Submitted by If you don’t like the mandatory antipiracy checks that Microsoft now enforces for Windows, brace yourself. The Microsoft Office productivity and collaboration suite is about to get a similar program. The company’s Office Genuine Advantage program will require mandatory validation of Office software starting October 27, the software vendor quietly disclosed today.
If you thought WGA was bad OGA is going to be even worse, so it may be a good time for people to give Oo as second look/chance.
http://www.openoffice.org/
I don’t think Microsoft is losing much sleep over pirates trying out OpenOffice.org/Abiword/etc. Some of them may be willing to take the downgrade, but others will bite the bullet and pony up the cash for a superior product.
Or they’ll just stick with what they already have.
I don’t see how Word is so superior as people claim. It’s a word processor, and does pretty much the same things I did in GeoWrite on my Commodore 128 all those years ago. That’s a lot of cash to pony up, and a lot of activation BS for such a simple program. About the only real reason to spend that much money is the .doc lockin.
big coffin hunter!
haha, I’m listening to the dark tower for the second time, i’m on book four. I’ve got most of the books, but i DO have ALL of the audiobooks.
I’m a proponent of open-source and switched from Windows to Ubuntu and wouldn’t go back. But as someone who use a work processor for my work every day, I have to say that MS Word is definitely superior to OpenOffice, especially in the area of collaborative editing of documents (tracking changes, adding comments, etc.), which is often a necessity in a multi-user workflow environment. I use OOo a lot and it’s generally good, but I do sometimes have to switch to Word for stuff that OOo just doesn’t do properly. Word, Excel and Powerpoint are simply superior to their OO counterparts (and I use all three as well as OOo).
On the other hand, for personal use, OOo is more than sufficient and there’s no need to fork out money for MS Office.
I don’t think Microsoft is losing much sleep over pirates trying out OpenOffice.org/Abiword/etc. Some of them may be willing to take the downgrade, but others will bite the bullet and pony up the cash for a superior product.
In what way are OOo or Abiword users “pirates”?
And in what way is OOo a “downgrade”?
OOo is free (in two respects) and simply a different product, so there’s no need to look down on it this way.
I guess MSOffice would have its strong points, but could you name something meaningful that you can do with MSO and cannot do with OOo, which is also relevant to a significant group of users?
I guess MSOffice would have its strong points, but could you name something meaningful that you can do with MSO and cannot do with OOo, which is also relevant to a significant group of users?
Read/Write .doc documents?
I know it sounds stupid, but it’s difficult to change the way (and therefore the apps) people is familiar with. Just look at Windows vs. Linux debate. Even Apple plays with that when they tell you that “In a Mac you can even use Microsoft Office” as one of the reasons to “switch to Mac”! Don’t you think it sounds ironic?
To user ‘enegeo’, quoting:
> Read/Write .doc documents?
> I know it sounds stupid, but it’s difficult to change
> the way (and therefore the apps) people is familiar
> with. Just look at Windows vs. Linux debate. Even
> Apple plays with that when they tell you that “In a
> Mac you can even use Microsoft Office” as one of the
> reasons to “switch to Mac”! Don’t you think it sounds
> ironic?
Not wanting to be offtopic, but you don’t seem to know that you don’t need MS Word for Mac to be able to read or write .doc files. (if you do, I’m sorry)
You can do it with Apple’s Pages (part of iWork, bundled with every Mac) or even with Apple’s TextEdit.
http://www.apple.com/iwork/pages/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TextEdit
Same with OpenOffice’s Writer.
http://www.openoffice.org/product/writer.html
QUOTE: “(…)WRITER can of course read all your old Microsoft Word documents, or save your work in Microsoft Word format for sending to people who are still locked into Microsoft products(…)”
Edited 2006-10-28 19:44
Apple’s iWork is bundled with every Mac? Funny….it certainly wasn’t bundled with my MBP, my sister’s MacBook, or my parents’ Mac Mini. Are you sure you know what you’re talking about? iLife is bundled with every mac – itunes, iphoto, imovie, idvd, garageband.
To user ‘progoth’ and quoting:
> Apple’s iWork is bundled with every Mac? Funny….
> it certainly wasn’t bundled with my MBP, my sister’s
> MacBook, or my parents’ Mac Mini. Are you sure you
> know what you’re talking about? iLife is bundled
> with every mac – itunes, iphoto, imovie, idvd,
> garageband.
Not wanting to be offtopic… Yes, iWork comes bundled with every Mac. It was on my 2005 iBook G4 and 2006 Mac mini Intel Core Duo 1.66. It can be freely used for 30 days. After that it will cost you $79 to keep it running legally.
Does ‘bundled’ also means it has to be free? Sorry, english is not my mother tongue.
But yes, it does come preinstalled on every new Mac since 2005, so if it is missing from yours then something is really wrong there.
From Wikipedia: “(…)Although iLife comes free on every Mac, iWork is to be bought separately. There is a free 30 day trial for iWork on every Mac, and also if customers chose to upgrade to a newer version of iLife, a free trial of the newest iWork comes free as well.(…)”
…and you forgot iLife’06 also includes iWeb.
Edited 2006-10-29 07:08
Yes, “bundled” means “it comes with the purchase.”
If you had said “an iWork trial comes bundled with every mac purchase.” I wouldn’t have disagreed. iWork doesn’t come with every mac…you have to BUY iWork if you get a mac…or iLife comes with every mac…those statements I can agree with. “a ms office compatible suite comes with every mac” is just plain wrong…add “demo” on to there and it’s ok.
With your reasoning, MS Office 2004 is “bundled” with my iBook and it does come pre-installed…
> With your reasoning, MS Office 2004 is “bundled”
> with my iBook and it does come pre-installed…
That wasn’t ‘reasoning’, it was a small mistake with my english. Maybe you would like to engage this conversation in my mother tongue?
I believe MS Office 2004 doesn’t have a trial pre-installed on any Mac, so you are just exagerating.
Also, if you are so worried about my small english mistake regarding iWork’s status, again I remember you that Apple’s TextEdit (equivalent to Microsoft’s Notepad?) allows you to open, edit and save MS Word documents.
>> Read/Write .doc documents?
I’m actually a bit in shock that you don’t seem to know you really can do all that. You can even save a document in Writer in a few different types “.doc” (“97/2000/XP”; “95”; “6.0”).
Can one save a document as PDF in MS Office yet, by the way? That’s a bit of candy that OOo has, something I heard a standard MSOffice isn’t capable of.
I like that feature quite a lot, I have to admit.
Edited 2006-10-28 20:41
Can one save a document as PDF in MS Office yet, by the way?
Adobe has threatened Microsoft with lawsuits for allowing such functionality out-of-the-box. There are plenty of free 3rd party plug-ins that offer that capabity, however.
Not that it matters. LaTeX’s PDF output is far better than that of any word processor.
Of course it gets really funny if the only way to rescue corrupted MSWord documents is using OO. Happend to me several times (and even if the file is not corrupted: file size reduction when doing the MS <==> OO roundtrip is astonishing).
BTW: There is no such thing as a .doc format. A quick look in MS own format compatibility checking tool (part of MSWord for MacOSX) will prove that just fine.
Edited 2006-10-29 13:53
In what way are OOo or Abiword users “pirates”?
I believe you’ve misinterpreted my post. I was referring to people currently using pirated copies of MS Office who may be driven by this activation program to OOo or Abiword.
And in what way is OOo a “downgrade”?
Usability. OOo is still incredibly klunky and non-intuitive compared to Office 2003, let alone 2007.
In terms of features, OOo, Abiword, and even the “Web 2.0” office suites are more than enough for most users.
Yes, as I mentioned above, OO Writer’s implementation of collaborative workflow features is very poor and buggy on top of that. Granted, I don’t know if that’s relevant to a “significant” group of users, but certainly it is to businesses where documents have to be reviewed by various people or departments (which is a lot of businesses). OOo is just not suitable for them. I wish it was! I think OOo should focus on the features that businesses need, rather than on the more flashy features that people might enjoy for personal use. The reason: If your average user (not your computer geek) has to use something at her, he/she will use the same at home because he/she is already familiar with it and doesn’t want to be bothered with something new. The best way to gain adoption: Get your software used by businesses and schools. Home users will follow.
Or they’ll just stick with what they already have.
That’s most likely what most businesses will do. Office 12 offers very little that they don’t already have.
Whether it is superior or not can be debated; more like it is defacto, everyone thinks MS Office when it comes to this stuff. I use OpenOffice at and work and I have zero problems interchanging documents with my coworkers using MS Office.
Drop MS Office, it’s not compatible with .odt
Use OpenOffice.org in the enterprise. Tell your customers you can’t read properly their document because you don’t have MS Office. In the end, they’ll do the switch.
Enough!
Use OpenOffice.org in the enterprise. Tell your customers you can’t read properly their document because you don’t have MS Office. In the end, they’ll do the switch.
Where do you work? If I were to tell my customers to switch word processors because I can’t read their industry-standard-formatted documents, they would tell ME to switch. And I would have to agree with them.
industry standard ? what are you on about, Office is not even compatible with its other versions
.odt is the way to go.
//Where do you work? If I were to tell my customers to switch word processors because I can’t read their industry-standard-formatted documents, they would tell ME to switch. //
I think you are getting very confused about that word “standard”.
ODF is the only standard for digital storage format for Office documents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opendocument
“OpenDocument or ODF, short for the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications, is an open format for saving and exchanging office documents such as memos, reports, books, spreadsheets, databases, charts, and presentations. This standard was developed by the OASIS industry consortium and based upon the XML format originally created by OpenOffice.org. ODF was approved as an OASIS standard on May 1, 2005, and was approved for release as an ISO and IEC International Standard (ISO/IEC 26300) on May 8, 2006.”
European governments are making moves towards mandating ODF for reasons of interoperability.
http://business.newsforge.com/business/06/10/20/1621200.shtml?tid=1…
If in the near future you are running Microsoft Office in Europe and you are sent an ODF formatted document by a government department, which you cannot read, then yes indeed it is quite likely that you will have to switch.
When will people get it through their heads that it is Microsoft products which are non-compliant with standards?
How about the standard for scalable vector graphics, for example?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svg
“Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML markup language for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, both static and animated, and either declarative or scripted. It is an open standard created by the World Wide Web Consortium.”
Try and use this file in an MS Office document:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Svg.svg
It is perfectly OK to put it in an ODF document.
Tell your customers you can’t read properly their document because you don’t have MS Office. In the end, they’ll do the switch.
Or, more likely, you’ll lose these customers.
Use OpenOffice.org in the enterprise. Tell your customers you can’t read properly their document because you don’t have MS Office. In the end, they’ll do the switch.
Errr, I doubt it. They’ll probably ask for the phone number of your nearest competitor, though.
Errr, I doubt it. They’ll probably ask for the phone number of your nearest competitor, though.
No, there are different ways to say it. You can say the document is readable, but it’s a little weird on your screen because you don’t use MS Office but OpenOffice.org. They will not go to your competitor for this reason. Instead, if this happens several times they will start thinking: “Well, it’s not the first time our documents look weird on other people’s computer. Our version of MS Office is getting old. It’s time we download this free OpenOffice.org. Let’s see how it looks like”.
just drop it…:-)
… on principle; however, in my experience, it just hasn’t been an issue within my company or for my customers. The vast majority of our software is pre-validated when we get our machines, so valication is a non-issue.
Why do MICROS~1 products like “Word” claim to be “industry standard”? First of all, let’s state thatt the “standard” (file format, GUI functionalities etc.) differs from “Word” version to “Word” version, starting at 1.0 until today. What’s “standard” here? (Replace “Word” by “Office” for similar sentence.)
Then, “Word” documents get bigger and bigger the more often you save them – regardless of the amount of characters in the document. And remember the silly memory dump file saving – we were doing such things in the 60s for the last time. 🙂
And from my experience, some people seem to think thatt “Office” is for everything: The put .rar archives with .mp3 files into a .doc file and say: “Hey, hear the great music!” – or even more stupid things.
MICROS~1’s “Office” menu structure is terrible, functionality is overloaded at one point – and lacks features on the other. Pay for such memory garbage? No thanks.
I’ll stay with OpenOffice and XML. It’s a good cross plattform product. It’s easier to use. And it’s free.
And finally: Users can be convinced to switch away from the MICROS~1 product. There are better solutions and have always been (e. g. Geoworks Ensemble, LaTeX with WYSIWYG GUI abstraction, StarOffice, OpenOffice, maybe KOffice). Just try them out and find what’s the best for your needs.
Would somebody mind telling me which part of this post contains offensive language or personal attacks? Because it was modded down to 0 for no apparent reason.
“I can understand not liking activation on principle; however, in my experience, it just hasn’t been an issue within my company or for my customers. The vast majority of our software is pre-validated when we get our machines, so valication is a non-issue.”
I have a right to my opinion, just as everyone else has a right to their opinions. You may disagree with me, but that isn’t a sufficient basis to mod a post down. If you (and you know who you are) want to suppress opposing viewpoints, you’re in the wrong forum. OS News is supposed to cover ALL operating system news, and you need to grow up and learn a bit more about tolerance & respect.
I have a right to my opinion, just as everyone else has a right to their opinions. You may disagree with me, but that isn’t a sufficient basis to mod a post down. If you (and you know who you are) want to suppress opposing viewpoints, you’re in the wrong forum. OS News is supposed to cover ALL operating system news, and you need to grow up and learn a bit more about tolerance & respect.
Welcome to the forums! Thats how it works around here, if someone merely disagrees with what you say they mod you down.
Its been that way for some time and its one of the more annoying aspects of these forums.
I’d be willing to wager that over %50 of all modded down posts were done so incorrectly or marked as ‘off topic’ simply because a large number of insecure souls on this site couldn’t handle what was posted.
I think everyone is fine with their Office 2003/XP/2000/97 and most businesses will see little reason to upgrade just to add more training costs (due to the new interface) and more IT headaches (due to activation).
I doubt OpenXML (docx etc.) will take off. Many business users will keep on using their old versions of Office and few will bother to install support for OpenXML. The few businesses that have migrated to Office 12 will default to the old binary formats to be compatible with their customers.
Office was the very first microsoft application to require activation…did it years before XP came out. OK, that may not be completely true, I haven’t used EVERY MS application…but I do know office 2000 had this “functionality.” People who pirate it will get cracked versions, people who buy it won’t notice, just as it has been for a long time now.
Move along, nothing to see here.
(before you flame me for being a MS fanboy, I have 5 machines in this room, only 1 of which is a windows box – and it has no kbd/disp/mouse, just runs uTorrent)
is there anything new expect the interface?
In my work which deals with documentation and Print solutions I have on many occasions reccomended OO over MS Office. That and having displayed to clients how OO can open their complex formatted Doc files and print them when MS Word itself can’t (problems with tables and charts).
Even changed my record keeping on equipment from Excell to OO after Excell one day refused to open the spread sheet I was using to track service calls. I don’t get those issues in OO.
MS Office is overrated.
I don’t think my company will switch from office 2003 for quite some time but for even average users this whole activation deal is getting to be a real hassle.
I’ve had word become damaged and then suddenly start asking for my CD-Key out of the blue.
I’m sorry but I have work to do and I don’t have time to jump through f**king hoops just to use something I’ve bought.
The more MS tightens its grip, the more users will start looking for alternatives.
Just my 2 cents:
A while ago i required a copy of xp. i grudgingly went out and purchased a copy. That was back in 2k4, just before sp2 came out. Not very long ago ( five months or so) after having to reinstall it i was told that the key was no longer valid. i had to call customer service to get that fixed up. Except they never did get it resolved. English was not their native language, and getting numbers passed back and forth between us was a nightmare. They evenutally hung up on me during my last call to them.
I don’t care what other people’s preferences are, or whether their experiences sucked less than mine. I personally will never purchase another MS product. Activation is a feature I can definately do without.
EDIT: Typos
Edited 2006-10-29 01:04
For any switch to happen in the near future, one major major product required will be a mail client to replace outlook.
Without that, I don’t think most companies will even look for switching from Outlook.
All this really does is make things more difficult for the legitimate owner.
So, wtf is the great advantage you get when being genuine?
wtf is the great advantage you get when being genuine?
You get updates. You’re legal.
The same question could be asked with regard to the purchase of any product, not just software, and not just Microsoft Office.