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Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

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Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#441

Post by bux93 »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #119

The only reason people still need office -- other than a niche of advanced Excel users -- is because no one, despite the last several decades, has managed to make a 100% compatible DOCX editor (not LibreOffice, not Apple Pages, not Google Docs). I'm guessing it's because there are aspects of it that MSFT keeps secret? The only reason I still use Word is because I don't want to have to deal with random layout incompat…

DOCX is a terrible format though. If you don't need to edit a document, PDF is more reliable.

If you do need to edit, DOCX will invariably fudge up headings, numbering, ToCs, alignment of images/figures, keep-together not working properly for captions or tables, etc.

I think for the second usecase someone ought to introduce a completely new format that handles this a lot better. Or maybe the format is already there and it's ePub?

But then what's needed is an editor (on-prem server and local portable executable) that has the nice things like automatic ToC generation, foot/endnotes, track changes/document comparison, online collaboration.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#442

Post by trinix912 »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #265
trinix912 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PowerPoint is probably the replacement because it doesn't restrict where things can be placed (at least not by default). Word would be much more suitable, if only they made and advertised some sort of DTP mode that would do away with the image position defaults and let users put things over margins.

Do you mean changed the default text box / picture / drawing canvas mode from "in line" to "in front of text" (which lets you put it anywhere, including over margins)? You actually can do that in advanced options. "DTP mode" sounds like marketing overkill for a simple option but maybe it would help.

Pretty much. The pattern I'm noticing is users see that drawing in Word is cumbersome (layout features "get in the way") while in PowerPoint they can put things all over the place, so they naturally gravitate towards PowerPoint when they feel they don't need a classic letter layout but rather an "empty canvas" they can do whatever with.

It can all be done in Word too, but most people I've seen using Word don't bother even setting image placement for each image or change margins. They just stick with what's default.

I actually agree with you that a whole mode is an overkill, but I think whatever they put in they'd have to market pretty well so users would consider it at all. So it also makes sense to me they'd say "use PowerPoint instead" as it is what many are already doing.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#443

Post by m4rtink »

tsimionescu wrote: post #398
MangoToupe wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? What feature does office 365 have that is so difficult to replace? I'm guessing support but... is there something more obvious? Full disclosure, I haven't used microsoft office in a few decades.

Libre office can mostly replace Word, Excel, PowerPoint. But Office 365 or M365 (or whatever the brand name is today) is a huge suite of cloud collaboration and administration tools, including personal and corporate-level cloud storage, app delivery, integration with enterprise accounts and other corporate tools, email, and many other more niche/obscure things. At this point, Microsoft could probably discontinue Word…

And what if that is actually useful ? I guess email ?

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#445

Post by exasperaited »

Well how else are you going to pay for the AI they want?

You have to understand the basic consumer SaaA contract of the 21st century:

- We give them money and agree terms and they do things to us that we didn't ask for that they want to do

- They change the terms of the agreement to allow it, we occasionally spot their attempts to grab new rights in the process, and they back away a little as if it was just some sort of silly mistake.

- Repeat.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#447

Post by pjc50 »

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

Europe has just started making a few inroads in a few places. Like the Schleswig-Holstein question. This is basically 1% of what would need to be done to be secure against state mandated compromise of Microsoft.

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Goodbye-Microsoft-Schleswig-Hol...

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#448

Post by pjc50 »

wodenokoto wrote: post #370
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…

This is why I’m surprised by headlines like this”nobody wants to by Microsoft’s AI” like, every corporate M365 user must be either considering it or already started the purchasing process.

Like a lot of enterprise features, the actual users have hatred or indifference, but the purchasing carries on anyway.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#449

Post by teekert »

In the Netherlands I have spotted the first large company offering Nextcloud as an alternative: [0]

I'm thinking of pivoting my Bioinformatics services company to more of a "sovereign systems" provider. I build a ton of infra for a small startup, it's all Nucs and beefier systems throwing data around.

[0] https://www.kpn.com/zakelijk/grootzakelijk/modern-workplace/...

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#450

Post by exasperaited »

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

Well Europe had better hope this is true, because we are heading to a future where US SaaS products should be treated with at least the same level of suspicion as those Israeli fleet management apps that keep turning up on Samsung Android devices.

At the moment you can more or less, I suppose, trust that Microsoft, Google and Apple are not actively spying for the newly anti-European goals of a protofascist federal government, but I am not sure that trust should be extended to cloud service providers more generally, let alone social media companies.

Europe has maybe two years to find a new level of technology independence and it cannot wait.

Trump's government has made it text, not just subtext, that they intend to interfere with further European integration (which is also — coincidentally or not — Russia's top foreign policy goal).

The EU should assume that this is a declaration of cold war and act accordingly:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/09/donald...

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