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Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

office365itpros.com

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Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#161

Post by AnonHP »

sneak wrote: post #50
boh wrote: post #25

If most companies had to for some reason revert to Windows XP and MS Office from 1998, they would barely be impacted. There is literally no benefit to this subscription model besides paying for what you already have and what you don't want. None of this stuff needs to be on the cloud even for bigger firms. For the I need/like X in Office 365, it's not worth it from a costs perspective.

They’d get owned by security vulnerabilities in the first hour, fwiw.

Security has not been Microsoft’s priority for many years now. The CEO just says some words that don’t mean anything.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#162

Post by AnonHP »

Aurornis wrote: post #59
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.)

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 strongly agree, but even for the basics! I use LibreOffice for personal use and put up with it only because it’s not Microsoft. It’s laggy, copy paste sometimes doesn’t work, the user interface is quite dated, the fonts are ugly…the list goes on. I donate to Document Foundation so that it can get better, but it moves very slowly.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#163

Post by AnonHP »

sys_64738 wrote: post #140
bix6 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I sometimes use Apple Numbers for some quick and dirty lists, but it severely lacks in keyboard use and keyboard navigation when compared to Excel.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#164

Post by AnonHP »

mrbluecoat wrote: post #100

Switched to the free OnlyOffice a year ago and never looked back: https://www.onlyoffice.com/desktop https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE

Wow, I hadn’t heard about this before. I like that it’s FOSS with AGPL 3. The OnlyOffice screenshots of the spreadsheet application look beautiful (compared to the ugly LibreOffice Calc ones). It says that it works with ODS files (which LibreOffice Calc uses).

Any gotchas to be aware of with OnlyOffice?

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#166

Post by Oleksa_dr »

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.)

Power Query + Power Pivot + M. I don't use formulas in cells. The sheets are just a canvas for Pivot Tables, final tables, and charts connected to the data from Power Query and Pivot.

I deal with hundreds of API integrations involving various JSON, CSV, TSV, and XML files with mixed validity. My workflow: Notepad++ for a visual check -> Prototype everything in Excel. I give users a "visual", connect it to real data, and only then migrate the final logic to BI dashboards or databases.

Nothing else delivers results this fast. SQL, BI tools, and Python are too slow because they generally need "clean" data. Cleaning and validation take too much time there. In Excel, it's mostly just a few clicks.

PS: I spent 2 years (2022-2023) using LibreOffice Calc. I didn't touch Excel once, thinking I needed to break the habit. In the end, I did break the habit, but it was replaced by a pile of scripts and utilities because Calc couldn't do what I needed (or do it fast enough). The experience reminds me of testing Krita for 2 years (2018-2020) — I eventually returned to Adobe Photoshop (but that's another story).

PS2: About (Query + Pivot + BI). This allows you to process millions of rows (bypassing grid limitations). It also allows you to compress everything into an OLAP cube, taking up little space and working quickly with data.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#168

Post by SomeHacker44 »

I would prefer unbundling this. I do not use Microsoft Office apps; I use Google Workspace apps which can read those files. I do heavily use OneDrive space though. I want to pay only for that. And cannot.

I would love to find a OneDrive replacement that works well both on Linux and Windows (and Android, iOS).

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#170

Post by timbit42 »

SomeHacker44 wrote: post #168

I would prefer unbundling this. I do not use Microsoft Office apps; I use Google Workspace apps which can read those files. I do heavily use OneDrive space though. I want to pay only for that. And cannot. I would love to find a OneDrive replacement that works well both on Linux and Windows (and Android, iOS).

NextCloud?
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