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The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

zdnet.com

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Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#101

Post by dijit »

kstrauser wrote: post #80
righthand wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can just write with LibreOffice. Your example of special acceleration for Apple made software is unfounded.

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 can share my documents to other companies or even people in my company who may not have a Mac.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#102

Post by dartharva »

> Microsoft is halfway through its 2026 fiscal year. It's almost like someone was given instructions at the end of the calendar year to bump up that revenue line for the Office Consumer division.

It's always this surprisingly mundane decision behind every fuckup.

Just pump up numbers this quarter, the evident crash in user confidence and subsequent revenues is the next sucker's problem.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#103

Post by bigstrat2003 »

alangibson wrote: post #57
behnamoh wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

It's not weird to be upset by a button which is entirely useless to the functionality of the product, and exists only to add politicization where there needs to be none. In fact, it's shameful that Microsoft did this.

Let's put it this way: if the button was for something you didn't agree with - say, it was a button for "show your support for the sanctity of marriage", would you blithely say "there are lots of buttons in the preferences so it's weird to get mad about it"? I suspect not. I suspect that you would, in fact, be outraged even though that'd be an equally hidden expression of political opinions. We can't, with any fairness, take a stance that political expression is ok but only if it is for the ideas we agree with. So we should (and we used to) agree that things shouldn't have politics forcibly shoved in people's faces, and that we must live and let live. That's a far better way to coexist.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#104

Post by dartharva »

munchler wrote: post #6

My problem with this isn't the price increase. It's the blurring of what used to be a clearly understandable suite of products (e.g. Office) and services (e.g. OneDrive) into a soup of weird AI and cloud stuff that all goes under a single unhelpful name (Copilot). My mental model of what I'm actually purchasing is broken in this new paradigm.

Please, never in its history has anything from Microsoft been "clearly understandable".

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#105

Post by rkagerer »

for_i_in_range wrote: post #8

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.

Office 2003 is my preferred pick for productivity, I use it for all new documents - and best of all there's no ribbon.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#106

Post by infecto »

for_i_in_range wrote: post #8

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.

The MacOS copilot implementation is horrid. Takes up a significant amount of screen space just to offer a summary of the email. Cannot turn off. For whatever reason cannot be a simple button with pop up on click. It’s horrid.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#107

Post by dartharva »

rsolva wrote: post #34

A lot of people use Microsofts products out of old habit and because they are simply not aware of any alternatives. I have helped alot of people try LibreOffice, which offers everything they need from their office suit. Most people also like that LibreOffice looks like what Word and Excel looked like before Microsoft changed up the menu system.

For most professionals Excel alone carries 99% of the worth of an O365 subscription.

I would give anything for a standalone, offline spreadsheet software as robust and powerful as Excel. Unfortunately, that doesn't exist.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#108

Post by QuantumGood »

for_i_in_range wrote: post #8

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.

Also now there on Windows

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#109

Post by numpad0 »

fullshark wrote: post #26
tapoxi wrote: post #9

Is this the absolute death of the high school essay? Even if you didn't want to cheat by avoiding ChatGPT, AI is now right there, in your word processor, and you have no way of turning it off.

We will solve the cheating problem with more AI, all essays will need to be written in 3 hour time windows in web portals with key-logging + copilot off and children on webcam the entire time. An AI will assess all the data and tell you if the child cheated or not. Of course no one will care if you're good at writing essays in the future, and having that skill just means you're working a low paying training data crea…

> with key-logging + copilot off

That assumes Microsoft allowing you to do so.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#110

Post by dartharva »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #22

Worse than CoPilot is the new Notepad. Can close the program without saving the file, open it again and it is still there! WTF?

My work laptop as 64 gigs of RAM and the latest processor. It is admittedly the most high-spec work laptop I have ever used. Unfortunately it has Windows 11, which means it runs slower than a crappy Windows XP laptop from 2005.
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