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MS Office 2013 Pushing Home Users Toward Subscriptions
An anonymous reader writes "Ars reports that Microsoft has announced pricing plans for Office 2013 that include a subscription-based model for home users. There will be a $100/year Home version that can be shared by up to 5 users and a $150/year Small Business version. 'Subscription software of one form or another has proven popular in the enterprise (whether it be cloud services, like Office 365, or subscriptions to desktop software, such as Microsoft's Software Assurance scheme). But so far it's a rarity in the consumer space. Anti-virus software has tried to bully and cajole users into getting aboard the subscription train, but the large number of users with out-of-date anti-viral protection suggests users are resisting. ... As another incentive to subscribe, and one that might leave a bad taste in the mouth, the company says that subscribers will be given unspecified "updates" to add new features and capabilities over the life of their subscription. Perpetual licensees will only get bug fixes and security updates.'"
Here's the thing: LibreOffice is by far best when you use its native formats. Weird, huh?
In the real world, we conduct our business in Office formats. Having LibreOffice do a halfass job of reading them is unacceptable.
Open Office Base is an alternative to Access. I even used it at work to open an Access 2007 file (we didn't have Access with our version of Office) and it opened it well enough for me to read it into a spreadsheet.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
In real work we use Libre Office to convert old WordPerfect and Microsoft Office files to a newer version. It handles old Microsoft Office files better than the recent versions of Microsoft Office.
( I work as digital archivist / documentalist )
Fuck that.
I will use my current version of Office until it is absolutely and completely obsolete, and I will switch to something else before I buy into this "pay indefinitely for something" BS. Try increasing sales the old-fashioned way, by actually offering new and innovative products, instead of using this rent-a-program crap to leech off your customers.
Office 2000 still works. It'll even open docx files with this.
I'm happy to use the more recent versions of Office, but it has to be on someone else's dime. (Like, my place of employment.) I bought 2000, it works, and they're gonna havta pry it from my cold dead hands (at least until I switch to something open source).
Why would a home user waste valuable income on a new version of Office? Are ribbons all that important for that letter to Aunt Edna?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
> In the real world
Look: that argument was compelling up until just a few years ago. I'll grant you that, especially back in the old StarOffice days (gack, gag), then on to OpenOffice.org. But speaking for myself -- freely admitting that your mileage will vary -- I haven't had trouble opening anything in LibreOffice for a couple of years now. Including some fairly sweet PPT presentations.
Besides, Microsoft has tried to introduce the "subscription" model before. They'll probably back off of it after they get deluged with complaints. Again.
(Or -- this is my real fear -- they'll go after things like Libre and KOffice with the patent hammer.)
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
Because it's not advertised on the Tee Vee, and because MS can afford all of the FUD and astroturfing it needs to keep people in a state of confusion.
Also, because you may or may not be able to open that PowerPoint.pptx with cute cat pictures. I know compatibility exists, but it is in no way guaranteed to always work
After all, it's "not ready for the desktop", just like Linux.
And here I will have to burn some of my carma once again
With all due respect, Linux is not nearly as ready for the desktop as people on slashdot seem to think. Now, I understand that there is a bunch of people who will come forward and explain how their grandma used Ubuntu (or such) for 10 years now.
But what I know is when the wireless card on the desktop did not work, the common googled solution appears to involve recompiling the kernel with right modules. That's where I begin to tune out. It's not the specific problem, it's the fact that kernel re-compilation should never be an acceptable part of the configuration/setup that is done by the average user.
My old company used to have Office 2003 installed site-wide (until as recently as the start of this year). Occasionally we'd get documents from people who used Office 2007, which uses the new XML-based file formats and ironically, only those of us who used Ubuntu/LibreOffice could open these documents.