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Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

office365itpros.com

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Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#411

Post by ragebol »

baka367 wrote: post #390
amanzi wrote: post #240

Here in NZ, pretty much all medium/large businesses and govt departments have gone all-in with M365. Most govt departments are on the E5 licence, and have also started to roll out the Copilot licences too. The cost and complexity and the effort required to switch away from M365 is massive. It's not just using a different version of Excel and Word - that's the least of the issues. It's all the data stored in SharePoin…

Europe is doing a pretty good job on slowly veering off this addiction. Might be worth reaching out to them for knowledge sharing or two

Are we really? As much as I want to believe this and as much as some people want this, is is not yet the case AFAIK. Some govts. had some success recently though, like Schlesswig-Holstein.

The Dutch tax administration is currently busy pushing all of their internal docs etc to Microsoft as well, so much chagrin of course: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/makelaarstaal-over-onze-be... (in Dutch, although the author has good stuff in English as well)

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#412

Post by 71bw »

typon wrote: post #358
rprend wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s plenty of developer talent. You don’t see microsoft office competitors because it’s a bad business to start. “Remake microsoft office suite, but cheaper” won’t work. I’m sure dozens of people have tried.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WPS_Office 500 million users. Just because you haven't heard it doesn't mean an alternative doesn't exist.

Issue is, the WPS office suite is more bloated with ads than even Microsoft's offerings are, and, overall, is quite a doozy to navigate.

If you want a true and good alternative, I'd recommend ONLYOFFICE[1].

[1] https://www.onlyoffice.com/

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#413

Post by mrweasel »

JSR_FDED wrote: post #4

Copilot in every nook and cranny…that stuff costs money!

Shouldn't CoPilot make the thing cheaper? Less need for skilled developers, faster development cycles?

Microsoft increasing prices on a subscription product is an admission that their AI play is failing. The project sucks up money and yields none of the promised returns. Failure to deliver on development, failure to optimize datacenters, failure to reduce required staff in general.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#414

Post by ManBeardPc »

My next company‘s boss was pretty much Windows only (server and desktops/laptops, some Linux servers). Linux on the server was already replacing more and more machines. Now I am even allowed to use MacBooks or Linux laptops. Current company is already using the Google suite, MS Office was an exception if required for some reason. I saw the same shift with Oracle. Previously nearly everyone wanted Oracle as a DB, then the price increases got too much and everyone who could switched to alternatives like MySQL or Postgres.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#415

Post by thot_experiment »

I know that modern office has xlookup and other niceties, but if you're not a power user Office 97 off archive.org is like 200mb installed, works just fine on win 10 or under wine, and has the benefit of being written 28 years ago so on a modern computer everything happens imperceptibly fast. I installed the 97 suite like 2 or 3 years ago and I've never looked back.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#416

Post by nicbou »

ManBeardPc wrote: post #414

My next company‘s boss was pretty much Windows only (server and desktops/laptops, some Linux servers). Linux on the server was already replacing more and more machines. Now I am even allowed to use MacBooks or Linux laptops. Current company is already using the Google suite, MS Office was an exception if required for some reason. I saw the same shift with Oracle. Previously nearly everyone wanted Oracle as a DB, then…

I have already ditched Office a decade ago in favour of Google Docs. It was not a dogmatic decision, I just did not see the value.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#417

Post by 7bit »

vee-kay wrote: post #338
fungi wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IT departments often lack the skills and/or desire to use anything but MS

Reverse argument is true as well.. If corporations were not using buggy/fragile, complex, and potentially vulnerable products from Microsoft & other vendors (e.g., Oracle), there may NOT have been need of so many skilled engineers and IT departments.

All software is vulnerable, so what you're saying is not true. The only reason the products you listed seem more vulnerable is because they are focused by malicious actors due to their popularity and hence, also more often in the news.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#418

Post by swiftcoder »

thot_experiment wrote: post #415

I know that modern office has xlookup and other niceties, but if you're not a power user Office 97 off archive.org is like 200mb installed, works just fine on win 10 or under wine, and has the benefit of being written 28 years ago so on a modern computer everything happens imperceptibly fast. I installed the 97 suite like 2 or 3 years ago and I've never looked back.

Honestly not sure I've ever used any of the new Office features past maybe Office 2000

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#419

Post by GCUMstlyHarmls »

thot_experiment wrote: post #415

I know that modern office has xlookup and other niceties, but if you're not a power user Office 97 off archive.org is like 200mb installed, works just fine on win 10 or under wine, and has the benefit of being written 28 years ago so on a modern computer everything happens imperceptibly fast. I installed the 97 suite like 2 or 3 years ago and I've never looked back.

Is there a reason to use this over LibreOffice? I had until this year a pretty old machine (~11-12 years old at time of replacement, upper midrange at time of purchase) and I never felt like it was slow -- possibly because everything was slow on that machine though and I was stuck in a forest...

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#420

Post by anonzzzies »

6510 wrote: post #319
esafak wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments in Europe are increasingly ditching Microsoft, goaded by souring relations between the continents.

Don't underestimate the rage from citizens who receive important documents and sheets in formats they can't open. Or you can open them but with a warning that some functionality might be lost. (reads like: you might go to prison)

My gov is moving 100% of documents, forms, official stuff to web based without browser plugins. Of course unfortunately if you want to download/print (...) it will be pdf, but outside that, all filling in, editing, reading etc of all citizen facing materials must be possible with a modern web browser. If PDF is only the export for the final doc, I am ok with it; I can fill ut with whatever browser on whatever device. This should be the mandatory basics imho.
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