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Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

office.eu

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Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#31

Post by RobotToaster »

dabedee wrote: post #6

I laud the attempt and I think it's important there are more projects that try to compete with their American counterparts. I do want to gently note that if your entire pitch is "we are a bold, independent European alternative that liberates you from the hegemony of the established American players," maybe don't name your product the exact same thing as the product you're replacing? "Office." They named it "Office."

Yeah, someone could confuse it with WordPerfect Office, Ability Office, Libre Office, WPS Office, or some other obscure software that uses the word "Office" in it's name.

Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#32

Post by flumpcakes »

sgt wrote: post #10

> Office EU is a complete cloud-based office suite Issue is.. if you are a traditional MS Office "poweruser", the last thing you want to do is spend your days in a web browser. These apps should also be available as native apps, similar to MS Word, Excel, Pages, Keynote, etc.

The vast majority of office use at my work is in the browsers because the files are stored in Sharepoint. It seems to work well enough for basic needs (no macros and fairly simple formulas in excel etc.)

I have a non-technical friend in finance who uses the Desktop versions of Excel for most of their work and they say it crashes nearly every day losing work.

Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#33

Post by rsynnott »

dabedee wrote: post #6

I laud the attempt and I think it's important there are more projects that try to compete with their American counterparts. I do want to gently note that if your entire pitch is "we are a bold, independent European alternative that liberates you from the hegemony of the established American players," maybe don't name your product the exact same thing as the product you're replacing? "Office." They named it "Office."

> maybe don't name your product the exact same thing as the product you're replacing? "Office." They named it "Office."

Surely you mean "Microsoft 365 Copilot"?

(I am not making this up. That is what it is called now.)

Realistically, though, I think pretty much _all_ office suites have been called [Something] Office, for about the last 30 years. The Google one ("Google Workplace", formerly "Google Apps") is the only exception I can think of, and I wouldn't necessarily take Google's lead in software branding (honestly, until I looked it up for this post, I thought it was still called Google Apps, and I use the damn thing every day).

Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#34

Post by Topfi »

dabedee wrote: post #6

I laud the attempt and I think it's important there are more projects that try to compete with their American counterparts. I do want to gently note that if your entire pitch is "we are a bold, independent European alternative that liberates you from the hegemony of the established American players," maybe don't name your product the exact same thing as the product you're replacing? "Office." They named it "Office."

In fairness, Office is as generic a term as one can come up with for such a software suite. On top of that, I wouldn't be surprised if that fell under Genericide like Lego or Google and, lest we forget, the Microsoft Office brand does not exist anymore, it is 365 and Copilot now...

Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#35

Post by throw310822 »

PowerElectronix wrote: post #7

The EU tech ecosystem is sadder every day

The problem is that every attempt at European alternatives is taken at the government level (of some member country or of the EU) and immediately announced with great fanfare as the European comeback. The pathetic thing about it is that everybody who isn't totally clueless sees how utterly inadequate these attempts are, given the political involvement, the microscopic resources invested, the lack of incentives from competition, and the general hostility of European legislation and bureaucracy. And yet politicians keep making fools of themselves announcing this or that EU answer to American tech.

Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#36

Post by linhns »

Avicebron wrote: post #16
graypegg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also possibly sets a false expectation of perfect compatibility… you can imagine bureaucrats trying to figure out if a file needs to be opened in Office or Office (new)

Considering that for the average office worker I know switching from outlook to outlook (new) is a major hurdle within the same ecosystem, I can only imagine what they were thinking coming up with a name.

Outlook New somehow to this day, lacks good feature of Outlook

Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#37

Post by worksonmine »

I can't find any info about the people behind it. The branding, mentioning "The Hague" and the rest of the landing page seems to try really hard to fool me into believing this is official from the European Union, I wouldn't trust them with anything, just get Libreoffice.

Be careful.

Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#38

Post by flumpcakes »

nradov wrote: post #20

Good luck to them, but without an equivalent to Microsoft Access it's not really a replacement for Microsoft Office for many power users. (Yes, I'm aware that Access has some weaknesses as a database but for quick-and-dirty custom applications it's still the easiest platform out there.)

In 25 years I have never seen anyone use Microsoft Access in earnest. For the overwhelming majority of users I do not think this is an issue. The last time I used it was when studying for CLAiT Plus.

Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#40

Post by rsynnott »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #19
pavlov wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Microsoft Office doesn't exist anymore as a separate brand: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-offi... "Office is now Microsoft 365, the premier productivity suite with innovative productivity apps, intelligent cloud services, and world-class security. Office.com, the Office mobile app, and the Office app for Windows are combined in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app—with a new icon, new l…

I doubt this will stop the lawsuit. Also Microsoft still absolutely sells Office 365 tiers separately from Microsoft 365 tiers. Their marketing is terrible and confusing but Offie definitely still exits as a brand, and you can bet your bottom dollar the lawyers are going to be having a great day on Monday.

> I doubt this will stop the lawsuit.

I mean, I think that ship has probably sailed. Borland Office showed up at about the same time as Microsoft Office, in the late 80s. Then StarOffice, Corel Office, Wordperfect Office, throughout the 90s... If Microsoft had a defensible trademark there, then this would hardly be the first target. And Microsoft barely uses the "Office" brand _itself_, these days, and hasn't for years.

(There is still a product called Microsoft Office, but the thing that most users would think of as MS Office is now, bafflingly, branded "Microsoft 365 Copilot".)

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