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Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

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Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#131

Post by Aurornis »

qsort wrote: post #104
Aurornis wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ironic that you posted this as a comment on HN. It’s not ironic at all. Posting here was deliberate to highlight the bubble that happens here for consumer products. This comment section has a lot of people evaluating these price hikes as if they were targeted at HN individual users, not for a product targeted at a different audiences and corporate subscriptions. Hacker News commenters are frequently unaware that th…

I broadly agree with you but the AI demand part is more nuanced. Demand is very large for consumer-ish apps like ChatGPT and Sora, but even Claude, which is huge for coding and arguably the best model right now, is tiny. I've had an interaction with someone nontechnical who, after seeing the Claude logo bounce, asked me why my ChatGPT had fireworks. Yeah, the demand is there, but I have a hard time believing nontechn…

> but even Claude, which is huge for coding and arguably the best model right now, is tiny. I've had an interaction with someone nontechnical who, after seeing the Claude logo bounce, asked me why my ChatGPT had fireworks

So they had used ChatGPT enough to recognize that you were using a different tool?

I don’t see this as contradicting anything. Even the nontechnical people in your life are familiar with these tools because they’re using them.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#132

Post by reactordev »

rawbot wrote: post #84
Aurornis wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excel is the best spreadsheet software in my experience when you have to move beyond the basics. I’ve even tried hard to use the open/Libre alternatives. Hacker News is a different world than the target customer base for these products. If your use case for spreadsheet software is putting things into tables with some formatting and some light formulas then all of the products will do the same job. For professionals w…

> Excel is the best spreadsheet software in my experience when you have to move beyond the basics. I’ve even tried hard to use the open/Libre alternatives. I agree 100% with this, since I've been trying the same. Although I do think some power-users take it way too far and should be using more robust data analysis tools (Python, DBs) instead of having these monstrous Excel spreadsheets with millions of rows and colum…

When all you know is Hammer...

I agree and you'd be surprised at the response when I showed some of them how to do it in python numpy.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#133

Post by moepstar »

hoistbypetard wrote: post #53
sneak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no foss competitor to Excel.

For legacy spreadsheets, you're 100% correct. I'll need to keep a version of Excel around forever. If they price me out of 365 by making me pay for Copilot shit I don't use or want, a perpetual license to Office 2019 runs about $20 and will do that job for me. For new work that I might have otherwise done in Excel, there are good options. Collabora works. Libre Office works. Google sheets works. And Grist is quite go…

> a perpetual license to Office 2019 runs about $20 and will do that job for me.

Isn’t that only perpetual as long as the activation servers are up?

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#134

Post by traceroute66 »

dybber wrote: post #109
mosura wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is DTP outside of pro sectors (i.e. these days InDesign) was rendered worthless by how ubiquitous the tooling was. In any sector where the barriers to entry are destroyed you either have to go really big or go home.

And for publisher there probably isn’t the same network effect as for Word/Excel/Powerpoint.

> And for publisher there probably isn’t the same network effect as for Word/Excel/Powerpoint.

There isn't because any serious print shop will laugh you out the door if you come to them with a Publisher file.

Publisher is fine for home/office printing, and you will probably get away with it at your local corner shop that does digital printing on a Xerox box in the back of the shop.

But if you're sending stuff off to the big-boys you will suddenly find yourself needing to adhere to artwork preflight settings, colour profiles, PDF and TAC specs.

Not only will the printer give you validation settings files you can load into Acrobat and Indesign, but if there are issues, the printer's preflight team will be more willing (and able !) to help you if you are using industry-standard tools.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#135

Post by array_key_first »

sneak wrote: post #75
hoistbypetard wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For legacy spreadsheets, you're 100% correct. I'll need to keep a version of Excel around forever. If they price me out of 365 by making me pay for Copilot shit I don't use or want, a perpetual license to Office 2019 runs about $20 and will do that job for me. For new work that I might have otherwise done in Excel, there are good options. Collabora works. Libre Office works. Google sheets works. And Grist is quite go…

None of the things you listed are suitable replacements for Excel. None. It has nothing to do with existing files/compatibility. Excel is unparalleled.

The solution is actually just not using Excel. If you're essentially using Excel as a LOB backend and database, that should probably not be in Excel.

It's fine if you have a few formulas. As soon as you're busting out macros it's time to sunset the workbook and make an application. There's a lot of God Excel workbooks sitting around on share drives with no audibility or quality control.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#136

Post by notepad0x90 »

JohnFen wrote: post #126
notepad0x90 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could agree with this, but the ecosystem lock-in is too great. They might lose business for sure but it may not put a dent in their revenue at all. If you replace office, you'll have to replace sharepoint, onedrive, etc.. and it isn't just the tools but the policies and critical features that go along with those. For most orgs, this is literally their lifeblood, not just some tool they can yank out. For smal…

> If you replace office, you'll have to replace sharepoint, onedrive, etc. At least in my workplace, people do their best to avoid using sharepoint and onedrive anyway.

in corporate america, it's everywhere, to the point where people's compromised accounts being used to send phishing content via sharepoint/onedrive is extremely common. It is (rightfully) highly encouraged as well due to their built-in data loss prevention stuff (Microsoft information protection/MIP), it's the only reasonable way I've seen to get a handle on secret documents/content/slides from leaking too much.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#137

Post by sys_64738 »

_lvbh wrote: post #7

This feels like a dangerous game they're playing. Yes, there is some lock in, but competitors exist and are better than ever. The new "features" they're justifying this with (Copilot) isn't even something that most people want

The great unwashed masses will still continue to pay it. It's not a sizeable increases that they'd be willing to move elsewhere. People rationalize it in the context of it's only a buck a month and other things increase by more. M$ are not stupid but do know what they're doing. May take is. Don't do drugs. Don't do subscriptions. Don't do MICROS~1.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#138

Post by crazygringo »

wongarsu wrote: post #14

Considering the last price increase was almost 4 years before this one goes into effect, most of those are pretty modest 1-4%/year increases. In line with inflation. The notable outliers are F1 and F3 which got a lot more expensive Apparently F1 and F3 are "Office 365 for Frontline Workers". F3 is kind of like Office 365 Basic, F1 is stripped down to mostly read-only access plus Microsoft Teams

Seriously. I don't understand why this is even news or posted here.

If they were doubling prices or something then of course, raise the alarms. This is not that.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#140

Post by sys_64738 »

bix6 wrote: post #18
puttycat wrote: post #6

Is there any reason to use Office nowadays except for being able to open documents sent by institutions where secretaries still use Word/Excel/PPT? (universities, etc.)

Do you know anyone who does serious financial work in anything besides Excel?

I used Apple Numbers for all my spreadsheeting so it depends what you mean by "serious financial work". The vast majority of folk could probably get by without using Excel I am guessing.
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