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Ask Slashdot: Can Quickoffice On Chromebooks Topple Microsoft's Office?
Nerval's Lobster writes "As we discussed yesterday, Google is bringing a Quickoffice viewer to its new high-end Chromebook Pixel, with full editing ability expected within three months. According to TechCrunch, Quickoffice-on-Chromebooks comes courtesy of Native Client. If Chromebooks prove a hit (and Google ports Quickoffice onto devices other than the ultra-high-priced Chromebook Pixel), could that mean the beginning of the end of Microsoft Office's market dominance of the productivity software space? While Microsoft has been pushing into the cloud with software like Office 365, that's also Google's home territory. But can Google actually disrupt the game?"
an enterprise-class laptop? Is that what you're sayin??
Uhmmm... no.
Sent from my ENIAC
Insert some stupid headline "law" here.
And then insert some stupid comment about how LibreOffice is awesome (which it is, but in that case, why can't it disrupt MS Office?).
Insert a comment about how Google is evil (which they are), and how anything that runs in the browser can't be as good as something something mumble something.
And also, a quick jab about how MS sucks.
MS Office is too featured and too expensive for most users. Most home and small business users will be just fine with quickoffice or one of the free ones.
MS screwed up by not having a cheap version. they used to have Works but never pushed it to the point of people knowing about it. only idiots spent $200 for MS Office at home
You can definitely enter data into a docs spreadsheet vi a web form: http://support.google.com/drive/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=87809
Or do you mean something else?
Can Quickoffice topple MS Office?
No.
The "consumer market" is not what drives Office sales and use, it's business sales and use.
For various reasons, larger businesses - the major buyer of MS Office license - will not be adopting Quickoffice any time soon if at all.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
LibreOffice is much better than QuickOffice - and it seems to have had minimal impact on the juggernaut that is MS Office.
It's a bit like Google and other search engines. In theory one could come along and topple Google. In reality, the reason that Google (and MS Office) are in the position they are in is that "good enough" isn't enough to disrupt the market leader.
Think about what it would take to get you to shift from Google to Bing. Bing wouldn't need to be as good as Google, it would need to be obviously *better*.
QuickOffice doesn't have to be better than LibreOffice to disrupt MS Office - it's got to be quite obviously better.
Most of what I've seen Excel get used for in an office setting would be better served by a database....
But the point you make is fair enough, and the point I was going to make: people aren't going to invest in a new platform without a major impetus to go looking for a new platform. If the one they have works for what they're doing, then it's generally less hassle to keep buying it. This is why some banks are still running DOS....
Until Microsoft stops selling corporate licenses and forces everybody to Office Online where they can charge a monthly tithe, business simply isn't going to look elsewhere. It's coming... They're already trying to force home users to an online version... but I doubt Microsoft is stupid enough to think that business will happily accept switching to a platform where they don't have control over the files themselves, and home users will continue to buy the monthly tithe version of MS Office, because that's what they have at work. Very savvy, really....
No, you can setup a spreadsheet and use Google Apps Script to build a web app (which can also be accessed as a web service) to accept data. And you could do that for quite some time before Office 365 was even available.
Yes, everyone's always wanted to pay $1000+ for a computer that they don't own that has worse specs than one half the price.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
Best laptop on the market is exceedingly subjective. Sub 5 hour battery price is unacceptable to a lot of people. Inability to run Windows is unacceptable to some others.
The real question is can Native Client become a viable portable GUI toolkit to rival HTML5 for stuff that can't be done easily (or well) with HTML5. If so, then eventually the Chromebook model will fly. Currently, Chrombooks' being limited to HTML isn't good enough for most people's needs. But if and when all the software most people need can be delivered efficiently over 'the web' (with NC expanding what that means), then the migration may well begin.
Certainly if the QuickOffice NC comes up to LibreOffice standards, MSOffice is in for trouble. Today, Google Docs vs. full blown Office isn't a real comparison.
Of course, it's all a big if - multiple ifs in fact. Java was supposed to do all this 10 years ago. But things are very different today from where they were 10 years ago, so you can't assume history will repeat itself. Is Native Client any good? Is it open enough that it can be implemented in browsers other than Chrome (or would that inevitably lead to the kind of fragmentation that killed client-side Java)? Who knows, maybe Android will become the portable toolkit devs need, and client apps will remain relatively fat. To me, Native Client seems more flexible. You have the option of running apps thin, and there's nothing to prevent you from using the NC toolkit to run locally-installed apps as well. It's just the latest 'the browser is the OS' model - but maybe this one's good.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Over the years, I've kept tabs on, and used to one degree or another, various Office alternatives. Apple's Pages. OpenOffice.org and now LibreOffice. Etc. None of them are 100% compatible with Microsoft's file formats. For the type of work I do (law-and-motion briefs, appellate briefs, etc.), there are strict formatting requirements (e.g., line numbers 1-28 down the left side of the page, double-line borders, specific font and margin requirements, page limits, etc). There's also quite often a need to exchange documents with opposing counsel, for, e.g., joint stipulations. Finally, I need to be able to submit documents to the judge's chambers in Microsoft Word (or WordPerfect .WPD) format, and they have to look right when the judge opens them. The judiciary isn't going to go with OOo anytime soon (they're still slavishly tied to WordPerfect!)...
None of the 'Office alternatives' has been able to work with a document created by 'real' Office and retain its formatting; likewise, none of the documents I've created using Pages or OOo or ... has looked anything close to what it should (all line numbering/borders gone, etc) when opened in 'real' Office.
For even moderately complex documents, the alternatives, including Google Docs (a/k/a/ Drive), QuickOffice, etc., do not create or properly work with fully Word compatible documents, and hence I cannot use them in my profession. Office 2011 is a cost of doing business for me.
geek. lawyer.
The only thing that can hope to topple MS Office is an open document format. Microsoft has a format in ISO but it's not quite accurate enough to do an independant implementation and has many vague descriiptions of behaviors and/or descriptions of behaviors that references things not part of the office suite. (I'm sure most of us followed the whole ISO certification thing... they "fast tracked" a standard which wasn't complete or accurate and has yet to be fully implemented.)
So OOXML is still quite proprietary and no one can faithfully implement it based on the ISO speciification alone. And so since MS Office documents are still the defacto standard in business and government, nothing else but Microsoft Office can be used to access the data faithfully.
The reason the new Chromebook Pixel has been panned by reviewers is simple:
On a normal laptop: You can run chrome and every other application.
On the Pixel: You can only run chrome.
So why would I pay the same price for a device which limits what I can run? Windows 8 tablets have tradeoffs from their ARM/Windows RT compatriots. They have worse battery life, they weigh more and they cost more. The Pixel is like paying $1200 for a windows tablet that only ran IE.
Because Google is already disrupted the Game :)
Most of what I've seen Excel get used for in an office setting would be better served by a database....
That's true. But the average user isn't technically savvy enough to configure a database (and even if they could, IT policy might prohibit it), while that same user can come up with something quick-and-dirty in Excel. The ease of use makes up for the limited feature set and sub-par performance.
In theory, these Excel "apps" should be replaced with real databases by IT once they become an important part of business logic, but in practice, that seldom happens, and the original hacked-together solution continues to be used for many years.
No. The second the users realize they aren't using Microsoft Office they'll either have an aneurysm or cause IT staff to do so.
QuickOffice doesn't have to be better than LibreOffice to disrupt MS Office - it's got to be quite obviously better.
Actually Libreoffice is better than Microsoft Office in many ways, Google has Branding [and Money, influence and power], something Libreoffice unfortunately lost [Much to the disgrace of the Apache foundation]. Lets be honest Microsfoft Office in not very good, if it hadn't been for an incredibly entrenched monopoly [or open file formats] it would have been replaced years ago.
I'll argue that it is not. Here are a few ways in which someone might consider another option better:
-It's heavier than some
-It cannot detach screen and/or flip in such a way to get keyboard out of the way
-The keyboard doesn't have a nipple mouse
-It can't run Windows
-It doesn't have as much ram as others
-It doesn't have as fast a processor as others
-It doesn't have as much battery life as others.
-It doesn't support pen input
The truth is, there is no such thing as 'the' greatest laptop on the market today. Everyone has different preferences and priorities.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The "consumer market" is not what drives Office sales and use, it's business sales and use.
Steve Balmer said the the iPhone would fail because enterprise wanted a phone with a keyboard [its quite famous]. I don't know if its true about enterprise adopting quickoffice, but the days of enterprise influencing your purchasing habits have long gone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
PLEASE.
If you've seen sites like TechCrunch or Business Insider they are fond of writing articles with salacious titles like the one above. The article titles are deliberately inflammatory and custom-designed to create click-through traffic as well as troll-ridden "comments" where people heatedly argue about the merit or lack of merit (almost always the latter) of the article's poorly-researched content. For those reasons I've deliberately chosen not to follow those sites any more.
The OP assumes so much it's ridiculous. Office is the Sun; QuickOffice is a microscopic dot on the Sun. Of the Fortune 1000 how many, realistically, use Chromebooks? Or Google Apps, even? It's creeping up there surely, but so few it's not even a statistical aberration yet.
Long-term there is no question more and more office functions will move to the web and they will be used by more and more companies - probably mostly the small, sub-1000-5000 employee companies. The apps are getting very good but there will always be a large percentage of corporations who did not want any apps or data sitting outside the company LAN/WAN, period. In 10-15 years we may laugh about how silly we were to use apps installed on our computers but for the foreseeable future it's MS Office for the VAST majority of large-ish companies and the business community out there.
only idiots spent $200 for MS Office at home
Yeah especially when it only costs $140.
I would have to pay For the crippled home and business 2013 its £220($333) and for office professional its £390 ($590)
http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-office-professional-2013-FX102918381.aspx?WT.intid1=ODC_ENGB_FX010064710_XT103927664&WT.intid2=ODC_ENGB_FX010064710_XT103927685
No special "show ID" to prove you are a student or any such.
So essentially you lied. Most people are not comfortable with that, I think you need to look inward, rather than tar others with the same brush :)
Yes, everyone's always wanted to pay $1000+ for a computer that they don't own that has worse specs than one half the price.
I know Apples computer sales have taken a massive hit this quarter, but this is about Chrome. Who have chromebooks at $200[they are the machine at half the price] and at $1200 [that comes with a 2560 x 1700 touchscreen] attacking both ends of the market. I wonder where HP's chromebooks are going to end up :)
No
Microsoft can and will cause compatibility pain with Quickoffice, with Microsofts marketshare 0wning the enterprise, this will cause their ball to keep rolling, and others to lose pace
Microsoft can be as disruptive as it can, but increasingly Office is looking very shaky in the post pc world....how well is the surface selling? how about windows phone? clearly Office is not selling hardware. Yet alternative hardware from Apple and Google are outselling Windows several times.
Its not that Microsoft is not still the horribly destructive monopoly it always was, its just that *that* monopoly is just not as ripe for abuse as it once was.
> Think about what it would take to get you to shift from Google to Bing.
A gun to my head and my family held hostage.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Yes it's so easy, it's the script kiddies choice!!!!
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/02/21/oxford-university-blocks-google-docs-phishing-attacks/
This space for rent.
Consider that the Chromebook is about twice the price of my company's average machine... Including software costs. No.
Not to mention, our people [collectively] *use* all those features in Office that everyone claims "no one uses".
The truth is, there is no such thing as 'the' greatest laptop on the market today. Everyone has different preferences and priorities.
No, because its nothing to do with preferences(sic) and priorities(sic). Its because they took a 2560 x 1700 pixels touchscreen and threw quality [and lets be honest beautiful hardware] around it.
The Pixel is not a threat to windows. The $200 chromebooks are.
Where can you get a Chromebook for $200 ? Are they already on firesale?
This space for rent.
how many, realistically, use Chromebooks? Or Google Apps, even?
Enough that Google think they can charge http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/pricing.html
for Google Apps for Business.
The real question is though as always does Microsoft Office matter, as someone who has lived without it using then the answer is yes, and I think the lower priced chromebooks running ARM will will enterprise.
So you agree that Office matters, BUT you think Chrombooks will win out anyway? Is that what you said?
I'm not so sure.
If people are going to embrace cloud storage, Google is going to have to offer Zero Knowledge Encrypted storage, because big business, or sensitive business (medical, legal, etc) is not going to be able to use any hardware solution where they place their documents in another companies hands who in turn could hand them over to anyone with a National Security Letter.
You need a local storage capability or a secure storage where the cloud operator can't decrypt your files. (aka like SpiderOak).
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I think I will invoke Betteridge's law of headlines here. The simple answer is no. Quickoffice on Chromebook is a bit like a pocket knife. Microsoft Office is a similar to a kitchen knife. They both have their purposes, and they are designed for different market niches. Yes sometimes there are overlaps. However in this case the overlap is not big enough.
use Chromebooks? Or Google Apps, even? It's creeping up there surely, but so few it's not even a statistical aberration yet.
I remember Balmer laughing at Linux being such a small percentage. Its kind of ironic that you would try to do the same in they year Android is set to overtake window as the primary OS, an OS Microsoft Office does not run on, but Google Docs does.
The problem with that 2560x1700 screen isnt the number of pixels or the quality of the hardware surrounding it...
The problem is how cloudy it is.
"His name was James Damore."
I still think Google should have thrown their money at Libreoffice and financially supported the efforts to port it to Android, instead or in addition to purchasing Quickoffice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
I'm a little tired of this quote being misused without reading the article on wikipedia. From that tiny article
"any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word "no." The reason why journalists use that style of headline is that they know the story is probably bollocks, and don’t actually have the sources and facts to back it up, but still want to run it."
Maybe the capacitive touch layer is doing that.
the effort it takes to be so willfully ignorant....
https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=chromebook_acer_c710
grape - the GNU free, open source rape
No, because its nothing to do with preferences(sic) and priorities(sic).
You' ve indicated by the use of "(sic)" that those two words are either misspelled or improperly-used.
Would you care to elaborate, as both words are spelled properly...?
Is that the same model that sold only 5000 in a few months, worse than the Kin?
http://www.zdnet.com/chromebook-looks-like-another-googleflop-4010024772/
Many moons ago, I started working for a company that was [cough] lax in their licensing of productivity software. They griped about how much it would cost to get their licenses in order. I got the relevant VeeP to install OpenOffice and try it for a month. He asked me for help on a couple of minor issues during that time and, at the end of the month, he said he'd been able to do everything he needed to do without ever opening the old software once. He was able to open, edit, and save every document and exchange documents within the company and with our clients and vendors with no trouble at all. "Great! So I can develop a plan to transition us to OpenOffice." "No. I just don't feel comfortable using something that doesn't cost money."
By the time I left the company, our licenses were in order and we had a new VeeP who embraced open source, free, etc. software but it was an uphill battle that shouldn't have been a battle at all.
I don't know. I keep seeing LibreOffice showing up in more and more households. I started using it because it is just more convenient to download it and use it than it is deal with buying MS Office. Yes, the price difference matters, but the convenience of not having to deal with a transaction and any kind of DRM is the real reason. MS Office is just more hassle than it is worth.
That being said, I don't do a lot of writing. For 90% of my word processing, (like this) a text box in the browser is more than enough. I am not writing huge novels. I am not doing enterprise level accounting. But, I do believe that I am in the majority in my needs. I tend to use 4 word processors:
Notepad: When I specifically want to strip special characters and formatting.
Wordpad: When I want a scratch pad that supports simple formatting
Google Docs: When I want to collaborate on a document
LibreOffice: When a want a complex (relatively speaking) document
I have simply never created a document that LibreOffice wasn't more than adequate for. Word processing reached maturity some time between 1997 and 2000. Word was the best word processor around that time, and thus reached maturity first. I can't pin the specific time that LibreOffice/OpenOffice reached maturity, but it was more than a version ago. We are now in an attrition phase. Word is still prettier than LibreOffice, but for the vast majority of users it is only prettiness and momentum that holds people to Word. Every time a kid just downloads LibreOffice because he doesn't know yet that he is suppose to be tied to MS, the MS juggernaut gets a little weaker.
Probably not given that article is from 2011 and Chromebooks have taken off since then.
Don't ask me why they've taken off, I have no idea, I don't see the attraction either, but taken off they have. A Chromebook is frequently the best selling computer on Amazon these days.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Why are we discussing whether a office viewer program which does not even having editing capabilities right now and is sure not to get them for the next few months, will beat Office? Is this a joke or what?
QuickOffice is a proprietary closed source application running on one of the most locked down computers out there, the Chromebook with Secure Boot, where you can't even install Open/LibreOffice like you can do on any Windows PC and is heavily tied to the cloud and is crippled with low storage to encourage you to put valuable files on Google servers.
Why is Slashdot cheering this again?
This space for rent.
It only takes a generation for a monopoly like that to disappear. I see that with traditional telephones vs. Skype. My son (8) and his circle of friends (6-16) all have smart phones. You would think that they would call each other a lot. They don't. They use Skype almost exclusively. They will sit on their cell phones talking to each other via Skype on the phones. For these kids, the "phone" part of the smart phones is for calling your parents and ordering pizza. For talking to peers you use Skype. My first instinct was to wince at their choice, but I very quickly realized that the problem was mine and that I was falling prey to being used to the traditional phone systems network effect. For these kids, the network effect is pushing Skype over the traditional 10 digit phone system. When new kids join the group, they are quickly pushed to install Skype if they want to be involved in the groups activities.
Will these kids switch to the traditional phone system when they hit 18? Maybe, but I wouldn't count on it. I have a feeling that they will use the 10 digit phones for what they have to, but that those of us that predate Skype and it's ilk will be dragged into the much better future of post Bell communication.
If these kids started trading text documents, I don't think it would take long for LibreOffice to topple MS Office in their demographic.
Amazon bestsellers don't mean very much in terms to total units.
The Nokia Lumia has been on top of bestseller phones for long periods of time.
http://wmpoweruser.com/nokia-lumia-920-swarms-amazons-best-seller-charts/
http://wmpoweruser.com/nokia-lumia-920-still-got-ittopping-att-best-sellers-on-amazon/
http://wmpoweruser.com/now-even-amazon-is-complaining-of-tremendous-demand-for-the-nokia-lumia-920/
You've tried this before. There is no 25% drop in sales. Apple's revenues have been way way up. Apple's computer revenues have fallen far less than the average x86 and have gained marketshare.
> Office is the Sun; QuickOffice is a microscopic dot on the Sun. Of the Fortune 1000 how many, realistically, use Chromebooks? Or Google Apps, even?
Not long ago, nobody thought Word would replace WordPerfect, for the Legal profession.
In 1997, Apple stock was $3 a share. Many thought Apple was going bankrupt, and out of business. Now Apple is bigger than Microsoft.
IBM used to nearly monopolize all business computing.
Things can change.
If the differences are worth the money to you, go buy it. Who cares.
As long as I don't have to buy it, I'm happy.
There is only one thing I haven't yet been able to do with free software: scanning and OCR, and that picture is changing too.
So it's time to lift the monopoly restrictions on Microsoft, don't you think?
Absolutely, Microsoft should simply be banned from having a browser at all, they have set back the internet years, due to their monopoly abuse, and are still subverting open standards for their own ones.
In fact we should look at Microsoft [continuing] criminal abuses, and say "Never Again", Android, IOS, even tiny OSes Like WindowsRT should have legal protection for replacing the browser, and an option screen to select a few browsers, so it never happens again.
Like the GP pointed out, consumers don't buy MS Office (they pirate MS Office)
Ironically in the context of this article, I use libreoffice on my desktop...and I bought my office suite in a sale on Android. Please do not tar others with your brush :)
Spreadsheets, we never see them
Wow, must be the only company in the world. You guys not have a finance department?
Email is (yuck) Lotus 123 for legacy reasons
Intentionally obtuse here: Why would you use an old piece of spreadsheet software to read email?
Is "styley" a word? Also, it should be "its finger", not "it's finger."
I really doubt that "Everyone" part. Kids don't give a damn. My nieces and nephews are happy using Google Apps/Google Docs to submit homework, and as they acquire tablets they love just having the documents available on all their devices.
In fact everyone I know I've shown Google Docs to is happy with the features. But if they're over 25 they've got File > New / File > Save As... and saving to an overstuffed disorganized mess of a Documents folder (or worse, the Desktop folder) ingrained in their hind-brains, and struggle to evolve past it.
Companies can evolve. I was in a meeting yesterday that was getting off-track and several managers began editing a Google spreadsheet replacement for the chicken scratches on the whiteboard.
=S
And how is the Pixel a good value?
You should reread my comment...it is implying that the Pixel is poor value...like Apple products are [come with massive mark-ups] although I suspect it probably is good value, what I perhaps should have said is "Market Price", but either way your not arguing what you think you are arguing.
Your insightful [sic] post really showed him.
Losing customers implies the problem was demand. Apple in 1Q2013 (fiscal) = 4Q2012 had supply problems not demand problems. They couldn't get the iMac out in time (21" shipped mid Nov and 27" early Dec).
Cook was pretty clear supply problems trimmed 700k off the quarter sales. Add the 700k and then adjust for 13 vs. 14 week quarter and they are down a small fraction, a few percent, not 22% nor 25%. If you are going to use Apple figures then use Apple figures.
Saying they had demand problems is your theory they've never said anything of the kind.
An HTML app can run fine locally. Use an HTML5 app manifest to cache the app code, and LocalStorage to cache the content.
And yet apart from the venerable TiddlyWiki and some Firefox extensions, neither of which uses HTML5, none of the browser-based apps I use do this. The problem is no longer technical, rather it's that every bloody company with a web application (including Google) wants you to connect and sign in, so they can abuse your privacy, monetize your personal information, and sell ads.
Replyer cusco said "[people] need a real computer with a standalone operating system." That describes Chromium OS and Firefox OS. They don't somehow fail to boot when you have no network access, any more than a phone does.
=S
Forget the clickbait question posed. As the one (!) commenter on the Slashdot Business Intelligence post asked,
Google Docs already runs in the browser that's the central focus of Chromebooks/ChromeOS. Offline Google Drive/Google Docs editing has been available on any computer running Chrome since version 20 last year and works well,
So why is Google screwing around with Native Client (which will never run in other browsers), developing a separate codebase and another UI? There's a part of Google that believes in the open web, and then there are all the groups doing Android and Native Client and Dart and whatever. Either upper management is too weak to corral all the divisions, or they're happy to develop proprietary ecosystems just in case one succeeds the way Android did.
=S
Where does the "bad as you'd like to portray" come from since I didn't actually write much above? Also what I did write contained the words "minor ways".
It appears an agenda is being pushed instead of an honest answer.
Yes, but you're still wrong. It's still only used following an (perceived) error. You don't throw random [sic]s into a quote to insult someone if the quote has no (perceived) errors.
"Your (sic) comes off"
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I think they are moving/adding quickoffice because it has a native app on the ipad which is what people like to use on the device.
Office is the Sun; QuickOffice is a microscopic dot on the Sun.
OpenOffice was the Sun. Now it's just a microscopic dot on the Oracle.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Most people don't understand that they don't really need any office at all !!
Office is used as a swiss army knife, but many times they are using the wrong tool (when all you got is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail!!)
-email and wikis replaced the most of the word processing
-calculator, real databases and special data tools replace most of the the spreadsheet
-PDF, youtube, web presentation and screen capture replace most of the presentations (and keep the presentations simple, NO ANIMATIONS, please!!)
-real databases or sqlite replace what some insist in using, even knowing that is broken, access
-a real email client or webmail replaces outlook (so broken by design that today many people thinks that is the only way that email to work... until they see good webmails working)
Yes, some people do really write documents (most of then should use latex instead)... ... like reading slashdot posts! ;)
Yes, some people do really need spreadsheets (this is by far the most important tool in MS office
No, "fun" powerpoints are not important, please let it die and go do something productive
So...there are people that need MS office (most of this can use any office for that matter), but those arent really the normal people, those don't really need any office (how many times did tablet owners really used one office?)
Higuita
You've misspelt both the words "spelt" and "misspelt".
The irony is not lost on me.
I don't know about US English, but in the UK "spelled" is the correct spelling, even though it's pronounced "spelt".
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
My sick doesn't usually come off very easily. It takes a fair bit of soap and a heck of a lot of scrubbing.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Is "styley" a word? Also, it should be "its finger", not "it's finger."
The example in fact shows the correct use of [sic], to point out mistakes in something you are quoting directly,since as you say "styley" is not a word and it should indeed be "its finger".
This does nothing either to justify or criticise using [sic] just to be snarky.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The moral of the story is that attempts to create "obvious" applications lead to hacks and logic abuse. Train you users, train your users, train your users.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Google advertise them at GBP229 (including VAT at 20%) in the UK, so I'm sure you can get them for $200 or less in the US.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I've never been a MS-hater. I even owned a significant number of shares of MSFT from 1995 to about 2005. I've was moderately happy with MS Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint...even Access sometimes) from about 1995 to about 2008. That's more than a dozen years. The apps did more than I wanted. Far more. The three problems with MS Office: Too many features. Too much UI change. Managing document files is boring. Too many features makes it hard to find the features I want. Have you ever even heard of "The Spike" much less used it? Changing the UI to make it pretty or modern every 5 years just makes me have to re-learn something that was working fine. Losing documents and spreadsheets to inevitable hard disk crashes, then having to find them in backups, just plain sucks. Google Apps solved all this for me and when MSDN subscriptions including Office licenses went up in price last year, I just stopped bothering with Office. Google Apps has enough features to be useful. I've given up on Access and do all my database stuff with SQL Server or similar databases. I don't miss office. Microsoft needs to reinvent itself. It is the next AOL. Existing only for people too lazy to bother with a better alternative in most of the product categories.
The first thing you need to do when schooling someone is make sure you are correct beforehand.
I am correct. You don't have a clue. Your so-called "elaboration" demonstrated the use of "sic" to point out a misspelling.
You have been schooled, so suck it up, or actually offer an elaboration which demonstrates how your mis-use of "sic" is correct.
Can LibreOffice on a Linux laptop topple Microsoft's Office?
No?
Why should the Chromebook be any different? Because it has a Google logo on it?
Whether we like it or not, Windows has become firmly entrenched in the corporate (and, for that matter, residential) world and not just because of one app. Office, Outlook, IE6 (yes, still!), ActiveDirectory are just a handful of the applications maintaining the Microsoft desktop monopoly. As important is Windows tremendous backwards compatibility with programs - retail or inhouse/proprietary - that cannot be easily replaced.
Microsoft has a tremendous inertia on their side. There are edge cases where users or corporations have switched to Linux/Chromebooks or even Macintosh successfully. But for most people the disadvantages of switching are too great and the advantages are too little for them to even make the attempt. Why should the Chromebook be any different?
Think about what it would take to get you to shift from Google to Bing.
I think for most slashdotters, the only way they would switch from Google to Bing would be if Google bought and gutted Microsoft, leaving only the name Bing as a cruel reminder of the days of glory now past.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Most of what I've seen Excel get used for in an office setting would be better served by a database....
But the point you make is fair enough, and the point I was going to make: people aren't going to invest in a new platform without a major impetus to go looking for a new platform. If the one they have works for what they're doing, then it's generally less hassle to keep buying it. This is why some banks are still running DOS....
Until Microsoft stops selling corporate licenses and forces everybody to Office Online where they can charge a monthly tithe, business simply isn't going to look elsewhere. It's coming... They're already trying to force home users to an online version... but I doubt Microsoft is stupid enough to think that business will happily accept switching to a platform where they don't have control over the files themselves, and home users will continue to buy the monthly tithe version of MS Office, because that's what they have at work. Very savvy, really....
Most corporate Excel usage would NOT be better served using a database. I grant you that there cases where people using Excel spreadsheets with large data sets which would be better off in a database and that there are cases where critical data is being stored in the wrong format. However, most Excel usage is for quick spreadsheets or tiny data sets where implementing a database would be highly unproductive and lacking in functionality (Excel has a ton of functions which would be very costly to implement in a database solution). Joey in finance running the corporate General Ledger on Excel is the exception, not the rule. My guess is that most people in IT might believe that Excel is largely used as a database because it is invariably the guy with the huge Excel sheet that requires technical support.
Big corporations are not going to switch to another Office productivity suite until a competitor is able to provide enterprise level tools, integration, and support. In addition, the competitors product would have to be able to read and display all existing and archived documents for all MS Office versions correctly. Compatibility is a huge driver, especially in the big corporate space. Even if Microsoft went to a monthly licensing fee, something would have to break before corporations would consider switching. Since Office is used at work, most users also use it at home. Microsoft is more savvy than you think, they have a Home Use program, assuming that your company is signed up for it, where $20 buys you a home license of Office. The one caveat is that if you leave your employer, your supposed to stop using the Home Use licensed copy and uninstall it.
That being said, I don't do a lot of writing. For 90% of my word processing, (like this) a text box in the browser is more than enough.
Personally, I tend to install an old version of MS-DOS in a virtual machine so that I can always switch to EDLIN for that back-to-basics text processing experience.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
In fact everyone I know I've shown Google Docs to is happy with the features.
Look, no one's saying that nursery school teachers don't do a great job...
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I mean something else. I mean that Google Docs' Spreadsheet app is lousy and Office 365 lets me do everything I need to do online while also using normal excel on the desktop.
Office 365 is extremely feature limited but it does everything I need to do in a browser. When I'm using a real computer I can just use excel. With Google Docs you're always trapped in a sub-par website.
Can Bettridges Law of Headlines ever be wrong?
Google Docs - the MS office killer, remember? Open Office, the MS Office killer. Didn't happen.
People are still claiming this will happen, insisting that it will happen "soon". Isn't happening.
I won't be yet another poster who believes they know the future, or why this isn't happening. Call me "Master of the Obvious" if you must, but folks, it just isn't happening, nor will it happen anytime soon, because it hasn't happened in the past.
Murphy was an optimist