Most people using excel and word would be just as functional using office '98.
SaaS is largely just a cancer on society. Monthly subscription to pay for features you never use and bug fixes you never should have needed.
Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices
191–200 of 593 posts
Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
For end-users maybe, but for the business' IT who get a working mail server they don't have to mess with, and a whole remote work and videoconferencing package that "just works" and most people already know how to use, it's a hell of a deal.
Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices
#193Is 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…
It's interesting how views differ; I have never been able to make decent scientific graphs in Excel while Calc worked fine for me.
Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices
#194If 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.
I'd disagree in terms of the cloud capabilities. When it is used properly . The cloud stuff is very useful. I currently have a document that is going through multiple versions with about 8 people, with different expertise collaborating. Some have edit privs, some only have review. The ability for everyone to work on it simultaneously, with version history and no more document-v12-copy3_FINAL_FINALv2 is most welcome.
If you heavily rely on Word and PowerPoint. I know several companies that almost never use those products except in limited situations (legal, keynote presentation etc). All "regular" discussions/presentations take place on Confluence/Notion/Quip etc. I wish my company did the same thing.
Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices
#19525%++ up in my region (EU)
Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Other than Google, what are other competitors that worth evaluating?
Zoho and Collabora spring immediately to mind.
Zoho is crap. Sure, on the tin it comes with 64 different things, but many are poorly integrated and feature set is just enough to be like "Yes, we have that feature."
Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices
#197They 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…
Sunsetting a product to save money smells like promo-driven culture
Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices
#198Earlier 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.
Have to disagree. It depends on what you are doing. That the alternatives can be replacements, including the open source ones, is relative and should be looked at as a percentage.
If you listed out all the things that Excel can do, we might find that the alternative is at 80% or so (just a number), with some additional things that Excel can't do. That 80% could be good enough to switch. It should not be looked at as "all or nothing", especially for every person or business.
Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Open Office, Libre Office, Only Office to start.
I want to love these, mostly because they're FOSS and Office/Google Spreadsheets seems to get more and more bloated, and subsequently slower. But the UX is just a lot worse, and it isn't easy to go from one application to another because they're slightly different enough that your productivity takes a hit from all the small papercuts. I'm waiting for some FOSS spreadsheet solution that doesn't just try to copy Office…
Many would say that the FOSS alternatives don't copy Office enough. Often, by going there own way with various tasks, they create a bigger jump. Case in point, the Linux distros that attract the most attention for common folk and not niche use, are the ones that are more Windows-like. Examples: Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Zorin, etc... The smaller the jump, the more you can convince people to switch over.
When there is a significant difference, it needs to be shown what the equivalent is in the alternative. The jump can be a bit mitigated by education or information, but usually by only so much, where it's still seen as attractive.
Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices
#200WPS - Free tier