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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."
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."
If you run the other popular operating system, full installs of Pages, Numbers and Keynote come with it.
free too.
lose != loose
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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...
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.
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.
You should really look into libreoffice, open office is effectively dead.
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.
I wonder if that means they are going to push an "update" to cripple MS Office WebDAV support.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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/
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.
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
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.
Murder!
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
[...] 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
PCs? Wow oldschool. I read about those on a magazine once.
Promoting the open source business model since the 70s. .|.
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 ]
Open Office serves my needs
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?
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.
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!!!
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.
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.
"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.
"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.
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...
A magazine?? Isn't that like a blog, but on shiny paper?
slashdot: A failed experiment.
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.
"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
"... calling for everyone to step up and fight..."
No fighting. Organize sensible change.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
maybe u are too dumb
Maybe one of us is.
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.
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"