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The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

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Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#161
I subscribed for a trial month because I had a lengthy word document which was bilingual in a side by side table. I wanted it to fill maybe 20 trivial items which needed to be put in several obvious places.

Oh boy! It couldn't do anything except append to the end of the document. It couldn't create tables! It couldn't search and replace! It couldn't maintain formatting.

What a failure!

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#162

Hate that if you use Word for Mac, you now have Copilot next to your cursor with no way of turning it off. I just want to use Word. I like its print layout features better than Pages. I don't want to switch. Just let me write and leave me alone. Now they're jamming AI down my throat without any opt-out mechanism.

I am still on Office 2021 on my Mac, which was the last “non-subscription” offering I could find. No Copilot yet.

I haven't attempted to buy it, but there should be a 2024 version: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/office-home-...

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#163

Is it worse than apple intelligence butchering news summaries though?

It is.

I have colleagues who used Copilot for generating slides in PowerPoint. Copilot created slides that are completely unrelated to the prompt.

Apple Intelligence is horrible and hallucinates a ton, but at least it spits out nonsense on the same topic.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#164
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happily used LibreOffice for years, and got a small businesses off Word in favor of it (well, OOo at the time). I’m a fan. But Pages is much more ergonomic, lightweight, and native on a Mac. There’s not a likely scenario where I’d use LibreOffice over Pages.

The issue with nearly all of these software suites is compatibility. It is ironic, that libreoffice solves this the best , by being truly cross platform and not requiring special software to be purchased on the receiving end: yet it is the momentum of Microsoft Word that would instead hamper adoption of other word processors. I am thinking about this, because the reason I would choose not to use Pages, is so that I c…

That's an excellent reason, to be sure. But here we're talking about an app to "just write", like opening a file and start pounding out an article or something. For someone who wants to do that, on a Mac, and who wants basic formatting and word-processory WYSIWYG-edness, I'd recommend Pages.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#165

But what consequences will a really large company face for such a prominent disaster? They got what they wanted, which is an excuse to force everyone into paying for new AI products through price increases forced into enterprise contract renewals. It is the same thing that Google just did with Google Workspace or Google Apps or whatever their office suite is called now, where everyone is forced to pay for their new G…

The startup ecosystem in which the goal is to get bought to be killed by the monopolies would help us how anyway?

My point was that any deserving and more helpful product that is not from Microsoft or Google will not see any revenue because customers are already being forced to pay for Microsoft or Google’s AI products.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#166
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly understandable? Every time someone tells me on Teams about "the file they shared last week", I struggle to find out if I need to go to Onedrive, SharePoint, the Teams channel "files", the Teams channel "documents", etc. It's the most confusing piece of software I'm forced to use...

This reminds me of a very old e-mail from bill gates to his direct reports about the poor usability of windows (xp?)

This one? https://www.techemails.com/p/bill-gates-tries-to-install-mov...

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of an email I have ever received that needed to be summarized? Who is writing these super long emails?

sometimes, super long email threads in corps

Could definitely use this with some of the PG mailing list threads.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of an email I have ever received that needed to be summarized? Who is writing these super long emails?

sometimes, super long email threads in corps

I could definitely see value in condensing the threads. Would be nice to see a single message.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sublime Text and VS Code both do the same thing. I can imagine that it takes a bit to get used to, assuming that you'd even want to, but I've found it to be very handy: At this point in time 6 unsaved text documents open in Sublime Text, covering a variety of subjects that I haven't quite finished working on, or that I just want to remember for later

IMO, that is encouraging a very bad habit.

How so? None of this would more than mildly inconvenience me if it were lost. Important notes/files are of course saved in appropriate locations, but a lot things aren't that important

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#170
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with nearly all of these software suites is compatibility. It is ironic, that libreoffice solves this the best , by being truly cross platform and not requiring special software to be purchased on the receiving end: yet it is the momentum of Microsoft Word that would instead hamper adoption of other word processors. I am thinking about this, because the reason I would choose not to use Pages, is so that I c…

That's an excellent reason, to be sure. But here we're talking about an app to "just write", like opening a file and start pounding out an article or something. For someone who wants to do that, on a Mac, and who wants basic formatting and word-processory WYSIWYG-edness, I'd recommend Pages.

For someone who wants that I’d recommend LibreOffice as it does all of that as well.
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