Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

zdnet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 333 posts

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#211

Post by migf »

nimbius wrote: post #127

Go Germany go! In the diesel repair shop I work in, I managed to convince the suits to switch out ms office for libre office. 90% of our stuff is now libre by default...only 2 users have full office suites and theyre both in the bean counting department. We print our BOMs, labels, envelopes and invoices using libre. Compared to office it runs like a scalded dog and never crashes.

"it runs like a scalded dog"

https://themonticellonews.com/im-fixing-to-run-like-a-scalde...

lol. Glad to hear the solution's working for you.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#212

Post by saintfire »

sakjur wrote: post #202
dmbche wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using libreoffice for maybe 10 years now? I don't remember what I'm missing, could you name one or two killer features of ms office?

Imho it doesn’t come down to one or two killer features, it comes down to momentum. Stuff like font rendering, grammar- and spellchecking, the exact set of Excel formulas, graphs, templates, and VB scripting matter. The office suite’s localization changes keyboard shortcuts, Excel formulae names, and swaps between decimal points and commas. It is absolutely horrendous, but people rely on it for their daily work. In e…

Sort of unrelated, but, VB scripting not working on web versions felt to me like it really killed a giant moat of legacy code to draw from.

If you're forced to script in something else then why not just go to something else. Additionally, having tons of forms written by long gone employees just not port over is a tough sell at smaller offices.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#213

Post by Semaphor »

jasonjayr wrote: post #172
jeremyjh wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s always mainly about Excel, but some people are really set on Outlook, too.

Oh boy. Outlook users are in for a surprise with "New Outlook" is forced on them in the near future. Microsoft has been pushing and warning about this change for some time ....

I use outlook for work mails and tried new outlook for a short while. It’s like an alpha version, it’s not even close to feature parity, a pure showcase for a new design. If it ever becomes the only version, I’m switching to thunderbird.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#214

Post by datavirtue »

holografix wrote: post #21

Very hard for me to understand why, in a world of Google docs, anyone would want to deal with the bloated mess that is ms office. I was helping an elderly relative who works as a translator and hasn’t touched a modern version of word in about 5 years. They had a new computer and I got an ms office sub for them. The poor person re-did about 4 hours of their work 3x because they couldn’t find the file MS Word had guara…

Yeah, they got it so fucked up that the average user has no idea where their files are. It is absolutely unbelievable how user hostile it is. Typical software designed for the goals of the creator. The world of computing has truly descended into hell for the average non-technical person.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#215

Post by aporetics »

holografix wrote: post #21

Very hard for me to understand why, in a world of Google docs, anyone would want to deal with the bloated mess that is ms office. I was helping an elderly relative who works as a translator and hasn’t touched a modern version of word in about 5 years. They had a new computer and I got an ms office sub for them. The poor person re-did about 4 hours of their work 3x because they couldn’t find the file MS Word had guara…

Google docs has no dark patterns. All sunshine and roses.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#216

Post by datavirtue »

raincole wrote: post #116
xattt wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Word and Excel, like Photoshop, are dominant because of their maturity as well as the muscle memory of their users. People were pissed 18 years ago when the Office ribbon was implemented because it broke their workflow. MS might have gussied it up now, but they haven’t dared to reinvent it since.

I honestly still hate office ribbon.

I don't hate it but it didn't solve or improve anything.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#217

Post by wannacboatmovie »

saalweachter wrote: post #196
wannacboatmovie wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among other things, Office comes with support, a word most Googlers can't spell.

Is the suopprt first or third party?

First party of course. MS has gold plated support agreements especially for public sector customers, where you can get a real person on the phone, not at the mercy of some automated Google bullshit.

Is it expensive? Yes. But if you're running an entire city as opposed to a small dentist's office, it's likely worth the money.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#218

Post by lenerdenator »

StressedDev wrote: post #183
qwerty456127 wrote: post #164

I can remember the same or very similar news from Germany appearing every now and then for over a decade. This time I almost believe them as there seems to be no alternative to LibreOffice given the changes Microsoft introduced during the recent years - forcing everyone to log-in with their Microsoft account at best, also moving from a classic desktop app to a web app. Conservative users like me and probably German s…

The Office Apps still have desktop versions and they still work very well.

It will be interesting to see how long that remains true.

Management of resources is the enemy of profit for both sides in the market. Businesses lose out on money by spending time that they would be using on their core competency for managing software licenses, versions, data backups, servers, etc. And of course cloud providers lose out on you giving them more money than their cloud services cost them to deliver.

Azure now makes up the largest percentage of Microsoft's revenues. Obviously the business model scales very well. It likely scales better than Office does. Eventually the less-profitable thing starts taking up internal development resources that could be going to more profitable divisions, and that gets someone mad.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#219

Post by korginator »

My current and past employers are all-in with Microsoft because (like it or not) managing large corporate fleets is easier. Our Linux and Mac machines are treated as exceptions.

This has nothing to do with user experience, it's all about risk management. If we need some software on our Mac, we need to sign a waiver accepting responsibility for any security issues. With the corporate issued windows laptops the IT department is responsible for risks.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#220

Post by petepete »

midnight2 wrote: post #197
holografix wrote: post #21

Very hard for me to understand why, in a world of Google docs, anyone would want to deal with the bloated mess that is ms office. I was helping an elderly relative who works as a translator and hasn’t touched a modern version of word in about 5 years. They had a new computer and I got an ms office sub for them. The poor person re-did about 4 hours of their work 3x because they couldn’t find the file MS Word had guara…

Excel blows Sheets out of the water. Try opening a million row CSV in Sheets.

This is a feature few people need.
Post reply on HN