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The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

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Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#471

Post by graemep »

rawgabbit wrote: post #213
wkat4242 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, they can now proudly proclaim they have 100M+ subscribers to their AI stuff so it's a huge success :P I'm glad my web-only 365 (business basic without teams, can't use the family plan because I need a personal domain) just renewed for a year so they can't mess with mine.

This. It is backwards attempt to become "The AI" company. They have sole rights to use OpenAI's technology and the best they can come up with is a price markup to further piss off their customers.

Why would they care if customers whine but remain customers?

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#472

Post by einpoklum »

usr1106 wrote: post #422
ozim wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not LibreOffice?

I use it. Not always great, too bloated and instructions found on the web are often for a different version and just don't seem to work. But pretty sure it's not worse than Microsoft. I'd rather burn my money than spending it on Microsoft "products".

LibreOffice is probably about 10% of the size of MS Office these days...

As for instructions/support: Changes between subsequent versions are minor. There was a versioning scheme change recently, so you may be thinking "Oh, LibreOffice 7.3 vs 24.8, very different" - no, mostly the same thing, it's just that 24.8 came out in 2024, in August. Also, there is ask.libreoffice.org #libreoffice on irc.libera.chat , and there are Telegram and Matrix channels... so just ask.

But it's true that with 0.1%-0.5% or so of the budget MS Office gets, it's difficult to keep all of the materials fully up-to-date.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#474

Post by datadrivenangel »

esperent wrote: post #265
blibble wrote: post #46

30 years of their home name Office brand, known by pretty much every person that's ever had a computer let's get rid of that, and make the unreliable bullshit generator the main brand instead certainly a courageous decision

As a user of Teams on Windows, I was so glad to find out I can map each Channel's files to a folder on my computer and edit files using LibreOffice rather than the " will it load? " crapshoot of using the web version Office that runs inside the Teams app.

It's all sharepoint under the hood, which is why it's terrible, but you can just open things in sharepoint...

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#476

Post by ogogmad »

sensanaty wrote: post #470
ogogmad wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But can you explain why this feature is/was so important? The fact that there are 3rd party tools that can restore it makes it even more marginal. There are gazillions of UI changes in every app we use, it seems strange that this very marginal one should get someone up in arms. > M$ has no excuse, other than them being a completely incompetent entity of course. No, it's because "M$" doesn't think it's an important fe…

Do you actually not understand why customization is something people want out of the operating system they use for upwards of 8+ hours a day, every single day? Should we disallow changing background images? Should we let people set color accents as they can right now? Should we even let them choose where they want their desktop icons to be, or which desktop icons they can have there? Or should we disable choosing whi…

I don't work as a PM or for Microsoft.

Perhaps the problem is a deeper one, which is constant and likely unnecessary UI makeovers. But among the endless blizzard of these, this is an odd one to make your last stand for. More to the point, onto:

> Do you actually not understand why customization is something people want out of the operating system they use for upwards of 8+ hours a day, every single day?

All the examples you listed are much more significant IMO than whether the taskbar goes to the bottom or top of the screen. I imagine that MS would be less likely to remove those features.

> M$ decides to remove it, requiring 3rd party devs to do their job for them

But why isn't that the end of the issue then? The feature can be fully restored.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#477

Post by datadrivenangel »

ok123456 wrote: post #208
riffraff wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

amazon? I mean they have some data center stuff, but amazon-the-website does not seem infected with artificial idiocy yet.

Amazon has its own AI, "rufas," plastered on the site.

And for a while it would helpfully generate python code for you!

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#478

Post by einpoklum »

the_snooze wrote: post #77
teddyh wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I tried going all LibreOffice when I was a grad student. How long ago was this?

This was in the early 2010s. Then I tried again in the late 2010s. And again (with Google's suite) a year ago. It doesn't work when you're required to submit MS Office documents to people who pay you. You can't tell them "LibreOffice is so great, you should use it too!" You either use MS Office, or you look like a sloppy amateur when your figures are the wrong size and the text is overflowing off the side of the docu…

> It doesn't work when you're required to submit MS Office documents to people who pay you.

Microsoft office supports ODT these days... you can tell them to "just open it in Office" and it will work.

Also, the LibreOffice DOCX export filter is pretty good. Not perfect, but then, if you need that perfection, why not submit a PDF?

---

And finally: To help LibreOffice (and its filters) improve, we need to contribute either money or development time: www.libreoffice.org/donate

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#479

Post by ulfw »

JimDabell wrote: post #406
dreamcompiler wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So much this, when you see Zuck or even Jensen Huang saying "software engineers won't be needed anymore" and being excited about it you get pissed off as a software engineer lol. The real story nobody is saying out loud is that CEOs are much more replaceable by AI than are software engineers.

CEO is the one job role that AI can’t take because AI lacks accountability. Who is the person using the AI that will get blamed by the board if they screw up? That’s the CEO, even if you decide to give them a different title.

What accountability does Elon Reeve Musk, richest grifter on the planet and CEO of half a dozen companies ever face? An AI can be turned off and replaced at any time.

Re: The Microsoft 365 Copilot launch was a disaster

#480

Post by esperent »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #474
esperent wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user of Teams on Windows, I was so glad to find out I can map each Channel's files to a folder on my computer and edit files using LibreOffice rather than the " will it load? " crapshoot of using the web version Office that runs inside the Teams app.

It's all sharepoint under the hood, which is why it's terrible, but you can just open things in sharepoint...

I only started using MS cloud stuff last year. This whole Onedrive/SharePoint split confuses the hell out of me.

I don't really know what SharePoint is. It seems like kind of an online site builder/file sharing platform? I'm not sure why those would go together. In any case, I get the impression it's kind of deprecated and Onedrive seems much easier to understand.

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