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Microsoft Will Block Desktop 'Office' Apps From 'Office 365' Services In 2020 (techradar.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft is still encouraging businesses to rent their Office software, according to TechRadar. "In a bid to further persuade users of the standalone versions of Office to shift over to a cloud subscription (Office 365), Microsoft has announced that those who made a one-off purchase of an Office product will no longer get access to the business flavours of OneDrive and Skype come the end of the decade." PC World explains that in reality this affects very few users. "If you've been saving all of your Excel spreadsheets into your OneDrive for Business cloud, you'll need to download and move them over to a personal subscription -- or pony up for Office 365, as Microsoft really wants you to do."

Microsoft is claiming that when customers connect to Office 365 services using a legacy version of Office, "they're not enjoying all that the service has to offer. The IT security and reliability benefits and end user experiences in the apps is limited to the features shipped at a point in time. To ensure that customers are getting the most out of their Office 365 subscription, we are updating our system requirements." And in another blog post, they're almost daring people to switch to Linux. "Providing over three years advance notice for this change to Office 365 system requirements for client connectivity gives you time to review your long-term desktop strategy, budget and plan for any change to your environment."

In a follow-up comment, Microsoft's Alistair Speirs explained that "There is still an option to get monthly desktop updates, but we are changing the 3x a year update channel to be 2x a year to align closer to Windows 10 update model. We are trying to strike the right balance between agile, ship-when-ready updates and enterprise needs of predictability, reliability and advanced notice to validate and prepare."

217 comments

  1. FOWL! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most.

    1. Re: FOWL! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its their game and they make the rules how can you cry foul?

    2. Re:FOWL! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cornish hin.

    3. Re:FOWL! by davester666 · · Score: 1

      Murder!

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    4. Re: FOWL! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If cloud storage and web conferencing were a game, Microsoft's services would be amateur bowling. Their bygone days of.being a market leader with a monopoly will not this plan to succeed. Skype is a has been and Onedrive is a never was.

    5. Re: FOWL! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft fucking their customers up the ass without using grease? Who saw that coming?

    6. Re: FOWL! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck their game. Use LibreOffice. It's better AND it's free and it doesn't come from NecroSoft. Actually, just not coming from FuckroShit makes it better than "Orifice" and "Orifice 365," without which N$ WinDOS would have gone the way of the dinosaurs like the dinosaur it is.

    7. Re: FOWL! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck their game. Use LibreOffice. It's better AND it's free and it doesn't come from NecroSoft. Actually, just not coming from FuckroShit makes it better than "Orifice" and "Orifice 365," without which N$ WinDOS would have gone the way of the dinosaurs like the dinosaur it is.

      If it cannot be accomplished with LaTeX, it does not need to be done as far as office documents go.

    8. Re: FOWL! by lucm · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Use LibreOffice. It's better

      No it's not. It's ok to avoid MS-Office if you don't want the lock-in and the constant scheming, but LibreOffice is not better. It's not even close.

      Microsoft is terrible at a lot of things, but Office is excellent. Word, Excel, PowerPoint; they're all good products that are second to none. The online version though is awful, especially Outlook. For that Google has better products. Which is kind of funny since Microsoft is trying to push people to the cloud.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    9. Re: FOWL! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But LibreOrifice is still limited in its platform support. A much better alternative to Microsoft is Google's set of applications (or Apple's if you have a Mac/iOS device).

      This is the problem with free software, it isnt innovative so its always playing catchup and trying to disrupt an established market. Take LibreOrifice for example, playing catchup in the desktop market against Microsoft, Apple and Google's offerings, meanwhile it barely has a presence in the mobile market or web-based market.

      Same thing with photo editing, video editing, video conferencing, smartphones, tablets, wearables, VR, AR, etc, etc. Failure to innovate means you have to rely on your competitors to fail and for consumers to have no choice but to fall back to your also-ran and frankly there is no sign of that happening, the "Microsoft is dying" and "Year of the Linux desktop" statements are well over a decade old (probably closer to 2 by now).

  2. Time to switch by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you run the other popular operating system, full installs of Pages, Numbers and Keynote come with it.

    1. Re:Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      If you run the other popular operating system, full installs of Pages, Numbers and Keynote come with it.

      I think you meant - if you run one of the other popular operating systems, Docs, Sheets, and Slides come with them.

      The operating system you refer to is not "popular" by any current stretch of the definition and you might as well suggest LibreOffice. And while Keynote may soundly thump PowerPoint there are things that Pages cannot do compared to Word, and no way no how can Numbers keep up with Excel.

    2. Re: Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'm shocked that anyone cares about OneDrive or Skype for business.

      "Oh no, please, don't go (yawn)"

    3. Re:Time to switch by barc0001 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why? If you have a desktop version of Office that you've already purchased you already have an office suite. It's the cloud storage you need to switch. Google Drive or Dropbox will happily take your money and cost a lot less than 365 to boot. Well, Google drive will, Dropbox seems to have missed the whole "I need more storage than the free version but don't want to pay $100 a year for this crap when I won't use 90% of it" boat...

    4. Re: Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      A larger enterprise should quickly learn that there are open-source cloud storage options, too.

    5. Re:Time to switch by harvey+the+nerd · · Score: 1

      Are you just Apple fans, or shareholders?

    6. Re: Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been using a combination of Google Apps and LibreOffice for years, never looked back and don't miss MS at all. Several of the businesses I consult for have switched entirely to Google Apps... Compatibility with MS file formats is pretty solid at this point, and a lot of people actually prefer the UI of the open source options over the latest MS Office releases.

    7. Re: Time to switch by barc0001 · · Score: 1

      Larger enterprises do. This Microsoft initiative isn't targeting large enterprises as they already know that Office 365 + cloud is a total non-starter for big companies due to audit concerns and a raft of other issues, plus larger companies have some interesting bulk licensing negotiated with Microsoft.

      This is firmly aimed at the smaller companies, under 100 people and smaller. Big enough they have doc sync issues and IT headaches with licensing control but small enough they can't easily roll their own solutions cost effectively.

    8. Re:Time to switch by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 0

      You can also run a version of Libre Office on it if you want to. And yes, there is actually a valid reason for doing that: LO imports a variety of ancient file formats that nobody else supports.

    9. Re:Time to switch by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      Those will still work with the business version of OneDrive after 2020? Or did you misunderstand the summary and think Microsoft is deactivating Office 2016 in 2020 completely?

      What Microsoft is announcing is relatively obscure and probably won't affect many people at all. Home users will be completely unaffected. Businesses are largely moving over to Office 365 anyway, the combination of "Corporate OneDrive + non-subscription Office" is pretty unusual.

      Switching over to the Mac (or, more easily, to LibreOffice/OpenOffice) won't help in the slightest.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    10. Re:Time to switch by sexconker · · Score: 1

      You're a troll, but you're correct about LibreOffice.

      Libre/Star/Open Office all suck ass for anything remotely complex.
      MS Office isn't going away. We've only been able to transition a small group of our users to Google Docs / etc. because their use is extremely limited and we in fact wanted to limit them more.

    11. Re: Time to switch by art123 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I can think of several Fortune 500 companies that use Office 365 based on info from friends and family that work there. I wouldn't be surprised if OneDrive was disabled for some of those users but many big companies have bought into renting Office, hosted Exchange, and hosted Skype for Business.Office 365 Enterprise E5 tops out at $35 per person per month and I am guessing gets much cheaper for large enterprises. That is dirt cheap for the value you are getting. My company was recently acquired and we went from Office 365 everything back to on-premise because that is the way the acquiring company runs their business and every single person complains about the capabilities and reliability that we lost in the transition.

    12. Re:Time to switch by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 2

      It feels like this is intended to spark some sort of frothing outrage, but it doesn't sound all that unreasonable: So... the free business OneDrive and Skype service that came with their product ends when mainstream support for that product also ends three years from now? Yeah, well... okay? Pony up and pay for a service to store your documents online somewhere. It's really not all that expensive. And generally speaking, it's stupid to count on a "free" cloud service lasting forever. Hell, even *paid* services will disappear if they're not profitable enough.

      It certainly doesn't affect me with my single license of Office. I don't even use OneDrive features, preferring to use AWS for backups, since they only charge you for the storage you actually use. Last month I paid 10 cents. S3 is stupidly cheap for storing documents and source code backups, since that takes up very little space.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    13. Re:Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'm a techie. I don't need any of that secretary bullshit.

    14. Re:Time to switch by hughbar · · Score: 1

      I do and have done since about 2007 (Open Office at that stage). However, this is probably just a Microsoft shill, so I shouldn't really bother, should I?

      --
      On y va, qui mal y pense!
    15. Re:Time to switch by barc0001 · · Score: 1

      Exactly right. This whole writeup is pitched like it's an eeeeevil plot by MS, but I don't see it that way.

    16. Re: Time to switch by Hylandr · · Score: 0

      Mod up.

      --
      ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
    17. Re: Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dell tortures me with Skype every week.

      Anon because I just modded.

    18. Re: Time to switch by Z00L00K · · Score: 2

      Skype for business isn't Skype anyway, it's just the name they grabbed. On the backside it's still the crappy Lync.

      And we are using it where I work, I'm not sure how Microsoft will handle enterprise solutions when it comes to this strategy.

      Also - putting all your docs online is a risk - it means that M$ can read all your documents and get access to all your business strategies.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    19. Re:Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your whole company must be in the 1% of the population that uses ALL the features of MS Office. What business are you in? I'm not asking the company, just the industry, since that is really weird.

    20. Re:Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks. Now it's clear that you're full of crap. Still not sure if you are a troll or a shill. . .

    21. Re: Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really? I think it more likely MS will change the goal posts than say Google drive, which is free. Free storage for documents is a doddle , file size is usually small compared to something like video, which is also expected to be fitted online for free from now until eternity.

    22. Re: Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This arrogance will be all people need to make them figure out Office's extra features aren't worth paying for. Libreoffice and AbiWord offer what 99% of people actually use.

    23. Re:Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most companies aren't going to replace all their PCs with overpriced, outdated hardware. Switching to Linux and LibreOffice is the only practical solution.

    24. Re:Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're a troll too, and you've totally missed the reason why some people still use Microsoft Office. Clue: It isn't because it doesn't suck "ass" (as you yankies put it).

    25. Re: Time to switch by swb · · Score: 2

      I'm curious how big companies justify anything over $5 a month.

      Most companies of any size have virtualization which almost always means that running Exchange amounts to software licensing and a fairly thin amount of admin time.

      A single Exchange server should scale to 500 users pretty easily -- at $35 month, you're making a $175,000 commitment or $525,000 over 3 years. The office and Exchange licensing for on-prem isn't $525,000.

      I know some organizations have struggled with Exchange reliability, but I've worked in the managed services and consulting space and the vast majority of on-prem installs I've worked with have been extremely reliable and problems have usually been the result of some really bad admin decisions.

      I've laid the costs out side by side for customers who have run on-prem, including admin costs, and almost none have chosen 365.

    26. Re: Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Because with Office 365 you aren't just getting Exchange.

      You're getting:
      Exchange
      Exchange CALs
      Skype for Business
      Skype for Business CALs
      Microsoft Office (Per Person License - up to 5 Windows installs + Devices)
      Mobile Device Management (basic Intune)
      Data Loss Prevention
      Office 365 Email Encryption
      And a slew of other features

      You also don't need to undertake the complexity of managing a secure email server, paying full time exchange admins, upgrading to a new version, or worrying about downtime.

      The E5 license has a LIST price of $35/mo, and E3 has list of $25/mo. The reality is no enterprise pays list price and this goes under an Enterprise Agreement - they are probably paying no more than $20/mo and it's absolutely worth that

    27. Re:Time to switch by GuB-42 · · Score: 2

      Your whole company must be in the 1% of the population that uses ALL the features of MS Office. What business are you in? I'm not asking the company, just the industry, since that is really weird.

      What you said is a widespread fallacy.
      No one use all the features of MS Office, but many people use a subset of features that are only available on MS Office. The same thing can be said of similarly complex software like the Adobe suite, IDEs, 3D modelers, etc...
      These software are complex because everyone have specific needs and the software need to address most of them in the easiest way possible. Usually commercial software is better than free software in this area.

    28. Re: Time to switch by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Volume licensing for Office 365 is a lot cheaper per seat than simply multiplying the list price by number of employees. It also has a much simpler licensing model than previous Microsoft volume licensing, which makes compliance easier (you get all of the desktop apps for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android included). The latter point alone is worth it to a lot of big companies.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    29. Re: Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is that why i use it every day with no problem whatsoever?

      MS starts from this dead-on-arrival idea that people are sheep and they will save their documents on the cloud when really there is no need.

      When they move out of the standalone office space it will be a good day. There are players that will compete and benefit because there are customers. Yes, those guys which pay for standalone office apps and will shut off when MS threatens to leave them out in the cold

    30. Re:Time to switch by UncleRage · · Score: 2

      I don't disagree with your observation at all. I think that Microsoft created a lot of fill in solutions that were baked into workflow over the 90's/00's (abuses of Excel as a poor man's database).

      Most of the people I know that "must have" Excel are people that have inherited (or grew into) a position where they'd be a lot happier if they'd have picked up *SQL and tossed some of their learning curve toward php/python. However, Microsoft did something "right" with Office... they let the end user build complexity in an environment that required no additional tools nor unsightly under the hood involvement.

      The number of times I've been brought into a project that begins with someone sharing a massive .xlsm and then shaking their head why I can't open it right then and there (my legacy responsibilities are still as a Mac sysadmin, so I carry a Macbook) never fails to amuse (and frustrate) me. The same goes with finding out that 'Bob' is leaving and has a couple of decades of workflow baked into Access, now someone needs to maintain those projects (I've seen the same with Filemaker, btw....).

      Right now, I'm watching an absolute abuse of Google's offerings spread like wild fire. People are pulled into projects and are churning out immediate 'results' by offering up a mish-mash of Forms/Sheets/extensions and addons... None of them are developers, many don't even qualify as power users but are being directed from above into positions of visibility in areas that are not their strength. This (in my opinion) is the net result of the "Do more with less." philosophy that's becoming increasingly pervasive in my industry.

      The real problem turns into this: All of this could be cleared up with some planning and development time. The cycle could end, but it won't. Path of least resistance is to continue on and force more and more people through a cycle of learning someone's else's ad hoc solutions as part of a mission critical product.

      As I'm approaching 50, I'm starting to see why so many in our field say, "Screw this, I'd rather work with my hands." I think back to my university days of running heavy equipment to pay the bills (and before I made a little too much money installing the odd Lantastic networks for local businesses) and regret not sticking with that philosophy major (or just running a backhoe and playing guitar).

      --
      #SickNotWeak
    31. Re: Time to switch by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      You forgot to list two things you are getting. Vendor lock in, and a deep screwing without so much as a kiss first or a reach around.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    32. Re:Time to switch by hughbar · · Score: 1

      Actually I've used it for a Master's dissertation and am currently using it for long university essays. I mainly use Linux but still use Windows for a couple of things. However it's true that I dislike Microsoft's business practices and have done so, for some time. That's probably a more courteous answer than you deserve, in fact.

      --
      On y va, qui mal y pense!
    33. Re:Time to switch by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      If you run the other popular operating system, full installs of Pages, Numbers and Keynote come with it.

      As usual the anti MS hate is in the story. The title is wrong.

      Yes MS plans to keep desktop versions of their apps. What MS is doing is requiring an Office 365 account to use Skype for Business and OneDrive when support ends in 2020 for Office 2016.

      The desktop apps are here to stay folks

    34. Re: Time to switch by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      I'm curious how big companies justify anything over $5 a month.

      Most companies of any size have virtualization which almost always means that running Exchange amounts to software licensing and a fairly thin amount of admin time.

      A single Exchange server should scale to 500 users pretty easily -- at $35 month, you're making a $175,000 commitment or $525,000 over 3 years. The office and Exchange licensing for on-prem isn't $525,000.

      I know some organizations have struggled with Exchange reliability, but I've worked in the managed services and consulting space and the vast majority of on-prem installs I've worked with have been extremely reliable and problems have usually been the result of some really bad admin decisions.

      I've laid the costs out side by side for customers who have run on-prem, including admin costs, and almost none have chosen 365.

      THanks to the horrible US healthcare system and high corporate tax rates a good Exchange admin who is worth $80,000 a year costs $170,000 easily in 401K, healthcare costs, and taxes for the employer. The cost of energy for the server could easily be $10,000 a year per server. Our former MDF cost 1 million a year of electricity at our site of ust 1,100 users.

      The race to the bottom with falling wages for mellinials and robotic automation is because of healthcare costs which keep going up 10% per year. So to the employer $50,000 a year for someone 15 years ago costs the same as some intern making $12/hr out of college.

      With Office 365 you do not have to worry about the competence of the your admin too. You log in and work. Office 365 is great for small to medium sized companies who do not know even how to make a Sharepoint or use PowerBi. THe tools are there for anyone to quickly whip something together.

      Unless you are a very large enteprise with very unique requirements it is just cheaper and easier to pay a bill. Does your employer have a custom electrician and plumbing officers which generate the water and electricity or do they pay a bill each month?

    35. Re: Time to switch by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Dude it is 2017. Wordperfect and Lotus 123 lost. Deal with it. The world runs on Microsoft. You can't have your sales team making documents misformatting in potential clients computers. Customers make custom Sharepoint sites and use MS teams to arrange things.

      I am not saying this as a super MS fanboy. I am just stating reality. If Libreoffice was around in the early days of the internet in the 1990s maybe this wouldn't be a thing, but the office runs on MS and Intune, Office, Skype, Sharepoint, MS project, etc.

    36. Re: Time to switch by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      Really. The world runs on Microsoft? You can't be that clueless. Home Users use Microsoft because they don't know any better, but even then much less often. Most of those people actually use their phones and rarely use a PC anymore. That means iOS and Linux/Android running Google Apps, Facebook Apps, and Twitter, Tinder, etc. Most Small Businesses still use Microsoft; I'll grant you that, but that is changing fast as well. Microsoft isn't even a spec on the radar in the Internet Server arena anymore. Microsoft uses Linux and has started to include it with their OS offering as a last ditch effort to stay relevant. So I'll use your own words, but correctly:

      Dude it is 2017. Word lost because Microsoft is actively carrying the ball for the other team toward their own end zone now. Deal with it. The world runs on iOS and Linux/Android running Google Apps, Facebook Apps, and Twitter, Tinder, etc.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    37. Re:Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As I understand it, they're forcing you to use the Office 365 evergreen, click to run, version of Office to connect to Office 365 services from 2020. Companies that already use the click-to-run edition won't be affected in the slightest.

      But this is Slashdot, they have such an anti-Microsoft hate. In its early days, /. was far more technical and geeky, it talked about what Microsoft were doing in an actual honest and factual way. Now, it's anti-Microsoft haters that react without actual facts - coupled with reading echo chamber blog posts. (E.g., reading this stupid blog post instead of linking to the actual announcement; so it was anti-Microsoft ignorant hater's uneducated view instead of actual facts.

      "OneDrive and Skype for Business to be ditched for standalone Office users" -- okay, which stand-alone versions of Office included free use of Office 365 services? Anyone remember? Since when could Office stand-alone connect to Office 365 for free anyway? That's why this seems to be someone with an axe to grind, but it's a swing in a miss because there are three groups of people:
      * Those that don't use Office 365 services (do nothing)
      * Those that use and pay for Office 365 services and have the current click-to-run client (do nothing)
      * Those that use and pay for Office 365 services but have old licenses and use old versions of Office -- about three years to switch to the Office 365 Click To Run edition. Yes, you can migrate now. No, it won't cost anything because you're already paying for it.

      Is there literally ANYONE using Office 365 services without paying for a Office 365 subscription? And I mean COMMERICAL Office 365, not outlook.com and consumer one drive.

    38. Re:Time to switch by nukenerd · · Score: 1

      Your whole company must be in the 1% of the population that uses ALL the features of MS Office. What business are you in? I'm not asking the company, just the industry, since that is really weird.

      What you said is a widespread fallacy. No one use all the features of MS Office, but many people use a subset of features that are only available on MS Office.

      Perhaps they do, but usually because the features are there and not because they really need them. They are a Microsoft method of locking people in.

      I work in an engineering office. All the "office" work on a PC that I and the others do here could be done just as well in Notepad and a stripped-down email app.

    39. Re:Time to switch by lucm · · Score: 1

      I agree with everything you say except the "work with my hands" part. I think it's one of those things that gets old real quick, like quitting a corporate career to open a cupcake shop.

      It can be damaging for the soul to deal with hard-linked Excel worksheets or orphaned .gdoc files for too long, but I don't know if you would have really enjoyed operating a forklift or a backhoe for the last 25 years.

      Here's my take on this: if one is not already doing a lot of manual labor outside of business hours, one is not going to be thrilled if it becomes a full time job.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    40. Re: Time to switch by lucm · · Score: 1

      I think you're the clueless one if you don\t know that there's no money in consumer software. The big bucks are in the enterprise. Why do you think even Github, Docker and others have paid enterprise versions? Because someone has to pay the bills, and it's not you and your twitters.

      As for "Internet Servers", for the public facing stuff Microsoft is basically printing money with Azure, and for the enterprise it depends on the size, the crown goes to either IBM, Oracle or Microsoft.

      So look at the stuff that you can see around yourself, the things you bought at the store, the things you ordered online, the things your mom gave you, and pretty much all of it at one point or another was a number in an Excel spreadsheet. That's what "the world runs on Microsoft" means.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    41. Re: Time to switch by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Nothing last forever. Windos died on the phone, one the server, on the web, on TVs, on tablets and is dying on budget notebooks. The desktop market is shrinking and M$ cant sell new products because they are loathed as a company. The world runs on people not on M$. All M$ software could disappear and the world would restructure around Linus with a month.

      Office run on what ever software they started with for as long as they can, because change costs money, problem is M$ continually forces change to generate more profits and that is costing too much. Reality is, all bullshit aside, trying to force renting access to a companies own data, extorting payment and compliance, trying to steal company proprietary data, will kill M$ and growing refusal of windows 10 is proving that. Incumbents hang in for quite some time but when they start to lose, they collapse, it called a 'house of cards'. Tiny Limp the beast of Redmond already lost the bulk of it's power and is down to extorting customers via data lock in, the last refuge of a ex-monopolist.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    42. Re:Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is some truth to that, the Linux kernel itself is great but it isnt a usable operating system so ultimately almost every Linux distro is derived from corporate Linux produced by RedHat and on the mobile side there is no decent offering, the only one is Android which came from a corporation developing it and it is moving more and more proprietary.

      The free software model is nice in theory but in practice it really doesn't work very well much of the time for developing software that people want to use. It's a terrible model for anything that requires a decent user experience, that is why Linux has succeeded so well in embedded and server but failed so dramatically in the mess of hundreds of desktops all with their own shitty attempts at creating a usable system. Even Google realized that leaving it to other people to create custom flavors of Android just creates a gigantic fragmented mess and they are now locking things down with proprietary software and requirements on their design.

    43. Re: Time to switch by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      Azure runs Linux VMs clueless one (and Windows, I know.) Again, Microsoft is even leveraging Linux. Regarding no money in the consumer space, I'll let Gates know he's broke, but I doubt hell believe me. And I never said anything about money anyway. The topic was what "the world runs on".

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    44. Re: Time to switch by lucm · · Score: 1

      Azure runs Linux VMs clueless one (and Windows, I know.)

      Ok maybe it'd be best for you to dial down a bit the "clueless" thing, you're not even doing it right.

      When it comes to Azure, whether a company pays $0.25 per hour to run a Linux or Windows server, the money goes to the same place. I honestly don't know why someone would choose Windows Server but it's apparently a thing since Windows Server licensing went up 46% last year. A fair chunk of that is coming from AWS customers.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    45. Re:Time to switch by atomlib · · Score: 1

      Actually, OneDrive space that Office 365 subscription provides may be cheaper. Google and Dropbox both have tebibyte plans starting from $100 per year. OfficeÂ365 has $100 yearly plan for 5 users (each gets 1 TiB of OneDrive, the entire Office package, and 60 Skype minutes), or $70 plan for a single user. I know not everyone needs a whole tebibyte. That's why I said it may be cheaper.

    46. Re:Time to switch by hughbar · · Score: 1

      Carry on! Same AC troll as last time this came up. I've used a Linux desktop since 2007 (hence my remarks above concerning Open Office/Libre Office) and use it everyday for everything, except music. I still have Pro-Tools for the that but I hope to go to Ardour this year.

      --
      On y va, qui mal y pense!
    47. Re: Time to switch by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      Why am I going to "dial down" my description of what you keep dialing up? In fact you have dialed it to 12 now. Spinal Tap would be proud of you. Nobody is taking about money but you dumbfuck.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    48. Re:Time to switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you run the other popular operating system, full installs of Pages, Numbers and Keynote come with it.

      And you are forced into Apple's update cycle. Why do people complain about M$ doing the same thing.

    49. Re: Time to switch by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      Also - putting all your docs online is a risk - it means that M$ can read all your documents and get access to all your business strategies.

      We've looked at cloud services and do use Office 365. One thing that Microsoft really stands out from many of the other cloud services is their willingness to sign business agreements as well as HIPAA agreements and follow those regulations as given to them by our legal. It seems that they'll sign off on what we require of them and be up and running using their services before any of the others, including smaller application vendors activity trying to sell us their wares, can hash out the agreements and sign a contract.

    50. Re: Time to switch by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      A single Exchange server should scale to 500 users pretty easily -- at $35 month, you're making a $175,000 commitment or $525,000 over 3 years. The office and Exchange licensing for on-prem isn't $525,000.

      Seems that you'd spend that $175k/year just on your administrator, let alone also the actual hardware, power, data center space, etc. And you get server storage space too with OneDrive for Business and the user can manage their own permissions. Then it also includes Office suite plus user options to install on their personal computers and mobiles devices. Skype for Business works even if other things do work better, you have it also for everybody in the company. Add in that it is probably all tied into most business' volume licensing they are already getting.

    51. Re: Time to switch by swb · · Score: 1

      Bahaha, what's this full time Exchange admin you speak of? It's not 1998 and we're not struggling to keep a Exchange 5,5 box running on dedicated hardware anymore.

      There is no Exchange admin anymore, at least not at any company under 1000 users or with fewer than a couple of servers. That work is done by the same admin team that manages AD, file sharing, etc, and is mostly part time.

      If Exchange was your sample company's only server, then I totally agree O365 is ideal. But in most medium sized companies Exchange server isn't even a drop in the bucket anymore unless you're doing something really stupid with journaling. In the era of virtualization, the data center space, power, hardware, and nearly all the expertise is already purchased.

      The marginal cost to run Exchange is trivial if you already have this infrastructure in place. The O365 math is based on these false ideas about "dedicated admins" and a bunch of dedicated hardware that went away years ago. In any organization not run by retards, running Exchange competently shouldn't be a major burden.

      If you're running enough mailboxes/servers for Exchange that you can justify a dedicated admin (which I assume would be dozens of servers, many DAGs, a real complex mess) I'm not sure if O365 is a "fix" at that point, either, because now you're talking such a large userbase that the O365 licensing gets into real serious money.

  3. Libreoffice is a thing by steak · · Score: 4, Interesting

    free too.

    1. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Needs Java. That's a show stopper

    2. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because Java sucks. That should be good enough reason for anybody. And you should know better than to ask such a silly question. There is only one true language

    3. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dad?

    4. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Woow. Really? Everyone else just said it was the worst experience they ever had.

    5. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I really like LibreOffice, but it's simply not a replacement. Recently, on my mac, when I attempt to open a document from finder, LibreOffice attempts to verify itself, fails and a pop-up asks if I would like to move it to the trash. I have redownloaded newer versions and it still does this. If I open LibreOffice, then switch to the application (because it seems to open behind everything now) and open the document, everything works fine. Seems like a small thing, but it's super annoying. In a business, how many man hours do you think would be wasted to trivial bugs and annoyances over a year's time? Almost certainly more labor cost than the price of a better tool (MS Office).

    6. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by squiggleslash · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is about Microsoft's non-subscription version of Office being able to access the corporate version of OneDrive, so LibreOffice won't help here.

      It'd be interesting to see the FOSS community come up with an equivalent to OneDrive (if we could somehow do it without needing a central server, that'd be a major step forward) but a FOSS office suite isn't going to help.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    7. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by sexconker · · Score: 4, Funny

      There is only one true language

      Yup. BASIC.

    8. Re: Libreoffice is a thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have to agree... it is not a complete replacement for MS Office. Try building something similar to an access database within the confines of Libre. If it can be done... good luck doing it in a reasonable time frame.

    9. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If all docs were made with Libre Office we'd have less compatibility problems (usually problems arise when MS office stuff is read in anything else ; not the opposite). Users need to change their habits.

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    10. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by westlake · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The problem is "that thing" is the generic stand-alone office suite of the nineties. Sans Outlook. Which is not what you are looking for if you are shopping around for alternatives to the corporate editions of Office365.

    11. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by KiloByte · · Score: 4, Informative

      Needs Java. That's a show stopper

      Not needs. It has some extra Java doodads that you could install had you a nasty mental breakdown.

      On Debian, it's not even a Recommends but a mere Suggests. On Windows, the checkbox is ticked by default but you can clear it.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    12. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by aktw · · Score: 1

      If you're shopping around for alternatives to the corporate edition of Office 365, then you probably don't actually care about the integrated OneDrive or Skype functionality, which means these changes really won't affect you in the first place. I agree that LibreOffice is pretty crappy for people who expect Microsoft Office functionality and polish, but the point is irrelevant for this topic.

    13. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      Cobol FTW!

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    14. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I do like LibreOffice, but if you want a web-based one there is Open365 is also a thing, too Check it out here.

    15. Re: Libreoffice is a thing by chentiangemalc · · Score: 1

      Pretty much my feeling after experimenting with LibreOffice for a few weeks. Such a painful user experience vs Office 2016

    16. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by aix+tom · · Score: 1

      It'd be interesting to see the FOSS community come up with an equivalent to OneDrive (if we could somehow do it without needing a central server, that'd be a major step forward).

      I think they did some years ago, it's called "git". It of course lacks the snazzy guy and the marketing department. ;-)

    17. Re: Libreoffice is a thing by Cornwallis · · Score: 1

      You're kidding, right? Access?

    18. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If all docs were made with Libre Office we'd have less compatibility problems (usually problems arise when MS office stuff is read in anything else ; not the opposite).

      MSOffice sucks at importing as well. I have a beautiful spreadsheet that I created in LibreOffice Calc. Uses some regular expressions in vlookup (yeah, a database would have been better, but I didn't create the underlying structure so that's not an option).

      I imported the LibreOffice spreadsheet into the latest Excel. It imported and gave a warning that regular expressions may be interpreted differently. Needless to say there is a significant difference in how the regular expressions were interpreted.

    19. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by yuvcifjt · · Score: 1

      Not sure why it was down-modded, but its completely true: LibreOffice has so many bugs and strange quirks that it drives you crazy!

      Something as simple as bullet points and modifying paragraphs spacing or adjusting the indentation on the ruler is enough to reveal its many flaws. I spent hours just playing with those settings trying to get the layout right on a basic document (CV), and although I eventually fixed it. I vowed never again to torture myself and just go back to MS Office.

      At least I can say that I speak from experience, just like the time-waste that is the so-called "Linux desktop experience".

      I guess the saying "Linux is only free if your time has no worth", also applies to LibreOffice, thus, it would absolutely suck for businesses and normal users.

    20. Re: Libreoffice is a thing by BellyJelly · · Score: 1

      So this is a true story. I work for a small-ish company that had an MBO. We were tight with money because we had to be, and for legacy reasons had been using Lotus Smartsuite. No really - don't laugh. We still have loads of old documents we need to access occasionally in wordpro or 123 format. Anyway, I installed open>libreoffice on everyones desktop. And the vast majority of users were happy with it. By happy, I mean didn't give a fuck since most users only do basic stuff. But a very small minority of users complained very loudly. They claimed there were things they absolutely needed to do, that they couldn't do on Libreoffice. When I asked them to explain in detail what exactly so I could help (or at least understand), they never quite got round to telling me. Eventually a new boss was appointed. He listened to the minority of loud complainers then added his own experience of MS Office only, and decided we needed to "upgrade our desktop IT". This was justified because it would "save money" and "improve morale". So now everyone now has Office 2016, legally purchased of course. The funny thing is, it turns out that the loud complainers who didn't know how to do stuff in Libreoffice don't know how to do it in MS Office 2016 either. And the previously happy regular users who never needed any training to use Libreoffice because thier last experience of MS Office was circa 2003, now want training to learn how to use Office 2016.

    21. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by 0123456 · · Score: 1

      "Something as simple as bullet points and modifying paragraphs spacing or adjusting the indentation on the ruler is enough to reveal its many flaws"

      How strange. That's exactly what I could have said about Word.

      And at least I can figure out where to find things in LibreOffice, whereas I can never tell where anything will be hidden in Word's 'Ribbon'.

    22. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      git is a tiny fraction of what's needed to replace OneDrive - unsurprising given it's a source code version control/management system. If you were to start from scratch creating a OneDrive alternative, you'd probably start with Apache, not git. Add versioning and more advanced permissions to Apache's WebDAV implementation, a web interface to the same directory (preferably linked to something capable of at least viewing Word etc documents online), and client tools to sync with Apache, and you're pretty close to being there.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    23. Re: Libreoffice is a thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would you want a thing just because you know such a thing exists? If something can be done it still does not mean it should be done.

      Try doing something useful with some useful tools for a change. Access is waste of time and deep down you know it.

    24. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by aix+tom · · Score: 1

      That's of course true if your design goal is to run it and on a central server.

      I must confess at the moment the "central server" structure that a cheap Synology at home offers is enough for me (I can mount the drives in Windows and Linux locally or over the Internet via ssh, and also access them via a web interface) . But some years back I listened to a very interesting "Gitify your Life" speech of someone who manages everything from shell configs, to office documents to holiday photos in a central-server-less structure in GIT repositories on different machines. Which has the added benefit that you don't have a central server that can lose your data.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    25. Re:Libreoffice is a thing by yuvcifjt · · Score: 1

      Also agree with you - I also absolutely hate the damned ribbon! :)

      But I'm not referring to the UI, in fact, I really like the UI of LibreOffice compared to MS Office!

      Rather, what I meant is that LibreOffice is really buggy and behaves counter-intuitive, like the examples I gave + many others; such as advanced style management and assigning a style to a paragraph, only to find out it sometimes partially applies it, while maintaining other rules, and other times it correctly overrides the style with those defined - and countless other quirks and frustrating things such as this.

  4. MS Office only when required by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What else are the doing with your work?

    1. Re:MS Office only when required by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they are creating smart traps to detect what virii and bacteria you are spreading

  5. Yet another reason to go FOSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    Could someone remind me of the actual benefits to using Office nowadays compared to a FOSS alternative.

    Aside from the fact that Office has essentially taken older files hostage with propriety file formats.

    1. Re:Yet another reason to go FOSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The benefit is not looking like a homeless peasant. The cost of Office amoritized is peanuts compared to even a single employee's weekly salary.

    2. Re: Yet another reason to go FOSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You're forgetting the cost of the workstation license, plus the license to allow the workstation to communicate with the server. Then there's the exchange licenses and the Outlook licenses... Then the license to allow the client and sever to communicate. Follow that up with av licenses, oh, don't forget the 'advanced' CALs for a lot of exchange features. Then there are support incident costs because windows admins are incompetent. Oh, and time to buy new hardware because MS is preventing you from getting updates unless you buy a new version of Windows or a new PC with a new version of Windows. Surprise, it's time to buy new CALs again. Time to drive a dump truck full of gold bricks up to the Redmond campus again.

    3. Re: Yet another reason to go FOSS by art123 · · Score: 2

      Every single thing you said about licenses and CALs goes out the window with Office 365 enterprise subscriptions because it is rented by the month. And if you don't like Windows it also runs on Mac and subsets run on iOS and Android.

    4. Re:Yet another reason to go FOSS by Vskye · · Score: 1

      Clippy? Lol

      --
      Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
    5. Re:Yet another reason to go FOSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Outlook is the main reason MS Office is still alive. If there was a free email client with similar calendar functionality, the Office could be replaced everywhere. Microsoft itself has already pissed their customers with broken UI (ribbon) and monthly subscription, so a move would be fast if there was a real alternative.

    6. Re:Yet another reason to go FOSS by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 1

      Best practice for business continuity is to use a product with a support contract behind it.

      Yes it rarely breaks, and local IT usually fixes it via StackExchange or Social.Msdn searches. But when you don't have an answer, you can say your admin is on the phone with support, and it's no longer your job on the line.

      I realise that most linux advocates don't experience nor understand this type of Fortune 500 corporate culture, but this is the decision engine for Microsoft's terrible direction in most things. Purchasing Office is a cost with benefits that outweigh the cost of not having it. It's operational overhead, and no one will question the decision.

      Ideology, future state, compatibility, and all the rest are simply not a factor.

      The decision to make the OS and development tools and Office more appy, and mobile friendly, is largely because business will buy it anyway, and the admins get no say, especially when support ends for the non shite version.

      Business continuity above all else.

  6. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  7. Misinformation by Lirodon · · Score: 1

    This only applies if you are connecting to Office 365-hosted versions of these services with a non-Office 365 version of Office. But still...

  8. Seems reasonable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    o365 actually has a lot of great security controls - check out lockbox (and customer lockbox), BYOK and HYOK for examples , maybe u are too dumb to understand how crypto works, but it's good. seriously , MS is doing it right

    1. Re:Seems reasonable by manu0601 · · Score: 1

      maybe u are too dumb to understand how crypto works

      Are you sure you are going to convince people if you call them dumb in advance for any objection?

    2. Re: Seems reasonable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      most people are goddamn idiots that don't understand key management or how crypto actually works.

    3. Re:Seems reasonable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Microsoft's crypto is handled by Microsoft. If they want to get at your shit, they can. If someone forces them to get your shit for them, they can. If someone can impersonate you or them to the system, they can get at your shit. If you're trying to encrypt your office docs, that needs to all be done locally, and certainly not by something made by Microsoft.

    4. Re:Seems reasonable by slacklinejoe · · Score: 1

      No, that's not how HYOK works. Even an national security letter could at best turn over a blob of encrypted storage. It's kind of cumbersome to set up, but for most orgs even with significant security concerns BYOK is a reasonable balance.

    5. Re:Seems reasonable by jon3k · · Score: 1

      maybe u are too dumb

      Maybe one of us is.

  9. Sour the milk by DigiShaman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Fuck you Microsoft. Fuck you for allowing OEM copies of Office to be purchased with a machine, but require it to be activated against an email address!!

    Pro Tip: create an email distribution group of say software@domain.com and make IT staff members of it.

    Fuck you for now allowing us to mix Office365 apps with OEM!

    And Fuck you for making this such a miserable experience to deploy across the network as needed.

    Oh, and FUCK YOU...just because for good measure!!!

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
    1. Re:Sour the milk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      fuck you microsoft for requiring cell phone verification to login to your old computer that you haven't used in a while

    2. Re:Sour the milk by 0123456 · · Score: 2

      And yet, people still use this shit.

      How badly does he have to beat you before you finally admit that no, he doesn't love you. Not really.

    3. Re:Sour the milk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Never mind deploying it. Have you ever had to use this garbage buggy software? We're forced to use Microsoft software at work. I've been using computers for five decades, and Microsoft's software is the worst I have ever used.

    4. Re:Sour the milk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      when you have a de facto monopoly and have had for decades you can get away with this sort of shit. microsoft's been doing it since the very beginning.. shitting on people, users, workers, and vendors, since before DOS, even, actually. and those little slaps on the wrist from EU and US courts and regulators don't even register. it's always business as usual and 'how much more can we get away with?'

      if only apple wanted to be a hardware company. they could slash the prices on theirs and really give microsoft (and intel, and dell, and hp, and lenovo) a nice big shit-in-the-pants scare... but they are too busy and too content collecting advances from carriers and 30% on digital goods.

      not saying apple is actually a viable alternative.. they aren't really. they're just one of two companies in a position, today, to actually make a move. google being the other, but they're too busy spying on everybody.

    5. Re:Sour the milk by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      No, Microsoft Fucks You! If you have to have every single feature that Office offers then you are their bitch. Admit it, bend over, get in position and spread those cheeks. Otherwise you can opt for something else and be free.

    6. Re:Sour the milk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There's one vendor out there we use with a "hybrid hosted exchange" setup that can do both office 365 hosted exchange and basic e-mail on the same domain. Cost of their basic pop mailboxes is 1/5th that of a hosted exchange mailbox. Point being, we only use hosted exchange for users who travel, and having the subscription version makes sense due to the issues you run into running old versions of outlook on newer exchange servers. We've run into issues as well, like a 500 folders limit\100k items per folder.

      For the bulk of our PC's, we use the pop mailboxes with a local copy of outlook and run the PC's for 7 years. This is a very cost-effective setup for us. Exchange is overkill for 90% of users out there and a tremendous waste at large enterprises.

      What's REALLY amazing is that in this day and age, I can't get a calendaring, notes, and reminders app that can sync between my phone and computer. It's hosted exchange or bust. Now THAT is BS.

    7. Re:Sour the milk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Agreed! They don't even ship with CD's anymore just a little product key on a little card. Registering each machine in a small business is a nightmare, absolute nightmare. It used to be so easy, now it literally takes me 1.5 billable hours per machine just to install MS Office. Plus you have to register an dummy email address for a company and you're only permitted 5 product keys per email address. For a business with 10-20 workstations that's just god awful implementation.

      SMALL BUSINESSES CAN'T AFFORD 365 FOR ALL OF THEIR PC'S. The subscription model costs 3X more than just buying Office plus it has an associated cost for IT to install it, not to mention it isn't HIPAA compliant because of cloud BS. It's like Microsoft has completely forgotten how to make software that businesses actually want to use. I mean that's how their company started, it's what they did best, and why the entire world used their software. It was easy to install, easy to customize, and easy to administrate.

      I hate Microsoft products now especially as an administrator. It's infuriating that they are costing businesses a huge chunk of time, effort, and money. OMG that automatic Windows 10 upgrade scheme they pulled made a lot of my clients want to sue Microsoft. There is a cost for time and money and MS cost the entire world a TON of it with that move and many others like it since. If MS continues on this route they will go bankrupt when a suitable alternative comes along because people are growing to hate them more than King Joffrey from Game of Thrones.

    8. Re:Sour the milk by fnj · · Score: 1

      And yet, people still use this shit.

      The mentally deficient boobs will always be with us.

    9. Re:Sour the milk by Serge_Tomiko · · Score: 3

      Office365 costs at most $40 per month. For a small business, it is more like $15 to $20 per month. What kind of business are you running where you can't afford that? Honestly, most small businesses SAVE a great deal of money with Office 365 because they don't need bumbling administrators.

    10. Re: Sour the milk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      He is also totally wrong about HIPAA compliance, but why let facts stand in the way.

    11. Re:Sour the milk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "they will go bankrupt when a suitable alternative comes along"

      I don't think it will take that long.
      SOX will get them first.
      As soon as their business model collides with corporate governance responsibility, they are done.
      It really lowers the bar for a suitable alternative when they make themselves unsuitable.

      They appear to be digging this hole as fast as they can.

      Either get the popcorn and watch the show, or make a simple decent office alternative and retire.

    12. Re:Sour the milk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apple? You're kidding right? Apple is one of the few companies that screws over its customers more than Microsoft does. The funny thing is that while most MS users see them (MS) as a necessary evil, Apple users beg for more.

    13. Re: Sour the milk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HIPAA compliance needs a plan, confidentiality, and custody. Using cloud anything where the host can see what is going in, out, through, or stored in their own systems is not HIPAA compliant in regard to PHI. Can anyone see data that is being sent or stored in Office365 that is not explicitly allowed to do so by the patient? If that answer is yes then Office365 isn't complaint.

      The answer is yes, but why let the law we are discussing stand in the way when you can post an unseasoned falsehood and get modded up instead?

    14. Re: Sour the milk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Once again. Please explain to me how Apple is screwing over customers? The price for their computers? It's a small price to pay for a competent operating system. Spying? I run a firewall and little snitch on all my macs and have not seen any forced spying the way M$ or Google does.

      So please jump off of apples dick and keep using your M$ junk and leave us alone.

    15. Re: Sour the milk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1100 users x 25 a month, you do the math dipshit.

    16. Re:Sour the milk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I make account pc53@domain.tld they all end up in an admin "spam" box. I still don't understand why they want everyone to switch to a rented model. Autodesk is pushing hard to do the same. Sure it's nice to have a predictable income, and users can't skip a version and not pay that year, but at least for Autodesk, most users had subscription and had no option to skip a year anyway. But when a competitor comes along with a reasonable alternative, all of your users could switch within a year, without any risk, because they can always switch bask since there is no software "investment". there revenue could dry up completely within a year, they may think there software is so good that people won't switch even if there was no lock-in of software investments, but that isn't the case for Microsoft and Autodesk. I can't believe investors went for the short-term rent income at the cost of the future of the companies.

    17. Re: Sour the milk by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      HIPAA compliance needs a plan, confidentiality, and custody. Using cloud anything where the host can see what is going in, out, through, or stored in their own systems is not HIPAA compliant in regard to PHI. Can anyone see data that is being sent or stored in Office365 that is not explicitly allowed to do so by the patient? If that answer is yes then Office365 isn't complaint.

      The answer is yes, but why let the law we are discussing stand in the way when you can post an unseasoned falsehood and get modded up instead?

      The answer is that I work at a hospital that is using Office 365 for all employees and there are others I know of in the area also. Microsoft's Office 365 is HIPAA compliant and for cloud services they are more willing to sign off on those business agreements and HIPAA forms than others. The only issue was that their mobile Outlook app was not HIPAA compliant because it stored the password someplace it shouldn't. That was fixed a while back. Please AC, can you just stop trolling us? It's not like you even need to hide your identity on /. to spread false MS information.

  10. Two words: Open Office by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Two words: Open Office

  11. Office programs Office365 by FrankHaynes · · Score: 2

    Outlook e-mail in the Office365 "cloud" is horrid and featureless. Click to Flag a message? It dutifully flags it with NO OPTIONS for setting a reminder popup or anything. Useless! I'm sticking with real Outlook running on my computer under my control.

    I'm glad all these nitrogen-cooled 53 terahertz PCs are becoming little more than dumb terminals for whatever crap a web programmer sees fit to jam down our browser's throat.

    --
    slashdot: A failed experiment.
  12. Re:Two words: Open Office by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You should really look into libreoffice, open office is effectively dead.

  13. Commerical, and only affects current Office 365 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Read the real story, not some stupid 3rd party blog.

    Firstly, this is ONLY commercial Office 365 cloud services -- essentially, OneDrive For Business (effectively hosted SharePoint) - not to be confused with OneDrive for consumer (completely different) and hosted exchange. CONSUMER SERVICES ARE UNAFFECTED.

    If I am understanding this correctly, the ONLY people affected are companies that [a] paying for Office 365 subscriptions (otherwise they would have no access to Office 365's hosted services); but also [b] not using the Office 365 included distribution of the Office software.

    The push here is to get enterprises moving and use the Office 365 version of Office instead of whatever old version they bought as a one off -- you don't get to use Outlook 2013 to talk to Office365 exchange, you use the 'evergreen' Office 365 version of Outlook. Any enterprise that's simply using the 'current click to run' version of Office 365 is unaffected.

    Consumers and people not using Office 365 services are NOT AFFECTED. People with Office 365 subscriptions using the Office 365 software are not affected. This is absolutely no different to any other service with a dedicated client that insists your client software is kept up to date. Netflix makes the exact same demand, for example, and nobody complains about THAT.

    Absolutely nobody is required to pay any money for this -- you are either already paying for the new version (with your office 365 subscription) or you can't access the services you're not paying for ANYWAY. The only people affected are those paying for Office 365 but not using Office 365 version of the software that they are already paying for. That is literally IT.

    1. Re:Commerical, and only affects current Office 365 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This.

    2. Re:Commerical, and only affects current Office 365 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which describes my employer, and practically every other stupid employer out there.

    3. Re:Commerical, and only affects current Office 365 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do they promise? In writing? I doubt this will be true in 2020 as they will be trying to shove OneDrive Business down my throat at work still. Office 2016 made it so I can't pin local folders, instead you can only pin only OneDrive locations. Things will continue in this direction until, by 2020 they will make it completely miserable to use local files.

    4. Re:Commerical, and only affects current Office 365 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Consumers and people not using Office 365 services are NOT AFFECTED.

      This week.

  14. We've spent six figures on addons... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So if they block us from using them, we'll have to sue. Blocking them will kill us.

    1. Re: We've spent six figures on addons... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same here. We have strict compliance requirements, and if MSFT blocks addins then we will have to seek other options.

    2. Re: We've spent six figures on addons... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This. My company operates in a very highly regulated environment, and if Microsoft stops allowing us to use add-ins, then we must stop using them.

    3. Re: We've spent six figures on addons... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Same here, but we're limited to Office 2007 since Microsoft refuses to document newer versions. I get that they fired all of their good employees, but they at least need to document changes.

    4. Re: We've spent six figures on addons... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This will kill us.

    5. Re: We've spent six figures on addons... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I worked on the ISO standard, we don't understand Word file formats even ourselves.

    6. Re: We've spent six figures on addons... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft wants to punish people that trusted them. They hate us.

    7. Re:We've spent six figures on addons... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft is about three decades and fifty billion dollars past caring.

    8. Re: We've spent six figures on addons... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So what, nobody needs your grotty business.

  15. MS Office WebDAV support by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    I wonder if that means they are going to push an "update" to cripple MS Office WebDAV support.

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

    And, I call them that instead of 365 since they've averaged that much downtime the past three years that we've used them, Microsoft just doesn't get that we need software that works. Between my friends that work there for $12 per hour in QA and the many more that were fired in QA because Microsoft doesn't even want to try, there's no reason to use their low quality garbage.

  17. Re: Commerical, and only affects current Office 36 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Right, but he's getting paid.

  18. Why pay the Microsoft tax? by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    SOON: The Windows OS will be rented, not sold, apparently. That would be one more abuse, of many.

    This is being accepted: Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. Quote: "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC."

    So, I'm guessing Microsoft managers think, "That worked. We will try another abuse."

    One thing I've learned over the years is that Slashdot commenters are generally not good at reacting to abuse. Slashdot commenters make excuses, or react to abuse weakly. Also, for many Slashdot commenters there is a conflict of interest: They make more money if Windows is more difficult to administer and use.

    Slowly increasing the number and severity of abuses causes many people to make multiple excuses, effectively accepting Microsoft's abusiveness.

    However, Microsoft managers seem to lack social ability. The abusiveness of many of the features of Windows 10 are like a multi-billion-dollar advertising campaign that very effectively says, "Dislike Microsoft products". One of the many examples: Trying to imitate Google and sell "Apps", but to business users that don't want employees distracted.

    One possible solution: All countries could support ReactOS so that the Windows OS can be eliminated.

    No company should be allowed to have a virtual monopoly! Companies that are routinely abusive should be re-organized or eliminated.

    Quote from the parent comment: "I've been using a combination of Google Apps and LibreOffice for years, never looked back and don't miss MS at all. Several of the businesses I consult for have switched entirely to Google Apps..."

    Several years ago, I spent several hours writing something in Microsoft Word. Later I discovered that Microsoft Word was not able to open its own file! Luckily, I could open the file in Libre Office.

    The parent comment is correct. Let's find other methods of doing our work. Don't rely on a habitual abuser.

    Let's have a multi-national effort to improve Libre Office, especially the somewhat sloppy and limited user interface.

    Why should all the countries in the world pay the Microsoft tax? The United States was founded because of refusing to pay an abusive tax.

    1. Re:Why pay the Microsoft tax? by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      Slashdot commenters are generally not good at reacting to abuse.

      So the proper response is to join the NRA and come out with all guns blazing? Didn't work out well for Jimmy Cliff, did it (I here, but I disappear)?

      Come on, we have all switched to Linux, moaned about Unity till it was scrapped, and use LibreOffice or Google. I have had Linux on my desktop since 1776. Looks like we are doing reasonably well.

      YMMV

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    2. Re:Why pay the Microsoft tax? by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      One thing I've learned over the years is that Slashdot commenters are generally not good at reacting to abuse. Slashdot commenters make excuses, or react to abuse weakly.

      I see the last 20 years have done nothing to dampen your idealism, good for you but maybe an ounce of reality wouldn't hurt? Back then your data was local, you had the executable and the only thing you didn't have was the source code to inspect it. Even though things like email went from your server to their server instead of peer to peer, things were pretty distributed and decentralized. Having access to the source code was mostly about being able to fix and extend it, not that it did something nasty.

      Not only have consumers ignored open source solutions, they've gone totally the other way. Much of their data lives in the cloud, where they have no control of what's done with it. They use huge, centralized services like Facebook that collects a ton of data. Auto-updating devices download and install new executable code all the time and often rely on online servers. People don't care that they're being tracked and in many cases even accuse those who object of having something to hide. They sign away all rights in mile-long EULAs without thought.

      We've ranted. We've raged. We've raised the banners and tried to proclaim YotLD many times. XPs online activation in 2001. Slammer & friends in 2003. Vista in 2006. "Trusted Computing" sometime late 2000s. Windows 8 in 2012. Windows 10 in 2015. Stealth telemetry in all VS apps in 2016. I'm sure there's many more things I've forgotten. I'm sure there's bad things about Apple, Google, Adobe and many others. We've raged out. It's like "OMG OMG Microsoft is... wait, what's the point? Why is anyone going to listen now, when they never have in the past?"

      They earn billions of dollars that way. And in between screwing us over they sometime make pretty good software, so yeah... maybe open source is more efficient but one idealist versus a hundred paid developers is unfair teams. So I run Win7 and I got an iPhone. Should it have been Linux and a rooted Android phone? Maybe. But like I said, raged out. If I can't even stand the hassle myself, it's pretty hard to ask anyone else to fight a fight I feel is pretty hopeless. Pretty sure I'm not the only disillusioned ex-revolutionary here.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:Why pay the Microsoft tax? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SOON: The Windows OS will be rented, not sold, apparently. That would be one more abuse, of many.

      But you see it isn't "abuse", that is just idiotic hyperbole you use to try and serve your agenda. I need to run programs to do work, I don't care what operating system they run on and I don't mind if I have to pay for those programs or that OS or the hardware I run them on or the electricity to run them, etc.

      If i switch to Linux my programs wont run and I wont be able to do work, Im not some idealist on the religion of how computer programs should be licensed (like 99.9999+% of the population), it is just a tool to do a job. If a decent tool were available running on Linux then sure I would consider switching but for all the decades of pontificating on the virtues of innovative free software it is all just poor attempts to clone the proprietary software that came before it.

      **That** right there is the problem, if you want change then stop whining and start actually making good innovative software.

    4. Re:Why pay the Microsoft tax? by evansvillelinux · · Score: 1

      But like I said, raged out. If I can't even stand the hassle myself, it's pretty hard to ask anyone else to fight a fight I feel is pretty hopeless. Pretty sure I'm not the only disillusioned ex-revolutionary here.

      No, you're not. Welcome to the club.

      --
      IMHO, IANAL, TINLA, etc...
  19. That would sorta defeat the purpose by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    what's on offer here is Microsoft's cloud backup service & Skype, which were free with certain standalone copies of Office. Offsite backups of your Spreadsheets is a big deal for some users, especially small businesses. And if you're non-technical the monthly fees are made up for in less downtime and not paying the local tech to periodically recover lost data.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re: That would sorta defeat the purpose by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But surely, breaking the chain, and taking control of your own off site backups would be even better.

  20. Everything is Subscription Model by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    All companies want to move towards a subscription model, even if it makes no sense. Want a cup of coffee? Subscribe to our monthly coffee packs. Glass of juice? Monthly subscription for juice packs. None of that makes sense, except from a business perspective, where they want a constant, regular stream of revenue.

    1. Re:Everything is Subscription Model by aktw · · Score: 2

      Makes more sense than you might think. The problem is that people look at each "solution" and assume it's aimed at them. When it doesn't make sense, they criticize the fundamentals of that solution without realizing that it might very well be helping some group of people. Even take something silly sounding like juice packet subscriptions; there's probably a fairly healthy (no pun intended) market of people who would love to pay a little extra for the convenience of not having to purchase/prep/store fresh fruits to be used in their juice drink things. Obviously someone who doesn't have a lot of disposable income or is old and crotchety enough to instinctively hate change won't be that target audience, but it doesn't mean there is none. People generally do like flat subscriptions for things when the alternative is dealing with period billing minutiae. Maybe you remember when your internet was billed hourly? How about keeping track of your long distance minutes? Lastly, as an IT provider, I've been kind of happy to see things migrate to subscriptions if for no other reason than it forces companies to stop trying to squeeze 10 to 20 years out of software because they refuse to spent money on their business upfront (instead choosing to spend in the back-end via IT support for the out of date environment).

    2. Re: Everything is Subscription Model by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some people prefer to buy/own their cars/phones/houses/, while others prefer to rent them or always pay a monthly fee for them. Different strokes.

  21. This is not "pursading" by evolutionary · · Score: 1

    It's bullying! Let's call it what it is. If you use stand along version of office, we'll cut you off. In other words, pay us monthly fee in perpetuity, or we penalize you. The Anti-trust groups should be getting involved in this one. Libreoffice is free and has worked well for me for years. SO does Jitsu for Internet calls. Skype just throws ads at you while it's open.

    --
    "Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
  22. Sure, why not? by XSportSeeker · · Score: 1

    Ah yes, your periodic flavor of Microsoft schizophrenia...
    Force people to pay subscription for Office, push ads in every nook and cranny of your OS, make more product lineups no one cares for, be the first to introduce hated intrusive privacy destroying telemetry features right on the core of Windows, use some of the dirtiest tactics on the book to fool costumers into upgrading their OS version to the latest... I've never seen such an impressive implosion showcase.

  23. Office365 a pile of downgraded shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    fuck off MS
    365 is a pile of shit
    it's unstable, and has the wrong (subset) of features of office. I mean just look at the disaster Outlook 365 is!!!

    Just to be clear, the subset that google apps offer works very well indeed. I guess MS are just not good at making software....

  24. "Enjoying"? by Rudisaurus · · Score: 1

    [...] when customers connect to Office 365 services using a legacy version of Office, "they're not enjoying all that the service has to offer."

    "Enjoy" is not a word I normally associate with using Microsoft software. "Endure" is better

    --
    licet differant, aequabitur
  25. Terms change after purchase by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And there you go. Microsoft changes the features and terms of your usage of the products you purchase, after you purchase them, whether you rent or buy.

  26. Re:Office programs Office365 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'm glad all these nitrogen-cooled 53 terahertz PCs are becoming little more than dumb terminals for whatever crap a web programmer sees fit to jam down our browser's throat.

    This so much, it's infuriating. Web development in general is a clusterfuck of stupid ideas and needless "innovation" that completely negates any and all need for technological advancement and positive change. Why bother manufacturing those cutting-edge consumer CPUs if companies are just gonna put everything in the cloud and remove/discourage standalone alternatives?

    When multiple tab support was gaining traction in web browsers, web "developers" would just use flash/JS for their menus anyway preventing you from opening stuff in new tabs. But look at the eye candy! Flash is on its way out, let's make webpages unresponsive and bloated using 20 JS frameworks to produce the same result instead! Oh, and make sure there's no pagination, infinite scrolling all the way! So what if the webpage starts freezing your entire browser if you scroll down too much, who cares... Disgusting. I despise modern web and the practices it encourages.

  27. This will probably fuck with Zotero by blind+biker · · Score: 2

    In principle this could prevent me from writing my scientific manuscripts with Word. On the other hand, nobody forces me to use the newest version of Word. Kind of to probe a point (but mostly because I like it more), I use Word 2007 to author all the manuscripts we publish. There really aren't any compelling reasons for me to upgrade to the new versions of Office.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    1. Re:This will probably fuck with Zotero by fnj · · Score: 1

      I use Word 2007

      I failed to ever see any reason to upgrade beyond Office 97. In fact TeX is the way to go.

    2. Re:This will probably fuck with Zotero by blind+biker · · Score: 1

      I use Word 2007

      I failed to ever see any reason to upgrade beyond Office 97. In fact TeX is the way to go.

      TeX is not the way to go when the journal provides a Word document template.

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  28. children's story #3845252 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Once upon a time there was an office suite who kept having exploits but was okay I guess, not free though, but getting work done. then one day when everything was all going fine and people were just about starting to learn to get adept at adapting the office suite with programming it to do just about most need that can be thought of, they decide to mix things up and change the way things were with nice ribbon, or so it was said, just like the start button, and just like Sadam's wmd. Over the years there were several disruptions like this, I forget when or why, it really doesn't matter now, in the end everyone had enough. Because the old black and white photos from the 1800's are lasting longer than the new CD's from 1996 which is sadly going to make vapor out of family history

    anyway after years of abuses, many said, "later gator", and were simultaneous bailing out of a lot of oracle and java life-boats, finally freedom accidentally got dropped into the blender with the frogs and office suites. For the price of now we are cookin. I can read .doc, write .doc, and freaking theme it in the same look as my Pimpzilla--- No? er Walnut2 ... No? er well like my firefox persona, (themes which feel and sound like a emotional problems that most psycho's have) wait it's confusing can I go back? yes with freedom you are free to go back and if you don't thank god, thank the team who stuffs it all into a rar or zip. As seen on /. all the primary players ground the names up in the blender with a book and out spewed, libraoffice, damn can't have women win, made it female , I mean men, male libreoffice. et viola! time for vodsky as fravia used to say Now the spirit of the book can be spread as confetti through the office, just like those checks going to "As Ol Bill saw it" before truth and freedom rang and people started drinking RO water instead of all that.

    Stay tuned, Rocky is going to pull a rabbit out of his pants. Yes, over and over again in HD!

  29. "Daring people people to switch to Linux"? by DrXym · · Score: 1
    Perhaps they're daring people to switch to another office product. I don't see how the operating system underneath is of much relevance. Even from that measure, it seems like this move is targeted at companies using an installed product with a business cloud storage. So if someone were to flip office suites, what alternatives are there for that?

    I think the LibreOffice team should be looking at where MS Office is going with cloud storage and make sure their product offers something equivalent. If it does, they can pick up some of the business that needs analogous features before it can jump from the MS train.

  30. Re:Office programs Office365 by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    PCs? Wow oldschool. I read about those on a magazine once.

  31. Original Graffix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft is still encouraging businesses to new level and it's coming in to graphics market also like OriginalGraffix.com.au are well known on the Gold Coast, and continue to do the Carrara, Surfers Paradise Night Markets and various Shows around Australia.

  32. Just Fucking Trust Us by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Just fucking trust us" --Satya Nadella

  33. Way to go MS by ruir · · Score: 1

    Promoting the open source business model since the 70s. .|.

  34. Examples by DrYak · · Score: 1

    I think they did some years ago, it's called "git".

    Sparkle Share is an example of document tracking built aroudn "git".

    Also there are examples such as ownCloud / NextCloud.
    This last one is getting so much popular that it has seen official deployment in some universities.
    (e.g.: Switch is providing country-wide installation for Swiss Universities)

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
    1. Re:Examples by swb · · Score: 1

      OwnCloud is almost there. IMHO, the devs should have a team which focuses on packaging a complete "appliance" images like pfSense capable of managing the storage subsytem from a web gui.

      When I last looked at it, someone had done this themselves but it took some shell work to manage the OS storage side of things, certificates, etc.

      There are canned EC2 instances, but for storage intensive versions the cost is approaching or over $1/hr.

  35. Open Office by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    Open Office serves my needs

    1. Re: Open Office by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I'm sure it's fine for your "special needs", windowlicker.

  36. Fear. Uncertainty. Slashdot by orin · · Score: 2

    It's Office 2016. Which falls out of partial support at that date (for some features, there will still be security updates). So they are saying "hey, if you want to interact with Office 365, you won't be able to use Office 2016 from that date to do it". By then we'll have had several more versions of "not Office 365 Office (such as Office 2018 and Office 2020" come out, which will work with Office 365 premium services. And they'll each be supported for 5 years. Because support for all services isn't perpetual. And you'll still be able to use Office 2016 with your Skype for Business On-Prem deployment (if you have one). What they want to do is to not have to support some premium features for what at that point will be a 5 year old product. Like an LTS version of Linux. How long are they supported again?

  37. I hope they follow through by jmccue · · Score: 1

    I hope they do not change their mind, large business will have a cow over this. Why, updates controlled by a third party, rental fees and what about travel, do you need to be connected to the internet at 35,000' ?

    Office 365 system requirements for client connectivity gives you time to review your long-term desktop strategy

    I did, when Windows 95 came out, went to a fairly new OS and never looked back. Nothing like loosing work many times per week to give me incentive. Granted I heard M/S is much better these days, but as someone mentioned, the spyware on W10 keeps a tiny smile on my face.

  38. If I've said it once, I'll say it again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Welcom to cloud computing. No control over your software and out to destroy the desktop.

  39. Use LibreOffice - however by gabrieltss · · Score: 1

    LibreOffice great but it is STILL missing a good Visio replacement. At work I use Visio HEAVILY. There is really no good open source replacement for Visio. I've tried all of them (I think).

    --
    The Truth is a Virus!!!
    1. Re:Use LibreOffice - however by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft needs to sell an Office 365 Visio edition and Project edition included in them. So then i dont have to keep track of those f***ing license keys of visio and project 2013 edition. The price of visio and project online is ridiculous.

  40. I like Office365... by gosand · · Score: 1

    OK, ok, hang on. Only when I have to use it.
    I work at a software company and we are a MS shop. I run Linux at home, and have since around '99. If I need to log into my work machine, I can launch my container that connects to the work vpn and does an RDP into my machine in about 10 seconds. Linux just works for me, even with MS (most of the time).

    But I refuse to sync my phone with Outlook, for two reasons.
    1. I don't want to check work email all the time, and have that expectation that I am always available. My time is my time.
    2. I don't like like corporate policy, and I don't want their hooks into my phone.

    That's how I use Office365 - if I need to check an email, my calendar, or look at a document on onedrive and I am not on the vpn. But that's it. It's a backup way of doing my job. It's slow but somewhat usable, but it is nowhere near ready to use all-day every-day especially in the corporate world. The fact that Excel/Outlook/Onedrive has to sync in the background has caused issues as well when "something goes wrong". And it does, often. Onedrive works most of the time, but when it doesn't sync it's a real PITA.

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

  41. Office 97 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My copy of office 97, which does not require activation, works fine for me.

    I control my documents, I control my hardware, and I control my software. I don't rent it, I can sell it, and I don't have who knows who reading my documents.

    Virtual machines are a great way to ensure I can still always use the software I paid for.

  42. But it's so much easier this way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    MS says it's more convenient and easier to deploy this way so clearly you're wrong

    Anyway they can do whatever they want, you won't switch.

    1. Re: But it's so much easier this way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. Go to https://portal.office.com and login
      2. Open Office 365 Settings > Software
      3. Click Install

      That's pretty dead simple. You also don't need to enter a product key since the subscription phones home every X days. So yeah, I would agree this is easier than it used to be.

      Large corporate network? Use the Office Deployment Tool to pre-download the installation files and distribute via GPO/SCCM. Governance is also massively simplified as a result as you don't need to track MAK activations.

  43. We ran the same calculus by zerofoo · · Score: 2

    We are a school that used to run exchange - we've run every version from 5.5 to 2010. It worked well for us and academic licensing is pretty cheap.

    However....backup, anti-virus, spam filtering, and a DR solution drives up the cost very quickly.

    Google apps was a very easy decision since schools get unlimited storage for free. Google also gives academic accounts the same SLA that businesses get - pretty nice.

    Running Microsoft Exchange is cheap - running it properly isn't.

    1. Re:We ran the same calculus by swb · · Score: 1

      However....backup, anti-virus, spam filtering, and a DR solution drives up the cost very quickly.

      The marginal cost of backup and DR when you're *already* doing those things for an on-prem server environment is pretty close to zero, and if you're already virtualized and have a virtual-oriented backup software you probably already have DR integrated into your backup. AV and anti-spam are almost always done best these days by a third party service and the good ones do both anyway.

      From the numbers I've run, it usually is cheaper to do it on prem above about 50 users with a 3 year benchmark. If you time the upgrade right, you can probably get 5 years out of it without falling more than a rev behind and cut the 50 user number way down.

      It's pretty obvious Microsoft is heading subscription-only for everything. Since 2013, Exchange has lost much of its GUI which I think has been a way to scare on-prem admins away. They will ultimately either price on prem high enough that only a few compliance/security focused large organizations will consider it or support hybrid only (meaning you're paying for O365, used or not).

      Cloud is about permanent vendor-lock in and rent-seeking, not economics. The marginal cost of a 5-9s commercial data center for hosting cloud services is greater than the marginal savings to users, which is why hosted systems always end up being so expensive unless you're doing something really trivial like a static web site.

    2. Re:We ran the same calculus by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      However....backup, anti-virus, spam filtering, and a DR solution drives up the cost very quickly.

      The marginal cost of backup and DR when you're *already* doing those things for an on-prem server environment is pretty close to zero, and if you're already virtualized and have a virtual-oriented backup software you probably already have DR integrated into your backup. AV and anti-spam are almost always done best these days by a third party service and the good ones do both anyway.

      From the numbers I've run, it usually is cheaper to do it on prem above about 50 users with a 3 year benchmark. If you time the upgrade right, you can probably get 5 years out of it without falling more than a rev behind and cut the 50 user number way down.

      It's pretty obvious Microsoft is heading subscription-only for everything. Since 2013, Exchange has lost much of its GUI which I think has been a way to scare on-prem admins away. They will ultimately either price on prem high enough that only a few compliance/security focused large organizations will consider it or support hybrid only (meaning you're paying for O365, used or not).

      Cloud is about permanent vendor-lock in and rent-seeking, not economics. The marginal cost of a 5-9s commercial data center for hosting cloud services is greater than the marginal savings to users, which is why hosted systems always end up being so expensive unless you're doing something really trivial like a static web site.

      You guys are somethign else. You bashed WIndows NT and then called Windows Server for years for not having a CLI. Hey look at Unix we do not have to sit in front of the server to admin it etc. Now MS has powershell and it is BEH WHERE IS THE GUI?! Exchange is a very complex project because many organizations have complex uses. If your admin can't handle scripting and commands then he is incompetent. If you are paying someone +$75,000 a year he or she should be a master at that price and have years of experience.

    3. Re:We ran the same calculus by lucm · · Score: 1

      We are a school that used to run exchange - we've run every version from 5.5 to 2010. It worked well for us and academic licensing is pretty cheap.

      However....backup, anti-virus, spam filtering, and a DR solution drives up the cost very quickly.

      Google apps was a very easy decision since schools get unlimited storage for free. Google also gives academic accounts the same SLA that businesses get - pretty nice.

      Running Microsoft Exchange is cheap - running it properly isn't.

      So basically you no longer have backup or DR. Read the fine print or call a Google rep, and you'll realize it. They will tell you outright that even with Google Apps (or G Suite) you need your own backup/DR, all they have is a lightweight recycle bin where deleted stuff lives for like 2 weeks. And you can't restore more than a handful of accounts at once.

      You're unlikely to lose emails (although it can happen) but if there's a rogue element in your organization that goes around and deletes stuff, you're fucked. You have to buy a 3rd party product if you want something serious.

      The Office365 equivalent of Google Apps has backup and DR options. They're not free but they're a lot better than not having one.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
  44. Gov. leaders unsually have no technical knowledge. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    "Not only have consumers ignored open source solutions, they've gone totally the other way."

    The average person has no technical knowledge. Companies like Microsoft are using that ignorance to abuse their customers.

    We have technical knowledge. We could teach government leaders what needs to be done. In general, almost all government leaders are extremely ignorant about technology. They need a lot of help.

    "We've ranted. We've raged."

    "Ranting" and "raging" is infantile behavior.

    Instead, prepare a set of laws and regulations that we recommend. Get the process started. Ask hundreds of thousands of Slashdot readers to make their local government leaders aware of the laws and regulations we recommend.

    Is there a Slashdot reader who has the ability to be a government leader? Would that person be interested in a government career? Support that person nationally.

    Why do I spend so much time reading Slashdot? Because I often find knowledgeable, logical comments that are helpful to me. I've taught myself to navigate around the angry, crazy, and otherwise worthless comments.

    Maybe the Slashdot readers who are knowledgeable and logical can take a stronger role in leading the world in a better direction.

  45. Common issue: Finding the most negative response by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    "So the proper response is to join the NRA and come out with all guns blazing?"

    Why say something extremely negative and worthless, while ignoring suggested solutions? That's one of the ways Slashdot commenters don't handle abuse well.

    Here are 2 solutions I mentioned in my grandparent comment:

    1) One possible solution: All countries could support ReactOS so that the Windows OS can be eliminated.

    2) No company should be allowed to have a virtual monopoly! Companies that are routinely abusive should be re-organized or eliminated.

    See my comment below, Gov. leaders unsually have no technical knowledge, for initial ideas about how to cause the writing and adoption of new laws.

  46. Re: Commerical, and only affects current Office 36 by n0creativity · · Score: 1

    Yes, but many of us specifically choose to install the Office Pro Plus version because it allows us to do the following: - Control what computers have the software installed. We don't want users installing it themselves. - License using MAK keys so users don't have to log in if theybdont need to use the online integration pieces. We also have some machines that go 30+ days without internet access... The Office365 installer version goes into "limited feature mode" after 30 days of no internet - Control and centralize updates via WSUS so our 250+ computers are chewing our bandwidth to all download the same same thing About half of our users utilize the SharePoint and OneDrive online integration so this "change" is going to be painful for us...

  47. Re:Gov. leaders unsually have no technical knowled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are calling for everyone to step up and fight, but you are doing so sitting down safely in the back yourself. seriously?

  48. Re:Office programs Office365 by FrankHaynes · · Score: 1

    A magazine?? Isn't that like a blog, but on shiny paper?

    --
    slashdot: A failed experiment.
  49. Re:Gov. leaders unsually have no technical knowled by Kjella · · Score: 1

    "Ranting" and "raging" is infantile behavior.

    Hyperbole detection check: Failed. We have eloquently tried to express our concerns and displeasure with this development among mainstream users to gain broader support and failed.

    Instead, prepare a set of laws and regulations that we recommend. Get the process started.

    And the first thing any politician will ask is whether anyone wants this. The industry doesn't want it? People don't want it? If there is neither money nor votes behind it the proposal is dead on arrival. Besides what would these laws and regulations do, outlaw services? Agreeing to the Windows 10 EULA isn't even close to the stupidest thing you can legally do to yourself. Become a 500lb tub of lard. Get a face tattoo. Be the goatse guy. Proximity flying in a wingsuit. Become a NAMBLA spokesman. The EULA might not even make the top ten.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  50. Another example of negativity: Quoted. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    "... calling for everyone to step up and fight..."

    No fighting. Organize sensible change.

  51. Nothing of value will be lost ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wish ALL standalone products of all kinds (except web browsers and multiplayer games) were blocked from online services !

    I wish *Windows 10* were a standalone product -- but, alas, it's just a low-depression area of a big gray cloud, sucking all the data it can from the real monetized product: the user !

  52. Re: Commerical, and only affects current Office 36 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually.. Now I read it again ..

    "Starting October 13, 2020, Office 365 ProPlus or Office perpetual in mainstream support will be required to connect to Office 365 services. " (emphasis mine).

    You'll be obligated to either upgrade to ProPlus (the evergreen) OR versions of Office that are in mainstream support -- right now, versions of Office outside of mainstream support kinda work -- not 0%, but not 100% either. Come 2020, versions outside of mainstream support will consistently and reliably not work at all.

    Reading this, there's a strong chance there will be another Office perpetual release before then, and THAT version will be supported - including for Office 365 access -- for its mainstream support lifecycle (which is five years from release); but not for the extended support lifetime. I think you will be able to upgrade to that new release and continue as you are now; which is something you're probably thinking to do anyway.

    Office 2016 started 22 Sept 2015, and mainstream ends 13 Oct 2020; so Office 2016 perpetual will continue to work until at least that date; and the as yet unreleased office "v.next" will have five years of working with Office 365 from its (future) release date.

    Given this... what a storm in a teacup.. It's as simple as "from 2020, only office versions in Mainstream support or evergreen will connect to Office 365"

  53. Re:Gov. leaders unsually have no technical knowled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "We" who? You slashdot computer nerds? Lol. NOBODY listens to you, except for having a good laugh. You should get the clue when you see you wanted IT to go one way and instead it went in the completely opposed way and nobody complained. Nobody except you, and nobody cares. When you raise your shrill little voices we snicker and point fingers at the geek clowns. If you raise them too much, we silence you. Hard. You should be familiar with the proceedings now, just like you are familiar with the inside of an urinal. The taste of defeat in your mouths is now as familiar as the taste of dog feces we forced you to eat back in school. Far from being "our bosses" you're slaving away at McJobs all the time dreaming of getting your revence. Which is never going to happen. You're middle-aged now, alone and shunned. You're the laughingstock of the whole town. No future, no projects, no life. It's over and we Real People have moved on and gained all that you can only dream. And now your only refuge, the digital domain, has been conquered by us, the Real People. There is no place for you anywhere. Your "call to arms" is a joke and we will laugh at it, as always. And you will end up with your pants pulled over your head and stuck heads-down in a trash can. As always.

  54. "Enjoyment" ?? by nukenerd · · Score: 1

    FTFA :

    Microsoft is claiming that when customers connect to Office 365 services using a legacy version of Office, "they're not enjoying all that the service has to offer.

    "Enjoying" is a bloody funny word to use in the context of office software. If I wanted to spend the value of a subscription to Office 365 on "enjoyment" there are many things I'd choose first : fairground rides or ice-creams for example. A year's subs would even stretch to a hooker.

  55. So what by lucm · · Score: 1

    Actually I've used it for a Master's dissertation and am currently using it for long university essays.

    So the guy is right, you haven't used it much. One can write a Master's (or Slave's) dissertation in Notepad or vi. Or even in a writers app like Focuswriter (which I really like). The woman who wrote Fifty Shades of Grey did most of it on her Blackberry and I bet it's longer than your long university essays.

    But when you have to write countless documents with repetitive patterns or need more advanced features like linked content or indexes or mail merge, forget about LibreOffice or OpenOffice, they're like the Walmart version of MS-Office.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
    1. Re:So what by hughbar · · Score: 1

      I think what you are trying to say is that Libre Office is entirely adequate for my needs, but not for yours or the previous AC commentator. Still that's a great advance on the pile of crap 'argument'. Please use a Blackberry, if you wish, for any fiction that you plan to write, I will not be doing so.

      There's an ethical dimension to my decision too, when Microsoft changes some of their business practices, I'll be glad to change my mind.

      --
      On y va, qui mal y pense!
  56. Sure by lucm · · Score: 1

    Also - putting all your docs online is a risk - it means that M$ can read all your documents and get access to all your business strategies.

    Really? You think Microsoft cares about business strategies stored in your Word documents? They make $20 billions in profit every year. What strategy are they going to steal from someone's $10/month cloud account.

    And supposing that it wasn't encrypted, how would that work exactly, since there's millions of documents? They would use Bing to find documents that have the words "profit" or "secret" in them? Or rent Watson from IBM to AI it?

    Unlike Google they're not even mining FREE email accounts for ads. I suspect that part of it is because they don't know how to, but still.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
    1. Re:Sure by beastofburdon · · Score: 1

      Steal is not the word you are looking for. You are looking for sell. Microsoft will sell the data stored in those documents to other businesses or directly to the government.

  57. A penny saved by lucm · · Score: 1

    Last month I paid 10 cents. S3 is stupidly cheap for storing documents and source code backups, since that takes up very little space.

    ARE YOU MADE OF MONEY? You could have paid 1 cent if you had used Glacier instead. As long as you don't plan to be on a hurry to restore your backup, because I'm pretty sure Glacier restore is a team of interns who take the bus to go off-site and fetch backup tapes. That's how slow it is. But at 1/10 of the price of S3 which is already dirt cheap, it's to be expected.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  58. From the horses mouth... by denbesten · · Score: 1
    The original MS blog makes it clear that "Stand alone" versions will still be usable. This did not clearly make it into the "news" articles.

    Office 365 ProPlus or Office perpetual in mainstream support

    Office 365 ProPlus or Office perpetual in mainstream support required to connect to Office 365 services. Starting October 13, 2020, Office 365 ProPlus or Office perpetual in mainstream support will be required to connect to Office 365 services. Office 365 ProPlus will deliver the best experience, but for customers who aren’t ready to move to the cloud by 2020, we will also support connections from Office perpetual in mainstream support.

    The primary impact is to those purchasing MS "Business Essentials" licenses ($5/mo) and using "old" office versions. Effectively, they will be required to purchase office every 5 years (~$400) or upgrade to "Business Premium" ($12/mo).

  59. Slashdot comment shows one reaction to abuse: by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    Wow! Quotes from the parent comment:

    "You're the laughingstock of the whole town."

    "You're middle-aged now, alone and shunned."

    "Your "call to arms" is a joke and we will laugh at it, as always."

    "And you will end up with your pants pulled over your head and stuck heads-down in a trash can."

    As I said in my comment that started this discussion of Slashdot reactions to abuse (+5), people who comment about abuse often don't respond in a manner guided by logic. Commenters often use these avoidances, and others:

    1) Attack.

    2) Change the subject. Respond to the new subject with an attack on that subject.

    3) Give excuses.

    4) Say that positive change is impossible.

    1. Re: Slashdot comment shows one reaction to abuse: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yet, all evidence points to them being correct.

  60. So Done with Microshaft by Joshs922 · · Score: 1

    We're switching everything to Linux--Mac where we are locked in to applications. We're not signing up for cloud anything. I hate this stupid trend.

  61. Re:Common issue: Finding the most negative respons by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

    1) One possible solution: All countries could support ReactOS [reactos.org] so that the Windows OS can be eliminated.
    2) No company should be allowed to have a virtual monopoly!

    Replace one monopolist with another. Sounds great.

    File formats and interfaces are what need to be demonopolised, not particular commodity applications.

    --
    Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  62. Re:Gov. leaders unsually have no technical knowled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "We" who? You slashdot computer nerds? Lol. NOBODY listens to you, except for having a good laugh. You should get the clue when you see you wanted IT to go one way and instead it went in the completely opposed way and nobody complained. Nobody except you, and nobody cares. When you raise your shrill little voices we snicker and point fingers at the geek clowns. If you raise them too much, we silence you. Hard. You should be familiar with the proceedings now, just like you are familiar with the inside of an urinal. The taste of defeat in your mouths is now as familiar as the taste of dog feces we forced you to eat back in school. Far from being "our bosses" you're slaving away at McJobs all the time dreaming of getting your revence. Which is never going to happen. You're middle-aged now, alone and shunned. You're the laughingstock of the whole town. No future, no projects, no life. It's over and we Real People have moved on and gained all that you can only dream. And now your only refuge, the digital domain, has been conquered by us, the Real People. There is no place for you anywhere. Your "call to arms" is a joke and we will laugh at it, as always. And you will end up with your pants pulled over your head and stuck heads-down in a trash can. As always.

    You are a sad little ball of hatred and bile, aren't you?