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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

#181

Post by jacquesm »

Aurornis wrote: post #40
_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

Business basic goes from $6 to $7. Business premium is unchanged from $22 to $22. Price increases are normal. (I’ve been on HN long enough to remember when “raise your prices” was treated as the best startup advice around in HN comments) These price increases aren’t excessive relative to inflation for other services in a business context. I don’t see this as a dangerous game. > The new "features" they're justifying t…

Are we treating MS like a start-up now?

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#182

Post by hu3 »

Oleksa_dr wrote: post #166
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,…

Interesting. I'm not experienced in data cleaning. About Python vs Excel: Isn't manual cleanning of data in Excel prone to permanent error? Because:

- it's hard to version control/diff

- it's done by a human fat fingering spreadsheet cells

- it's not reproducible. Like if you need to redo the cleaning of all the dates, in a Python script you could just fix the data parsing part and rerun the script to parse source again. And you can easily control changes with git

In practice I think the speed tradeoff could be worth the ocasional mistake. But it would depend on the field I guess.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#183

Post by askvictor »

mosura wrote: post #81
TheJoeMan wrote: post #64

They also are actively decreasing the value by sunsetting Publisher in October 2026 [0]. Hilariously, the suggested replacement is PowerPoint, despite it being unable to natively open .pub files. The solution for that? Run a powershell script to convert all your publisher files to (uneditable) PDF. There are many memes about inserting photos into Word, and the content flying around and breaking. My pet theory is that…

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.

No-one will pay for it, but the presence of Publisher, as a tool that people know and use, in the Office Suite, would probably be a substantial feature for many people.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#184

Post by trinix912 »

Terretta wrote: post #154
traceroute66 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> There isn't because any serious print shop will laugh you out the door if you come to them with a Publisher file. You say this like customers don't show up with a PowerPoint file.

I'm pretty sure they not only show up with a PowerPoint file, but one with missing/nonembedded fonts, web images, perhaps even a video in there somewhere. At least that's been my experience with people sending me stuff to print.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#185

Post by jacquesm »

traceroute66 wrote: post #121
_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

> This feels like a dangerous game they're playing. Yes, there is some lock in, but competitors exist and are better than ever. Except there are not really any competitors if you look at the whole package. A Microsoft 365 Business Standard subscription, for example, gets you bundled Teams and Exchange. The fact you get the big-four (Word, Excel, Outlook and Powerpoint) thrown in is really just icing on the cake.

> A Microsoft 365 Business Standard subscription, for example, gets you bundled Teams and Exchange.

That's a negative.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#187

Post by trinix912 »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #110
TheJoeMan wrote: post #64

They also are actively decreasing the value by sunsetting Publisher in October 2026 [0]. Hilariously, the suggested replacement is PowerPoint, despite it being unable to natively open .pub files. The solution for that? Run a powershell script to convert all your publisher files to (uneditable) PDF. There are many memes about inserting photos into Word, and the content flying around and breaking. My pet theory is that…

I used Publisher (2.0! and then 95) quite a bit in the mid to late 1990s. I haven't used it since then because Word now has all the features that were previously exclusive to Publisher, so its purpose has evaporated. It's certainly true that Word has bugs and frustrations but I'd be surprised if Publisher didn't too. It's very odd that they propose PowerPoint as the Publisher replacement. How do you create a fold out…

PowerPoint is probably the replacement because it doesn't restrict where things can be placed (at least not by default). Word would be much more suitable, if only they made and advertised some sort of DTP mode that would do away with the image position defaults and let users put things over margins.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#188

Post by array_key_first »

justapassenger wrote: post #173
array_key_first wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, there's many many cases that should likely not be using Excel. But given that Excel is the second-best tool for everything, world runs on it. And when you try to build systems to replace Excel for a specific task, you quickly learn how extremely powerful Excel is and how hard is to replace it and add value that customers would care about.

I've been there, the problem is that replacements are not as versatile or "floppy". But that's also a good thing, because Excel is too versatile to the point where most workbooks are filled with bugs on top of bugs and nobody cares.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#189

Post by guywithahat »

CodeCompost wrote: post #186

Why do I, as a European, have to pay for Trumpflation?

You don't? The price increases are below euro inflation (although the numbers are listed in USD so I'm unsure if the price will be meaningfully different in Europe
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