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Microsoft Launches Office 365 in 10 New Markets, Eyes Expansion in Nearly 100 New Markets By Next Year (venturebeat.com)

Posted by msmash on from the global-expansion dept.

Microsoft is bringing Office 365 to 10 new markets. The company today announced that people in Bhutan, Cambodia, Greenland, Guadeloupe, Laos, Maldives, Martinique, Mozambique, Myanmar, and Vatican City can now also subscribe to its productivity suite. The company says it plans to launch Office 365 in nearly 100 more markets by next year. VentureBeat adds: It's worth underlining that Microsoft is using the word "market" and not "country" on purpose. There are 196 countries in the world today, but the company plans to launch Office 365 in "a further 97 markets over the next year." That would bring the total to 247 markets -- the extra markets are differentiated by certain cultural and language differences that require more work on Microsoft's part, even if they are part of the same geographic country.Office is one of Microsoft's biggest cash cows. The company says over 1.2 billion people worldwide use its productivity suite.

39 comments

  1. Microsoft and Gates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    No longer the evil Borg Empire, they have more respect for the business advantages of diversity than the Republican-patterned US federal government does.

    1. Re:Microsoft and Gates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're wrong. Republicans love Microsoft, despite Microsoft NBC, because they love inferior products.

  2. Open sores software == shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And OpenOffice/LibreOffice still sucks donkey dicks.

    1. Re:Open sores software == shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It would have to shove your head out of the way first.

  3. Markets are crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I realize it takes time to do translations, I've been involved in several large projects requiring it, but that's no reason to have "markets" - just release it to the world, already! In our projects we just released software updates as we added support for additional languages. Regionalized markets are the crutch of DRM and copyright solutions.

  4. Switch to Libreoffice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    There is no reason for anyone to use Microsoft Office. Libreoffice is better in every way. Run Libreoffice on Linux and never use Microsoft software again.

    1. Re:Switch to Libreoffice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes there is: database connectors - MS Office has comprehensive support.

    2. Re:Switch to Libreoffice by TylerJWhit · · Score: 1

      Yes and no.

      I believe most of the time something like LibreOffice or G-Suite as they call it now is adequate. Nevertheless, Office still has a couple of things over the competition for the power users. But there's rarely ever a need for those added advantages.

      If you're looking for a lot of integrations and capabilities, Open sourced LibreOffice is your go to. If you're looking for Ease-Of-Use, familiarity, and a handful of unduplicated as of yet solutions (negligible), then Office is the choice. All in all I'd agree that LibreOffice is better, especially for the price difference. But most businesses and the layperson like the familiarity and beauty of the UI of Office over LibreOffice.

    3. Re:Switch to Libreoffice by TylerJWhit · · Score: 1

      Access is an abomination to databases. Yeah it has an easy configuration for those who create simple databases, but even MySQL will be hundreds of times better than anything that Access creates.

    4. Re:Switch to Libreoffice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > beauty of the UI of Office

      Haven't opened an Office product in a decade. Are they still married to that "Ribbon"/"Who needs well-organized, intuitive menus when you can fill up the screen with a dozen huge icons and bury everything else in the hamburger menu" design philosophy?

    5. Re:Switch to Libreoffice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep, it's a bunch of little icons and words. It's a little difficult to find things if you're not used to it, I think the icons are unnecessary.

    6. Re: Switch to Libreoffice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How long would it take to build a short and sweet app to manage a small work group's assets? Or perhaps a small club's Sports equipment?

      15 minutes in access for each.

      Oh no, spend a week with MySQL and some other front end toolkit coz y'know purity over getting work done.

    7. Re: Switch to Libreoffice by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      How long would it take to build a short and sweet app to manage a small work group's assets? Or perhaps a small club's Sports equipment?

      If more Access users would limit their scope to such a project, Access wouldn't get the hate that it does.

  5. Have They Fixed Their Current Problems? by segedunum · · Score: 0

    Last I looked Outlook connectivity was offline, which should be familiar to anyone who has connected Exchange and Outlook on Windows via the incantations necessary.

    Exchange was never designed as a 'cloud' service for use on that scale I'm afraid and Office365 is not something I'd be using and relying on if I wanted to use Exchange. E-mail is generally too critical.

    1. Re:Have They Fixed Their Current Problems? by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      E-mail is generally too critical.

      There's the problem, right there.

      Email was never designed to be critical.

      It's discoverable in litigation and unreliable and it's also insecure.

      It's stored in one place per customer and a small net grabs a lot of shit.

      Hell, Facebook Messenger is better.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    2. Re:Have They Fixed Their Current Problems? by fisted · · Score: 2

      You have obviously no clue what you're talking about.

      Email was designed to be highly reliable, and the pertinent specs (RFC2821 and updates) go out of their way to ensure that.

      It also does not, unlike Facebook Messenger, depend on Facebook to keep operating it/not arbitrarily fuck it up like they already did several times when they intentionally broke support for 3rd party clients.

      It's stored in one place per customer and a small net grabs a lot of shit.

      I'm not sure what this gibberish is even supposed to mean.

      --
      CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
    3. Re:Have They Fixed Their Current Problems? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He seems to object to the very concept of email servers.

      I wonder how he feels about the threat that post offices pose to our civil liberties.

    4. Re:Have They Fixed Their Current Problems? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One of our investors is a former Microsoft SVP. We use dial-up since we're in Seattle so Office 365 is just a disaster for us. He and Microsoft doesn't give a damn. It simply doesn't work for us.

    5. Re:Have They Fixed Their Current Problems? by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure what this gibberish is even supposed to mean.

      That's because you don't have 40 goddam years experience in the business.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    6. Re:Have They Fixed Their Current Problems? by fisted · · Score: 2

      So 40 goddam(sic) years of experience "in the business" makes you forget SMTP? Whatever your business is, it's obviously a joke since you couldn't have made it any clearer that you have nothing of substance to say, wrt. the parts you didn't even bother to quote.

      --
      CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
    7. Re:Have They Fixed Their Current Problems? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sigh, if you really believe this, you either have idiots running the show or you are the inept one. Exchange is extremely reliable when it is setup correctly. 4 years without a single unplanned outage on 2013 and going strong.

    8. Re:Have They Fixed Their Current Problems? by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      small net grabs a lot of shit

      That is the language a 40 year IT professional uses to describe email?

      This isn't the BOFH section of the register, you know.

    9. Re:Have They Fixed Their Current Problems? by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Actually, it apparently is.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    10. Re:Have They Fixed Their Current Problems? by segedunum · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but anyone who thinks this isn't the case haven't used Exchange or Outlook. Ever. In any environment. I can claim any uptime figures I want by pulling random numbers out of my arse and posting anonymously.

    11. Re:Have They Fixed Their Current Problems? by segedunum · · Score: 1

      ....you should go an work for Microsoft. You know more than they do about managing Exchange apparently.

  6. I guess it's easier to add new customers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    than fix serious problems existing customers are having. Our main investor is a former SVP at Microsoft so we have to use this garbage. They haven't been able to fix a single bug we've filed. This shows they don't care about improving the product.

    1. Re: I guess it's easier to add new customers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Brad Silverberg is one of our main investors so w have to use this garbage. It sucks that we keep losing data and that Microsoft apparently doesn't care.

    2. Re: I guess it's easier to add new customers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same here. He made us use things that don't work

  7. Microsoft is the king of productivity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm not a big fan of Windows because it's not unix. But the other software is great. Nothing else even comes close.

  8. Pop goes the weasel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So now instead of every organisation having its own unique single point of failure every organization that uses Office/Outlook has the same single point of failure. Just exactly how sustainable is that considering the revolving door of coders working for the boys in Redmond?

  9. Suggested new name by TylerJWhit · · Score: 1

    Office 365 should be called Office 363 since it's down an average of almost 2 days per year. Just sayin'...

  10. Who cares ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seriously, why so much useless news on Slashdot these days ?
    3/4 of news are about google, apple, m$ and facebook. So boring.

    1. Re:Who cares ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Freetards don't bring in ad dollars.

  11. Just what the world needs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... yet another subscription plan to go along with a lifetime subscription to cable t.v., statins and diabetes medication.

    F.T.S.

  12. Vatican City Version by colinrichardday · · Score: 2

    Will the Vatican City version support Church Latin?

  13. Why by JThundley · · Score: 1

    Those poor bastards, what did they do to deserve this? Vatican excluded, we know exactly what they did.

  14. Office 360 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft is going to expand to only 100 markets?
    After I finish my C++ class where the final exam keeps on disappearing and reappearing I'm going to launch my Office pi-3.1416 to 100++ markets.

  15. MSFTEmpire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This might be the worst comment section of any /. article I've read in weeks. Months? Don't mind me, just strolling through the den of asps.

    Microsoft empire doesn't inspire discussion like it used to, apparently. I see this story as a potent reminder how monstrously large and influential M$ continues to be.

  16. Country != Market by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    English might not be my first language but I only use English software. Limiting by country is stupid, I want Siri etc to be English but I'm often locked out waiting for a language I don't want.

    Forza Horizon is the worst example of this, I want speed in km/h but English GPS voice and the stupid game only lets you use the Xbox global settings with no way to override so I had to settle for mp/h.