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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

#491

Post by Steve16384 »

shevy-java wrote: post #476

We need to create an office suite that really allows us to get rid of those milking corporations. I am not just thinking LibreOffice - I am actually thinking that an office suite can be used globally AND can also be at the least in part be co-funded by governments. The exact amount and procedure I omit here (can be many things), but it is no longer acceptable that a single greedy corporation keeps on milking schools…

I don't think it needs one specific alternative; if the protocols they shared were all open and useable, small pieces could be replaced slowly over time.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#492

Post by flakeoil »

jimnotgym wrote: post #276
flakeoil wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they do serious financial work I for sure hope they do not use Excel or any other spread sheet tool. It can go wrong so many ways.

Perhaps serious finance professionals learnt double entry accounting, checks and balances etc. and know how to avoid those errors? Software developers on the other hand never make mistakes

> Perhaps serious finance professionals learnt double entry accounting, checks and balances etc. and know how to avoid those errors?

Sure, but they also use accounting software, not Excel.

> Software developers on the other hand never make mistakes Sure they do, but they use testing and typed languages etc.

The problem with Excel is comma vs dot, locales, fat fingering, out of range errors, too easy to change a cell formula by mistake etc.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#493

Post by JohnFen »

maxerickson wrote: post #279
JohnFen wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you replace office, you'll have to replace sharepoint, onedrive, etc. At least in my workplace, people do their best to avoid using sharepoint and onedrive anyway.

Are there downsides to OneDrive? I can see being resistant to change, haven't had issues with it (and have benefitted from the auto save quite a lot).

It's not at all about being "resistant to change". OneDrive has been around long enough that it doesn't really count as "change" anymore.

There are downsides to OneDrive. Topping the list is the risk of data loss. Every dev here has at least one story of OneDrive getting confused in a way that led to data loss (that's usually what got them to start avoiding using it). It can also be inconvenient and get in the way in more minor ways, such as causing path confusion with some applications.

The benefits, at least where I work, are pretty minimal. So, on the whole, people tend to keep their documents in unsynced folders. The only people I've talked to here that have anything positive to say about it are managers.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#494

Post by esafak »

eviks wrote: post #380
esafak wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dinosaurs gonna dinosaur. Teach his kids about the virtues of source control and testability, and the problem will be resolved in the next generation.

How are you going to get access to his kids?

Schools, Youtube, etc.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#495

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

7bit wrote: post #417
vee-kay wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, I think you’ll find certain legacy corporations have terrible codebases and very little incentive to fix it, because why fix what makes money and has no liability?

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#496

Post by philo23 »

dabockster wrote: post #257
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came to say something similar. Office 2000 seems more than sufficient for everybody outside of some very specific niches. The success of the comparatively much more basic Google Docs and Sheets are proof of this. Similarly I could live happily ever after with Photoshop 7.x or CS1 if they took full advantage of modern operating systems and hardware.

Office 2000/XP with the XML based file formats would be perfect.

It's not exactly the same, but I definitely remember Microsoft releasing some kind of conversion tool around the start of Office 2007's life that could convert the newer XML based files into the older '03 compatible files. Or maybe it was the other way around... No idea if that tools still kicking around somewhere.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#497

Post by reciprocity »

71bw wrote: post #412
typon wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

OpenOffice is no longer actively developed. It was replaced by LibreOffice quite awhile ago.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#498

Post by opan »

tonyhart7 wrote: post #471
jack_tripper wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's just that HN audiences is generally detached from the harsh reality of the "money people" who make these purchasing choices and are generally choosing the safe low friction option, that lets the business free to focus on product development and sales that are the core of business, rather than wasting resources on building and managing IT infra from FOSS scratch for the sake of avoiding $BIG_TECH. If your…

I also didn't understand where sentiment of the same industry that promote SaaS for their niche tool comes from like this is YC sponsored site, there is a tons of SaaS for niche toolkit that people sold,shares etc and now all of sudden they hate it when other people doing the same thing they do

I'm not buying or selling a SaaS. I don't like them. HN has more than one user and they don't all agree.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#500

Post by expedition32 »

esafak wrote: post #316
shiroiuma wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but they're already gone, and you can only milk them for so much. Businesses and governments are a totally different matter: they're not going to switch to the alternatives no matter what, so MS could make a lot more profit by jacking up their prices massively. $10,000 per user per year is totally doable I think.

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

This is what can end Microsoft domination. The US is becoming a hostile power.
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