on top of everything else....

When they kill off KMS and go back to Volume License keys like they had in 2003, let me know...EPIC FUCKING FAIL.

free samples

[Anonymous Coward]

Give 'free' samples to kids and you got customers for years to come. Thats why schools get their software cheap and thats why it's smart to look the other way when kids in college pirate their software. What if they learned to use FOSS instead?

probably hidden agenda

[hesaigo999ca]

Knowing that M$ is always about the bottom dollar, I wonder what they have up their sleeves, or what this was really about. I know that with openoffice being free, they had to do something to lighten their grip on office apps, but now that oracle owns openoffice, maybe they heard something through the grape vine....and are moving to be in position of advantage in the near future.

Mac OS marketshare helped this decision?

[zerofoo]

Many of my friends that have moved to Mac OS have noticed that Microsoft products on that platform do not have any activation or WGA restrictions. One of my friends specifically went to Mac due to the ease of finding and using pirated software. The lack of any sort of system level activation scheme has given people yet another reason to switch to Mac OS.

Microsoft's software stopped getting more useful around the Windows 2000/XP - Office 97-2000 days. Ever since then it has been paint jobs and activation nonsense. Users are starting to see that the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence.

-ted

If you're so sure of yourself, reply there

[Anonymous Coward]

http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1916240&cid=34612834 Why are you running away from replying there then instead of trashing our thread here? It seems as if you are afraid to reply there in the link above.

Re:If you're so sure of yourself, reply there

[hairyfeet]

Why trollie, so you can hide away from the front page? Scared to let others see your magical woobie?...Get Some! Now if your magical woobie works all you have to do is MATHEMATICALLY PROVE that your HOSTS file "solution" can scale to protect you against 100,000 to 200,000 targets that are constantly changing. You DO know how to use math? Or statistics? Here is your chance to prove the world you magical woobie works with out ANY doubt, lets see the math trollie!

You ought to reply there then

[Anonymous Coward]

http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1916240&cid=34612834 and quit running away from it, if you are so certain of your so called math then. It appears you are not that certain of it because you are running away from replying in the url above. The funniest part is others were cited there who also saw no infection by malware, not only the ac you replied to, which contradicts your so called math. To wit:

"Ever since I've installed a host file (http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm) to redirect advertisers to my loopback, I haven't had any malware, spyware, or adware issues. I first started using the host file 5 years ago." - by TestedDoughnut (1324447) on Monday December 13, @12:18AM (#34532122)

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1907528&cid=34532122

It just doesn't look good for you hairyfeet. It instead looks good for the ac you trolled there in the first url I pasted which is where you ought to keep that discussion, where it belongs.

So much 4 "math by prof. hairyfeet" of ITT Tech

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ever since I've installed a host file (http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm) to redirect advertisers to my loopback, I haven't had any malware, spyware, or adware issues. I first started using the host file 5 years ago." - by TestedDoughnut (1324447) on Monday December 13, @12:18AM (#34532122)

FROM http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1907528&cid=34532122

Your math isn't holding up very well against that quoted testimonial that was used in the url you seem to be running away from here http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1916240&cid=34612834 as well as the ac you came in and trolled there saying the same as was quoted above. No small wonder you're running away from replying there.

Oh please, be serious.

[Anonymous Coward]

If they didn't care about home users using their products for free they could distribute them for home use free of charge (many companies ooperat on this waY).

The truth is tha they care, but know they are fighting a losing battle.

Best News ever

[mombodog]

Fantastic, one more activeX control I can delete from my PC.

Re:Hairyfeet, why don't you reply there instead?

[metrix007]

To be fair he was following me around until you defended me, so thankyou :) I am sorry he latched on to you instead though....hopefully someone will defend you at some point and the curse will be lifted.