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Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion

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Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion

#43

Post by jdswain »

nytesky wrote: post #17

Did Apple pay them to drop support to boost their revamped Numbers/Pages/Keynote suite (ClarisWorks Infitniy.0). Obviously this is a joke, though there was a period when Microsoft invested in Apple to serve as a stand-in foil for the anti-trust lawsuit. So tactical investing for something other than monetary ROI has precedent …

In a way it's not a joke. I was just considering that myself. I pay for a M365 family license, but when I think about it, I could do everything I actually use it for in Numbers and Pages. The only thing is file format compatibility, it is useful to be able to open word documents and be sure the formatting is correct, but even that is less important than it used to be. I used to make use of Office to edit work documents on my Mac, but security considerations prevent this now.

Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion

#45

Post by nine_k »

wmf wrote: post #26
nikcub wrote: post #14

I believe the urgent deprecation timeline here may be related to ai labs using offline licensed Office in agents as part of workflows and Office integration. Microsoft wants _each_ agent instance to be a separate license[0] There was always a probability that Microsoft were going to funnel offline users into O365 at some point - but I imagined that to take place over months / years not weeks and days. Buying a single…

These are single-machine licenses. I doubt thousands of agents can run on a single machine.

They can only use it to run a particular tool related to a piece of MSO software. This may be a relatively short operation, a relatively small part of an agent's activity. Then hundreds of agents can use a single machine with MSO, similarly to how hundreds of CI/CD workers can collectively use a single machine dedicated e.g. to providing secrets and signing binaries.

Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion

#46

Post by angry_octet »

Retr0id wrote: post #40
teaearlgraycold wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn, you could create an illegal number by sharing an offset+value.

Or indeed an illegal LLM prompt: "/goal locate and patch out the licensing check"

Enforcing your rights under your contract by patching out some cert validation checks seems legal to me. Maybe not in places with anti-circumvention laws, but elsewhere it seems fine.

Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion

#48

Post by nine_k »

drnick1 wrote: post #44

Just use LibreOffice or other better tools like TeX instead of a WYSIWYG editor. With AI it is easier than ever to port existing documents, even if you have to OCR the original.

The problem is when your counterparty sends and expects MSO documents with latest advanced features.

Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion

#49

Post by asveikau »

nikcub wrote: post #14

I believe the urgent deprecation timeline here may be related to ai labs using offline licensed Office in agents as part of workflows and Office integration. Microsoft wants _each_ agent instance to be a separate license[0] There was always a probability that Microsoft were going to funnel offline users into O365 at some point - but I imagined that to take place over months / years not weeks and days. Buying a single…

Is it me or are people too eager to "one track mind" everything into AI? If I had said thirty years ago that Microsoft would remote disable old copies of Office asking you to upgrade, literally no one would be surprised. This is standard MO for Microsoft, even in a world without AI.
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