Microsoft Corp. has told beta testers of Office 11, its next-version Office desktop productivity suite, that the product will only work with the Windows 2000 operating system with Service Pack 3 installed, Windows XP and later desktop releases. While Office 11 is slated for release next year, today Win9x/ME/NT OSes still hold about 52% of the overall OS market, and by next year’s Office release, this is still expected to be around 40%. This is a tremendous amount of sales getting wasted (Office is the main income for Microsoft), but Microsoft said that this decision was mostly taken in order to incorporate new technologies on Office that are only available on the 2k/XP OSes, and also for security reasons (“Windows 9x is inherently insecure” Sloan Crayton of Microsoft said).
Office 11 Cuts the Cord to Windows 95, 98, 98SE, Me, NT
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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“Windows 9x is inherently insecure”, better late than never, but NT?
“Windows 9x is inherently insecure” Sloan Crayton of Microsoft said
In other news, death can be fatal…
Seriously, this is a pretty major statement. Are there any official documented press releases that this was stated in? The OpenSource community should have a field day with this!
(An E-Week article does not count as an official press release, sorry)
That guy who said that, is just responsible for the Microsoft newsgroup of Office, he has nothing to do with Windows directly. However, I agree that he should be more careful when making such statements that might end him up lose his job for talking too much… All the companies PR dpt I know (not just MS) can be really unhappy about such random statements from employees…
Ah, actually he is the “Microsoft Office Beta Support”. Still, he talked a bit too much. I can see him answering to PR now…
> “Windows 9x is inherently insecure”
Uuurgh .. like there is anyone in the planet who does not know!! My Translation of that statement, and of the Office news, is: Boost Sales of our new OSes…
There are so many features already on Office 2000/XP that I don’t think Office 11 would sell much if they decided that one needs Windows 2000+SP3 or Windows XP to work with all that XML fuuss and buuzzz.
Its an interesting situation if you ask me. Two questions come to mind:
1) Isn’t this a monopolistic action (in the sense that only a monoply would be *able* to do this successfully) designed to control its users?
2) Why havn’t the majority of their users figured out that if you have Office97 or later there are few people who really need to upgrade?
It reminds me of a comment of my Uncle Jim a few years back, while we where in the middle of a bug hunt on his desktop “Just when I got windows 95 working right, I had to upgrade to 98.” Reminds me of moving a few boxes from 2k to XP… ugh the cycle continues unabaited.
Well, let’s see…
There’s a huge audience still running 95/98/NT, and if they are, it’s because they’re unwilling to pay for 2000 or XP, or to buy the new hardware to support ’em, or the older software is good enough for their needs, or they are cheap.
Some of them have copies of office they paid for, and they’re probably older versions, and some of them have copies they “liberated” from work or elsewhere (probably that portion of the audience that’s too cheap to buy 2000/XP).
So Office 11 comes out with this XML-based format, and all these non-Office 11 Windows users want to interoperate.
If OpenOffice comes out with support for the same XML-based format, perhaps it will be adopted (seeing as how it is free for the cheap folks, doesn’t require 2000/XP for the lower-end hardware folks, etc. etc. etc.).
That’s a great step, isn’t it? Almost seems too good to be true. Makes me wonder what Microsoft can/will do to keep that from happening…
I was norty and read the latest news from newest arcticle to oldest, and I’ve noticed a pattern.
SuSe is releasing a new desktop with CrossOver Office built in. Xandros, of course, announced a product with the same advantage, merely days beforehand.
CrossOver Office most likely works with the Windows 98-style installation systems.
So what does Microsoft do? Stop allowing support for Windows 98. Want Office 11 on Linux? Sorry, won’t install.
Just another way to be anti-competitive.
>Just another way to be anti-competitive.
Excuse me, but for this specific issue, you are unfair. Ms never said that they will support office for Linux. They have absolutely zero responsibility as to if CrossOver plugin will work in the future or not. I think you should get your facts straight. Slam MS as “anti-competitive” for this specific issue, is at least laughable. In fact, what Cross-over guys do by offering a way to run Office on an OS that the license of Office does not allow or support, is at least illegal, if not just immoral.
While MS has done a lot of sleazy, dishonest, and dubious things, I don’t think this is one of them. Basically, MS is saying that Windows 95, 98, 98SE, Me, and NT are junk and won’t support them. While the lack of backwards compatibility is problematic for users, it probably does eliminate a lot of cruft.
This isn’t really all that surprising folks. Microsoft’s latest PR move has been their ‘Trustworthy Computing’ initiative. Lets face it, they’re just owning up to what the knowledgeable computer and infosec community already knows. Is the Office rep going to get sanctioned for this? Of course not.
Let’s face it. The majority of windows users are stagnant in upgrading. MS’s base of windows users is not keeping up with the pace at which they release new versions. By taking this approach with their key product, they’re probably hoping to give this large user base a collective kick in the rear.
At the same time, they try and score points with the security community, which has always come down hard on them, and rightly so. I’d bet a dollar this statement came OUT of the PR dept.
This is a tremendous amount of sales getting wasted (Office is the main income for Microsoft)
Sounds like a golden opportunity for OpenOffice.
No doubt it will be squandered.
What’s immoral about Crossover? As far as I’m concerned, if Microsoft really wants the consumer to be unable to purchase
software that will be used on Windows, they can demand that the buyer produce a valid Win2k/XP license beforehand.
Clicking on a EULA ( some versions of which have been shown to be illegal) AFTER I’ve paid for the product doesn’t cut it.
I agree that M$ isn’t targeting Linux in this specific instance. They should have killed off the Win9x family once Win 2K became available – it probably would have same them megabucks in support and the entire world billions in virus cleanup.
I don’t think I am unfair at all.
>Clicking on a EULA AFTER I’ve paid for the product doesn’t cut it.
I believe that some are available on the Ms site?
Excuse me, but for this specific issue, you are unfair.
You’re right, maybe I am. I’ve had a prick of a day, and someone’s got to suffer, right?
Yes, MS *does* have the right not to license the app for a non-MS product. (In countries that this is deemed legal! For example, one could draw a long and convuluted argument that it could be illegal in Australia under the “bait-and-switch” legislation. Depends on if the lawyers could find an MS-hating judge, though – I wouldn’t allow it myself!)
My original, badly-phrased post, was intended to point out the coincidence that this move has happened after Suse and Xandros have both released versions of a desktop OS that supports MS Office out-of-the-box.
And I don’t believe in coincidences.
“Windows 9x is inherently insecure”
That statement is redundant. But then Windows XP is also insecure. But then that statement is redundant also.
It’s more than rumor that several companies including Gateway and Dell are going to install WordPerfect Office in their low end Windows computers. Not that it affects me. I don’t buy packaged computers because I refuse to give MS any money they don’t deserve.
PS: I pay for all software that I install. Including buying Linux distributions and Star Office. I also paid for my Mac. I paid the lowest price I could for Windows 98 and I pay for all the apps and games that are not actually supposed to be free. I don’t pirate software. I don’t steal.
>And I don’t believe in coincidences.
I do believe in them. I was in a hotel in Athens in 1995 and having a good time with my ex-fiance, the evening we arrived in Athens (we gone there for shopping). After we had all this “fun”, we opened the door to go out shopping. The person of the next room opened his door too, and we were sure that he had heard us, as we were making quite some noise…
Then, he turned to us, and we in horror saw that the guy was no one else but the house owner of the house we were normally living, 450 Km from Athens, in Preveza. Needless to say, we got frozen. Talk about statistics and probabilities…
ps. Athens is a city of at least 5 million people and it has hotels everywhere. We thought “no one we know will be there”…
It’s immoral to use Office on a non-Microsoft OS? I don’t think so. That’s a weird notion of morality.
While M$ does have an area devoted to Volume Licensing, here’s the best I could do for End User licenses:
Either buy it or call us first. I’ve spent hours on the phone waiting for M$ support and I’d rather watch grass grow than wait in a phone queue.
( From http://www.microsoft.com:80/licensing/resources/faq.asp#5 )
Q: How can I find out what a software license allows me to do with a specific product (Microsoft® SQL Server™, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows®, etc.)?
A: Each Microsoft product includes an End User License Agreement (EULA) text file. This file is displayed when installing the package and can also be located on the CD-ROM (file name is EULA.txt). If you are an Open License, Select License, or Enterprise Agreement customer, your use of the products licensed under your agreement is governed by the terms of your license agreement and the product use rights specific to such products. The product use rights will be made available to you via the Web site Microsoft identifies or by some other reasonable means. If you cannot find what you need on the EULA, please contact a licensing specialist at 1-800-426-9400 (select option 4).
Considering that WinXP just came out last year and anybody who bought a computer (home users) before XP got ME. So, it is possible for people who have computers just over a year old won’t be able to run the newest version of Office without upgrading their OS. Ain’t that a pisser?
>In fact, what Cross-over guys do by offering a way to run
>Office on an OS that the license of Office does not allow or
>support, is at least illegal, if not just immoral.
Well, I would guess if it were indeed illegal, the Microsoft legal hounds would have shut them down long ago, especially since the Crossover stuff is sold commercially. I would be careful about stating that it is “at least illegal”. I’m not going to even touch the morality factor, that seems just weird to me.
I of course agree that Microsoft has no obligation to make their software work in a way that it was never intended, if so, we’d already have Office on Linux.
Since you believe that Crossover is so wrong, then I would guess you completely disagree with the concept of Wine, and reverse engineering the win32 API? I guess you also believe that Lindows’ ablility to run Win32 apps is immoral? Hmmm, with the announcement of some other distros using Wine much more recently, it seems others are jumping on the Wine bandwagon.
Heck, I think its a mixed blessing for Linux overall, and maybe a bit counterproductive (gives a tiny bit of credability to Ballmer’s comment about Linux being an os that emulates instead of innovates). Everyone is entitled to their opinion I guess…
Having seen whats in SP3, thats where I get off the bus, no calling home for me, no auto add features against my will. Obviously MS would like Security for MS by having all its users run OS & App versions that facilitate this.
As for Crossover, could be coincidence, don’t know, but if I buy Office & run it on non MS OS, am I a criminal or immoral. If thats true, then the world is a very sick place.
Antarius wrote:
> My original, badly-phrased post, was intended to point
> out the coincidence that this move has happened after
> Suse and Xandros have both released versions of a desktop
> OS that supports MS Office out-of-the-box.
>
> And I don’t believe in coincidences.
Sounds to me like you’re a conspiracy theorist
Huh…if MS really does cut the cord with Office 11 (and other apps., probably) then perhaps there’s an opening for the Linux desktops that run MS apps (Xandros, the upcoming SuSe, etc.)
I do like Word, and use it a lot for work, etc., but MS’s alleged plan to cut the cord is a real pain and will compel a larger number of users to seriously consider a different OS, esp. if it’s “user friendly” and can run Windows apps.
Cheers,
Steve
1) It’s not like they’re saying that when they release Office 11 that all old copies of Office will suddenly stop working. If you’re running Win98 and Office 2000 and you’re happy with it … good for you. No problem. They’re not even saying that older versions of Office won’t run in new versions of Windows (though I’m sure at some point this will eventually have to happen as APIs change and such)
2) If any other software vendor said that the next version of their product won’t run under older versions of windows, people wouldn’t care. They’d say “good for them for breaking the legacy support that keeps systems down”
3) As another poster pointed out, this should be a golden opportunity for OpenOffice.org or StarOffice. If orphaned users would rather pay to upgrade an OS as well as purchase a new version of their office suite, then you need to look and see what need your software is *not* fulfilling.
I’m running Office 2000 on Linux via Crossover Office, IHMO, I’m more than happy. To all the Microsoft buffs out there, why should I, or infact, anyone need to upgrade beyond XP? Is there any reason?
What would I like to see? Crossover Office team up with Adobe, Macromedia and Corel so that these companies can help Codeweavers can bridge the gab between Windows and Linux. I’d be much happier running Wordperfect Suite 2002 Pro with Corel Draw 11 on Linux if I could. If a person is reading from these companies: I have $2,000 burning a hole in my pocket. I could easily say na, or, if you support Codeweavers, that 2000 could be yours.
The license/EULA is Office XP and later. It is quite alright to run Office 2000 on Linux using crossover office. Most people also accept that Microsoft doesn’t support it, and why should they? If people run it on anything other than the tested platform, that is, Windows, then tough luck if it doesn’t work.
Sounds to me like you’re a conspiracy theorist
Suuuuurreee. That’s what “They” would like you to think…
“This is a tremendous amount of sales getting wasted.”
I don’t think that’s exactly true.
After all, if a user still is using 9x/me/nt, why would he/she pay twice the price of a new OS (2k/xp) for an office suite? i.e. Wouldn’t he/she most likely to buy a new OS first? Also, if that user already is having 9x/me/nt, and he/she wants an office suite, wouldn’t he/she already have one? Next thing, ok, let’s say he/she already have an office suite installed, the thing is, if he/she is still happy with 9x/me/nt, that is very likely to mean the difference in Office11 and his/her currently office suite won’t mean much to the user, i.e. it’s not going to be thrilling!
So, the main point here is, a 9x/me/nt user is very unlikely going to buy the state of the art office suite.
add on to my above message…
So, the main point here is, a 9x/me/nt user is very unlikely going to buy the state of the art office suite, whether 9x/me/nt is supported or not.
Just to get people to buy 2000 or XP, and that it isn’t fair….
Show me a Mac with OS 6, 7, 8, or 9 that can run iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, or Final Cut Pro. Apple is notorious for not considering backward compatibility. Yet, no one seems to speak ill of them.
Apple stopped all development for OS9 several months ago and Mac OS 9 was released after win98 and win98SE! Mac OSX is only 19 months old and Apple has already dropped support for all versions before X! Ironically as recently as a few months ago a majority of Mac users hadn’t moved up to OSX yet. Also the lack of windows 95 support is OLD NEWS!!! Office XP as I recall doesn’t support windows 95. IE6 doesn’t support win95 and windowsmedia hasn’t supported win95 for the last two versions going on three versions. Given I agree that it is strange they dropped winME support while still supporting win2k not many people moved to ME anyway.
>In fact, what Cross-over guys do by offering a way to run >Office on an OS that the license of Office does not allow or >support, is at least illegal, if not just immoral.
I’m not sure whether it’s illegal, as i haven’t read the EULA for Office ’97. However, if it were illegal, I would think that codeweavers would have been shut down a long time ago.
In terms of morality, what are you talking about? What particular set of morals are you testing this against? I just don’t understand that statement. How can it be immoral to use a product I’ve paid for on the operating system of my choice. I just don’t understand how that is immoral.
Sorry, please explain.
MS does the right thing and everyone is all over them. I wouldn’t expect MS to support anything earlier than 2k. In all reality they only should be supporting XP and 2k-server (or whatever it’s called). MS’s current offerings is XP thats what they are marketing towards. They expect you to move up. They shouldn’t have to help you stick with your old version. They shouldn’t force you to change though, and they don’t. This is not forcing an upgrade. If you want new features upgrade. Otherwise stop complaining. I’m shocked that MS has any support for anything earlier than 2k, why should they? their obsolete. Most the problems in windows are in the 9x series, if MS could get people off them and kill it for good they would get rid of most their problems. People attack there products for all sorts of things like BSOD and they are 9x issues, such complaints arn’t even relivant and people attack MS on them. People just want to complain about MS. If everyone was running XP and current MS products people would have very little to bitch about. But people won’t even give MS credit for doing things right. MS isn’t much differant than Apple, Apple is trying to get everyone to OSX for obivous reasons. OS9 is a liability, it was crap and they don’t want to waste effort supporting it. And they have no reason to. So old macs don’t run OSX well, well thats your problem, buy a faster one. If your going to be a hard ass and bitch about problems and want thing for your old OS and hardware that the world has gone by, shut up. Computer hardware and software companies don’t have responablity to you. Your the one not moving. MS doesn’t garentee support for things for X number of years (if they do i’m not aware of it and i doubt their breaking the deal). They have responsabilty to their latest products. There seams to be way to many MS conspiracy freaks around. Give MS a break, yes they do things not right at times, but even when they do things right they get attacked. One can only imaging how much crap has to go into things like windows for legacy stuff. You could probably run XP on a 486 25mhz, there is not reason for it. Doing something like Be did with beos and only support P1 and up is something windows could use only make it Pii or Piii and up. Probably shrink the install down some to.
If your running win95 and office97 this move by MS is not going to effect you, it’s obivious you wouldn’t upgrade anyways. If your going to run office 11 you might as well upgrade to XP. The only people who are complaining are those who would just get a copy from a freind. Well in those people case you didn’t pay for it so MS in no way what so ever should support you. You shouldn’t be running 9x windows people! XP home upgrade is 100bucks, it’s not going to kill you. Also far as this meaning it won’t work in the cross over plug in, please, like MS was thinking that. They are just trying to improve product and get people upgraded. Not everything MS does is a conspiracy against linux.
I have to agree with Brad on several points. I agree, MS shouldn’t be supporting anything less than 2k from now on; 9x is an old architecture and “most” who are still running 9x are running the original Pentium class (or lower) computers. I also agree that most people only need 97 and not a newer version of Office, heck, I usually use OpenOffice. I don’t see why consumers need to upgrade to the newer version of Office once it came out. Nothing gets re-invented in the new office suites, only more feautres no one uses and more bugs = more service packs.
OTOH, if I recall, MS has stopped making 2k available to OEMs and most definately 9x. I don’t know if this applies to corporations but here’s the catch. You might recall in the news recently that MS boasted record profits this quarter while the tech sector earnings were down overall. Might this have anything to do with the new licensing agreements?
Now, if the ‘Office 11 only works on 2k’ rumor is in fact true, wouldn’t this be the next big cash cow? Corporate users “need” to upgrade to Office every few years to stay current with their programs. Seeing as most won’t have upgraded to XP or 2k, most offices I’ve seen/worked in are still using XP. If they want to take advantage of volume Office discounts while upgrading computers, etc. What better way to do it than to upgrade to XP/2K at the same time!
“Windows 9x is inherently insecure”. They probably boasted it was secure when it launched. Now they are spending (supposedly) over 1 billion to audit their OSes and Office suites. Funny I might add that whenever they make big annoncements its always invovles 1/2 – 1 billion dollars (XP advertising, XP development, Secure Programming initiative)… When Longhorn or .NET software are launched, XP and 2k will seem *ahem* insecure in comparison.
Now I don’t think that this is a very bad decision. I mean because of the complicated issues, they have the right to cut support for older machines. I mean, they already cut support for Windows 3.1 right? This is very normal. It will be Microsoft bashing to say that they don’t have the right to do that. Everybody does that. Even Apple Mac OS X applications do that. There is nothing to discuss here.
Let me tell you something real to discuss about. I recently installed MSN messenger, because Windows XP already have it, so it is easy for my parents to configure it. Instead of downloading any other application Windows XP already has it. So that’s sort of anti-competitive. I don’t have much problem with that though, because now you can replace these things, and computer dealers can install other programs too. The real problem for me is once I installed MSN Messenger I can not close it. Wait now I can close it. What happened to this thing. I wasn’t able to close it yesterday. It was saying that, other services Explorer … is using one of the services this MSN Messenger provides. Hmmm I see, it seeems that when I check out my mail on Hotmail, somehow MSN messenger thinks that the Hotmail window is using the services of MSN messenger. I normally appreciate good integration of services, but this is sort of a little bit anti-competitive. Microsoft has to provide means for other services to do the same. Maybe they do, I don’t know. But if they don’t provide the necessary means for other companies do the same type of integration with Microsoft products, such as Internet Explorer, then we have a problem.
This probably won’t affect those who subscribed to MSVL V6, that they will receive the upgrade they wanted to during the three years of subscription. Guess it is what MS wanted you to go for, in my opinion.
This seems to force an infinite upgrade loop, you have to use the latest version of office, because people spam round .docs like theres no tomorrow, and now you have to use the latest OS to use the latest office.
Of course they can justify this quite easily as they really are under no obligation (infact it could be counter productive to do so) to keep supporting office for really old versions, but i can’t help but feel MS doesn’t at least plan this a little. Expeically saying it needs service pack 3.
What is the deal with file combatability between office versions these days? I remember it used to be quite bad, but I have been running 97 (I see little point in spending money to upgrade when i don’t need anything else, and if i had too i would prolly swap to somthing else cheaper) since well, probably 97 and havn’t noticed many problems.
What does service pack 3 offer that is required for office to function?
It seems as if everyone has forgotten that Microsoft’s targets are business users and not your home user. If your a business and just one of your important client/customers upgrades to Office 11 and Win2k/XP, your going to have to also. Why? Because your Word 97 can’t open that nice Office 11 XML document you received via e-mail. If anybody out there thinks that this isn’t a calculated move by MS to keep the money treadmill moving, better think again. Do you really think that Office 2000/XP will continue to be sold along side Office 11? Of course not, that’s why businesses bought Software Assurance – you will ugrade when we (MS) tell you to. They aren’t literally forcing businesses to upgrade but if they don’t others will and the snowball effect will persuade the lagards to upgrade sooner than later. Notice, Microsoft kills two birds with one stone – it’s not just an OS upgrade and not just an Office upgrade but both. It’s especially painful for those poor bastards that didn’t purchase a MS upgrade program. MS did give them plenty of opportunities to subscribe and they even gave them an extra month to think about it by extending the deadline to Aug 31st. I’m certain that MS has plans like this for every two years now that the software cycle seems to have shunk down from three. Can you say $$$$$$$ ka-ching! I knew you could! That’s what business is about and especially Microsoft.I’m sure they have rooms full of marketing/sales people that do nothing all day but brainstorm on Microsoft Money Logistics(tm). You can’t put the whole blame on MS though. Businesses have been pretty much MS sheep since Windows 3.0 (the UAE years). It’s nice to standardize on file formats between businesses. Company ABC gets a warm and fuzzy feeling because company XYZ can read their documents. However, if Microsoft keeps pushing at some point that warm and fuzzy feeling will not feel as good as it used to. Even so, I doubt if businesses can stop being the MS junkies they are now.
“In fact, what Cross-over guys do by offering a way to run Office on an OS that the license of Office does not allow or support, is at least illegal, if not just immoral.”
Under US Law a monopolist in one market is specifically forbidden from selling products intended solely to support its monopoly product – and I am sure the same applies here in the EU. If MS made its Office EULA say it could only be run on Windows it would be unenforceable.
What we essentialy have here is a tax on XML format. Want to have an ability to interoperate with Office flawlessly and for free? OK, just buy another OS from us. M$ just fears that after certain level of adoption it will be hard to persuade people to buy a copy Office of 11 for every workstation when they can buy one copy of Office and then install for free thousand copies of OpenOffice and get a perfectly working system. So this is some kind of financial insurance, nothing to do with security.
Of course Crossover is neither illegal nor immoral. What is immoral, and possibly illegal under anti-trust law, is to lock in customers into proprieatary file formats to secure your monopoly. Crossover Office gives people a way to at least exchange part of the Microsoft platform, which is a very good thing. Please stop spreading obvious nonsense about Codeweavers, Eugenia.
“Windows 9x is inherently insecure” Sloan Crayton of Microsoft said <——— LOL, they opened their own masked!!!
So when Office 11 is released, it’s expected that FORTY PERCENT of Windows users won’t be “compliant”. Sounds like a problem for Microsoft, until you actually think about it. Being a monopoly kind of makes problems like that less important (who else can tell nearly half their customers to either fall in line or go to hell?).
Since morality was brought into the discussion earlier, isn’t it immoral for a monopolistic company to dictate terms to nearly half of its users? Monopolistic companies have a greater legal and moral obligation to treat their customers fairly, after all. But isn’t it immoral to tell nearly half your users to upgrade, or else? Office XP runs happily on the “lesser” versions of Windows, so small companies and home users who can’t afford to (or simply choose not to) upgrade BOTH Windows and Office had some breathing room. That breathing room is about to be taken away. Is this moral, especially for a monopoly with heightened legal and moral responsibility?
Office 11 is going to have shiny new file formats which previous versions of Office won’t deal with. Sure, Office 11 will be able to export formats older versions CAN use, but most businesses aren’t going to tell their clients, “Please save in Office 2000 format, since we can’t afford to move up to Office 11 right now.”
Again, since we’re talking about morality, it seems the only MORAL thing Microsoft could do would be to release a few patches for older versions of Office that would let them read the new Office 11 formats. That way, no one is shut out, no one is forced to buy a new version of Windows (a monopolistic product) to use the new version of Office or to work with its documents. Very moral, right? This way, no one could reasonably say MS is forcing the upgrade or using one monopoly to further entrench another. “But that’s silly,” someone is going to say, “how can MS make money doing that? It would be financially stupid.” They can’t make money doing that, at least not as much as they’d like. But we were talking about morality, not financially wise business decisions. Making sure the 40% “left behind” can still be productive without upgrading (if they are happy with or just stuck with the set-up they have now) might suck for Microsoft’s bottom line, but choosing not to extort upgrade dollars from them would be morally responsible. (Bear in mind here that I’m not the one who brought questions of morality into the discussion, I’m just attempting to expand on it.)
And as to the Codeweavers discussion: could someone please explain to me what could possibly be immoral about the Crossover products? I’ve wracked my brain and can’t come up with a single reason. As far as illegal, surely not. I doubt Microsoft would sit idly by while such illegal activity took place. Windows is a monopolistic product and Office is made by the same people who make Windows: to tie Office to Windows would be very illegal (especially under the EU’s monopoly leveraging laws). And let’s not forget, it would also be immoral. Is this the point where the MS supporters say that MS isn’t in business to be moral, it’s in business to make money and keep the stockholders happy? Interestingly enough, Codeweavers is a business, too.
>>”What does service pack 3 offer that is required for office to function?”
The new and improved EULA?
http://boston.internet.com/news/article.php/1485861
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/26698.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/26517.html
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/3815521.htm
And just for the sake of fairness:
http://www.wininformant.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=26172
How come he became your ex-fiance? interesting sidestep from Office 11 by the way
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=5978
This is a short but interesting take on the whole thing.
Antarius: Seriously, this is a pretty major statement. Are there any official documented press releases that this was stated in? The OpenSource community should have a field day with this!
Uhmmm, no official press release, but I remember when Windows XP was first released, they said that on the Comparison table. Well, Jim Alkin also said it some thing like that, IIRC, some time after October 25th, nothing happened to him :-).
linux_baby: Uuurgh .. like there is anyone in the planet who does not know!! My Translation of that statement, and of the Office news, is: Boost Sales of our new OSes…
If that’s were true, why stop at Windows NT 4.0/98/Me? Why not don’t support Windows XP and 2000 and support the next version? 🙂
chicobaud: There are so many features already on Office 2000/XP that I don’t think Office 11 would sell much if they decided that one needs Windows 2000+SP3 or Windows XP to work with all that XML fuuss and buuzzz.
I doubt XML is the only feature of Office 11. Other features is Outlook completely redoned (might be more secure, who knows?), and if the pattern continues, more features than Office XP. Plus, of course, a UI that looks good in Windows XP, better SharePoint, better speech recogniction etc.
Skwirlmaster: 1) Isn’t this a monopolistic action (in the sense that only a monoply would be *able* to do this successfully) designed to control its users?
Any act on your product, under your terms, by the dictionary, is a monopolistic action (you have a monopoly on your products, unless it was created partly by another company which has rights over the product).
Plus, I doubt you would see much people dumping their Windows 9x installation just because they can’t get Office 11. Heck, I know quite a number of people still using Windows 95 and Office 95.
Say, I don’t remember you on any Apple-related thread when they release Mac OS X-only upgrades to their software…
Dave Owen: So Office 11 comes out with this XML-based format, and all these non-Office 11 Windows users want to interoperate. […]
Well, if they do what you think they would do, it wouldn’t be successful. Think Office 95 to Office 97 transition. It was ugly. PR points went down for Microsoft, and later they release updates with new filters.
Antarius: So what does Microsoft do? Stop allowing support for Windows 98. Want Office 11 on Linux? Sorry, won’t install.
Wow, how did they make a move within such a short time? I’m suprised seing this is coming from you Antarius. Besides, even if they manage to get Office XP and Office 11 to work on Wine, not many would use it, because the EULA forbids it. Swear by it or swear at it, no one has actually challegde that portion of the EULA in court.
Acheron: Let’s face it. The majority of windows users are stagnant in upgrading. MS’s base of windows users is not keeping up with the pace at which they release new versions.
Most corporate desktops actually run Windows 2000 (at least 50%), while Windows XP is the fastest growing, overall, Windows version in history. Windows 95 could be called, under your defination, even more stagnant, when it was released.
Bannor99: Clicking on a EULA ( some versions of which have been shown to be illegal) AFTER I’ve paid for the product doesn’t cut it.
Actually, if you disagree with the EULA, you can send it back and get a (late) full refund. Plus, you can view the EULA on Microsoft website, IIRC, beforehand. However, after installing the product you found out you don’t agree with a clause of the EULA, sorry bro.
Bill: That statement is redundant. But then Windows XP is also insecure.
While if you compare with other OS like Linux and OpenBSD, Windows XP is a house with no locks, Windows XP is actually way ahead of Windows 9x in terms of security.
Frank Subcalz: It’s immoral to use Office on a non-Microsoft OS? I don’t think so. That’s a weird notion of morality.
Okay. Let’s put it in another way. I make a cake. I say only my friends can put it in their mouths. I would consider it immoral if they stick it up their asses (okay, pun intended). (No, in this case, I actually have to disagree with Eugenia on the morality issue)
Karl: Since you believe that Crossover is so wrong, then I would guess you completely disagree with the concept of Wine, and reverse engineering the win32 API? I guess you also believe that Lindows’ ablility to run Win32 apps is immoral?
Might not be immoral, but sure is stupid business wise. Tell me, how long did it take for Microsoft to implement Win32 on Windows NT with the full documentation and sourcecode? And is the implementation perfect? Well, now think of it for Wine – how long would it take just to implement all the APIs of Win32? 60 years after Microsoft dies?
Matthew Gardiner: To all the Microsoft buffs out there, why should I, or infact, anyone need to upgrade beyond XP? Is there any reason?
Read the features differences. Download the evaluation version. See if you like it. I find it hard to use Office 2000 after being used to Office XP. For example, I love SmartTags, Task panes, the new way to draw objects in Word, etc.
—
Okay, I’m pooped. Good nite all.
Rajan: Might not be immoral, but sure is stupid business wise. Tell me, how long did it take for Microsoft to implement Win32 on Windows NT with the full documentation and sourcecode? And is the implementation perfect? Well, now think of it for Wine – how long would it take just to implement all the APIs of Win32? 60 years after Microsoft dies?
I have to agree with you for the most part on this one. Re-implementing an api, along with all its bugs, is a project without end. As a user, though, it tends to be some fun. With Winex, I’m able to fire up some windows games under Linux. May not be real practical, but it makes for some cool screenshots ;-).
Rajan: Okay, I’m pooped. Good nite all.
I should say so, especially after that post! I wonder how close that was to the 8000 character limit?
Why care when office 11 works only on newer OS’s?
You can still type your letters and stuff on the
older version you are used to…
As a user I hardly notice any difference between office 2000 and office XP other than that the menu’s look different…
And some day in the future when you feel the urge to upgrade then there will be a version windows and some version of office available…
Thank the Light.
You wouldn’t believe how much more stable a product can be developed when you don’t have to worry about why some stupid redraw bug only reproduces in Win98 English upgraded to SE Arabic, with Japanese office installed, and Thai fonts. In my opinion, developers can better spend their time working on performance, security, and usage of a product when they don’t have so many minutiae diverting their attention.
As the computers age and people replace them with a box more current, Windows (if that’s what they want) will be loaded on it of the latest version. XP is fully capable of running MS Office of older versions, which is great, but I don’t see where they should have to make the new Office 11 compatible with older OS’s.
My big gripe about this is the lack of support for their own products. A lot of computers out their are running Windows 3.1 (my wife’s entire department still runs on it, due to the systems they run require programs on FAT16, won’t run on FAT32 or NTFS, or processors faster than 200 MHz for that matter.)that they can’t get support for any more from Microsoft. I’m sorry, but if you sold it, you should support it indefinitely. Look at Honda, they require parts ON THE SHELVES for cars up to 25 years old and they can reproduce parts for anything older. Microsoft should be doing that, especially with their market share. They have the resources.
An interesting thing to test would be to use XSetup (http://www.xteq.com) and tweak an
SP2-machine to fake that it really has SP3 installed.
It would be nice to see if Office 11 still runs.
I think the actual reason it’ll require XP or Win2k SP3 is because of the version of the Windows Installer Office 11 will be using. The version the beta is using is only available on 2k SP3 and up.
They just want to make sure that anyone who upgrades or buys Office has agreed to the “new” Windows license agreement in Windows XP and the changes that were included with the Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 download. The differences point to how MS will lock people out of using software that they don’t “approve” of and using software development practices that they say produce “viral” software products. The license also shows how they will determine just what software your using when they like, although this stratagy is really aimed at large businesses, organizations and some sectors of government.
But that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.
“In fact, what Cross-over guys do by offering a way to run Office on an OS that the license of Office does not allow or support, is at least illegal, if not just immoral. ”
OH MY GOD, you couldn’t be more full of shit. Reverse engineering for compatability is not illegal, and you know it.
So when Office 11 is released, it’s expected that FORTY PERCENT of Windows users won’t be “compliant”. Sounds like a problem for Microsoft, until you actually think about it. Being a monopoly kind of makes problems like that less important (who else can tell nearly half their customers to either fall in line or go to hell?).
Considering that adoption of new versions of Windows is higher than adoption of new versions of Office, it probably isn’t a major issue. Part of the adoption rates is probably because Office costs more than Windows, but then a big part is also probably because most people don’t see a lot of reasons to buy a new version of Office.
Since morality was brought into the discussion earlier, isn’t it immoral for a monopolistic company to dictate terms to nearly half of its users? Monopolistic companies have a greater legal and moral obligation to treat their customers fairly, after all. But isn’t it immoral to tell nearly half your users to upgrade, or else? Office XP runs happily on the “lesser” versions of Windows, so small companies and home users who can’t afford to (or simply choose not to) upgrade BOTH Windows and Office had some breathing room. That breathing room is about to be taken away. Is this moral, especially for a monopoly with heightened legal and moral responsibility?
Not supporting the 9x line should make the code smaller and more efficient. There are a lot of things that have to be done differently on an NT base than they are on a 9x base, and it bloats the code fairly quickly if you have to do those things a lot. 95 and NT4 are also well on their way to becoming unsupported products.
Office 11 is going to have shiny new file formats which previous versions of Office won’t deal with. Sure, Office 11 will be able to export formats older versions CAN use, but most businesses aren’t going to tell their clients, “Please save in Office 2000 format, since we can’t afford to move up to Office 11 right now.”
Have Microsoft even made a statement regarding whether or not an importer will be available for Office 95/97/2000 to read Office 11 documents? Office XP can already handle XML to some extent, so it probably wouldn’t have many (if any) problems with the Office 11 formats. The last time they broke compatibility they eventually woke up and released the importers for Office 95, and then didn’t create any major breaks in 2000 and XP, so it’d be a bit of a step for them to not allow older Office versions to read the new format, even if they can’t generate the new format.
Again, since we’re talking about morality, it seems the only MORAL thing Microsoft could do would be to release a few patches for older versions of Office that would let them read the new Office 11 formats. That way, no one is shut out, no one is forced to buy a new version of Windows (a monopolistic product) to use the new version of Office or to work with its documents. Very moral, right? This way, no one could reasonably say MS is forcing the upgrade or using one monopoly to further entrench another. “But that’s silly,” someone is going to say, “how can MS make money doing that? It would be financially stupid.” They can’t make money doing that, at least not as much as they’d like. But we were talking about morality, not financially wise business decisions. Making sure the 40% “left behind” can still be productive without upgrading (if they are happy with or just stuck with the set-up they have now) might suck for Microsoft’s bottom line, but choosing not to extort upgrade dollars from them would be morally responsible. (Bear in mind here that I’m not the one who brought questions of morality into the discussion, I’m just attempting to expand on it.)
Building importers for the Office 11 format would actually speed adoption of Office 11. Where I work, the break in formats between Office 95 and 97 put a complete stop on Office upgrades which wasn’t really resolved until very recently. Once the importer for Office97 file formats for Office 95 was released, they started purchasing Office97 again (instead of purchasing Office95 for new computers), and now they’re finally rolling out Office2k and Win2k on new machines (with old machines getting upgraded to Win98SE and Office97 if they can handle it, or being replaced if they can’t). The key, though, is that they haven’t stopped people from getting an upgraded version of Office as long as the new files worked with the old versions. If they don’t interoperate, no one gets the new versions.
And as to the Codeweavers discussion: could someone please explain to me what could possibly be immoral about the Crossover products? I’ve wracked my brain and can’t come up with a single reason. As far as illegal, surely not. I doubt Microsoft would sit idly by while such illegal activity took place. Windows is a monopolistic product and Office is made by the same people who make Windows: to tie Office to Windows would be very illegal (especially under the EU’s monopoly leveraging laws). And let’s not forget, it would also be immoral. Is this the point where the MS supporters say that MS isn’t in business to be moral, it’s in business to make money and keep the stockholders happy? Interestingly enough, Codeweavers is a business, too.
I won’t speak to morality, it’s mostly a waste of time because it’s based on an individual’s views. I believe that MS has the right to state what platforms they will support their products on, but not right to tell someone not to run it somewhere else, if that person does not try to get support from MS. I believe that if Codeweavers states they can make MS’ product run on an unsupported platform, and charges for the ability to do so, that they should carry the burden of support for that product on that platform (when using their product to make it run on that platform). In my mind, that’s all perfectly moral. I think there might be some legal issues running Office on another platform, but that most likely depends on the legality of the EULA, and I could really care less, as I find EULAs in themselves to have a tendency towards immorality. That being said, I don’t see the point in trying to run MS Office for Windows on Linux.
Now, the last thing I’m wondering is why it’s such a big deal that Office won’t run on 95/98/Me when Visual Studio.Net won’t run on those platforms, either, and has been out much longer. Sure, Office might have more users, but if your development environment doesn’t run on 9x, then developers are less likely to even bother deploying their products on 9x. Of course, I don’t expect VS.Net to completely replace VS6 for quite a while (if ever), but with the increasing need to make sure products run under NT, the incentives for developing for 9x decrease at least as rapidly.
Say, in all the knee jerk microsoft bashing, did anyone ever consider that maybe the next generation Office might be too resource intensive, to integrated into the OS, or otherwise just too darn complicated to allow full backward compatibility across the many flavors of windows out there?
I just don’t see an issue here.
I think that this is the best decision for Microsoft in terms of overall developement. Use 2000 as the base, then they only have to worry about compatibility between 2000, XP, and Longhorn, or since 2000 is supposed to be dead, XP and Longhorn.
Since Longhorn is 2+ years out, that means everyone has plenty of time to upgrade their OS, hardware, or both.
If you don’t want the latest bells and whistles, then Office 97 and 2000 get the job done quite well. No one says you have to buy everything microsoft puts out, but they don’t have the obligation to make it easy on you either.
The last time they broke compatibility they eventually woke up and released the importers for Office 95, and then didn’t create any major breaks in 2000 and XP, so it’d be a bit of a step for them to not allow older Office versions to read the new format, even if they can’t generate the new format.
Microsoft broke Access databases with every new release…
Only the last one doesn’t complain to loudly about Access2000 files…
“While MS has done a lot of sleazy, dishonest, and dubious things, I don’t think this is one of them. Basically, MS is saying that Windows 95, 98, 98SE, Me, and NT are junk and won’t support them.”
I think it is more of, ok, we have been supporting our old operating system with Office for as much as 7 years now, with 3 or more releases of this software(97,2k,xp…?) and now, we have decided that making our office suite work fully on windows 95 hurts us more than it does help. By supporting only 2k(sp3) and xp on, we can have new features and take advantage of the unique design that is not present in the older 95,98,etc. systems.
Not supporting the old systems is fair enough – how many people produce source code that compiles cleanly on all versions of GCC or supports all versions of GLibC that have been in use for the last 7 years?
<IMAO>
What gets me with many peoples “Does not support Windows 95” line is that, fundamentally there isn’t enough difference in the architecture of 95, 98 and ME to distinguish them. Except more disk space and patches/updates that could just as easily have been made available to the 95b branch.
</IMAO>
As Darius pointed out, people have still been buying systems with ME in the last few months. I know that I can still get 98SE OEM’s from my suppliers as an alternative to XP Home. The product seems to be very much alive still, since nobody has bothered to actually give it the Kiss of Kevorkian.
Granted that the biggest reason for people wanting 98SE was for game play, and hence a home-use system, it still seems to be a seller.
Some people argue that it may force some businesses into upgrading their machines & OS to be able to interact with their Office 11-using peers. I’m not sure that, in these days of ‘economic rationing’ that this will happen.
More and more governments (the historical tool for pushing Office updates), schools and companies are moving to OpenSource or non-MS products. Just take a look at the number of banks that have “Found the way out,” not to mention companies like Toyota-USA, the Peruvian Government etc.
It does seem that the “Windows or Bust” mentality is faltering, that people are saying “enough is enough.” I know that I won’t spend more on an application than I will on a basic machine – a cheap’n’nasty workstation can be built for ~$500 AUD, whereas OfficeXP retails for Over $1000AUD! Of course, there are OEM packs, but running a Terminal Server, I cannot satisfy these licenses.
And then there is the press. I cannot speak for non-Australian media, however a lot of Australian computer magazines are pushing OOo and different flavours of Linux to the extreme. Reading some articles, it seems that Linux is the Messiah for the computing world and that it is completely and utterly flawless. These articles get into the hands of business owners or their employees; eventually they get looked into and, if there is any infrastructure change, it gets acted on.
Office 11’s feature list isn’t going to be a big enough improvement to demand most companies to look at it. Its new XML file formats might be seen as a “me too” in response to the already cheap/free offerings such as StarOffice and OpenOffice.
Let’s not forget that Gobe Productive is possibly going to become open sourced!
Yes, I’m being cynical. Yes, I’m being pessimistic.
But I’m also a business consultant. I’m seeing changes in the air. I’m seeing the lack of desire to fork out unnecessary dollars.
This move by the Office team could backfire on them. It might invoke the ire of the DoJ (who we know is just as biased as the OS zealots like myself.) It might invoke the ire of the mass media. It might invoke a huge backlash from the computing community and contribute to an even greater anti-MS sentiment.
It just as easily might not, either. We’ve all been sheep so far!
Karl: I should say so, especially after that post! I wonder how close that was to the 8000 character limit?
Closer to 2000. I have written post 4 times that amount 🙂 I was tired because for the past 4 hours I was doing a last-minute Add. Maths project and my head was reeling from all the calculations 🙂
gfx: As a user I hardly notice any difference between office 2000 and office XP other than that the menu’s look different…
How the menus look is different. But the contents are practically the same. The big difference is a lot of dialog boxes appear on the Task pane as oppose to dialogs.
HagerR15: […]that they can’t get support for any more from Microsoft. I’m sorry, but if you sold it, you should support it indefinitely.
This is a practice by a lot of companies. Supporting a product released 4 centuries ago is a sure way to bankruptcy. Do you know any OS makers supporting a OS as old as Win 3.1.1 while have released 5 consumer OS since?
hiredfarmhand: The differences point to how MS will lock people out of using software that they don’t “approve” of and using software development practices that they say produce “viral” software products.
The ideology behind the “viral” license don’t permit the use of any closed source apps in the first place. So, big deal :-D. Come on. FSF hates all things commercial. Microsoft hates all things Free (as in speech).
This is just Cold War II, though I’m guessing this time the communist wins.
Aitivo: OH MY GOD, you couldn’t be more full of shit. Reverse engineering for compatability is not illegal, and you know it.
Reverse engineering can be illegal if you illegally use a patent without the explicit acknowlegdement and permission of the patent holder 🙂
PainkilleR: 95 and NT4 are also well on their way to becoming unsupported products.
Windows 95 support died on the exact same day Windows XP was release, and IIRC, NT 4.0 died too.
gfx: Microsoft broke Access databases with every new release…
Only the last one doesn’t complain to loudly about Access2000 files…
Access is a totally different beast. It is made mainly to manage Office files, not being a Office file. When was the last time you recieved a Access database in your mailbox? Importing files from older versions of Access is quite easy too.
Karl: I should say so, especially after that post! I wonder how close that was to the 8000 character limit?
Rajan: Closer to 2000.
A quick copy’n’paste to OpenOffice.org 1.01 tells me:
Characters: 5127
Words: 916
Pages: 2
and, most interestingly:
Paragraphs: 1
The latter meaning that you must have just created the longest run-on sentence in history! Congratulations!
I think it is a game of money.!!!
gfx: As a user I hardly notice any difference between office 2000 and office XP other than that the menu’s look different…
How the menus look is different. But the contents are practically the same. The big difference is a lot of dialog boxes appear on the Task pane as oppose to dialogs.
The biggest difference I see between Office2k and XP is the startup time for the individual applications. XP is much faster overall.
Windows 95 support died on the exact same day Windows XP was release, and IIRC, NT 4.0 died too.
Actually, official Win95 support died at the end of 2000. 98 support ended a couple months ago (including SE), as did NT4 Workstation (NT4 Server is still supported until the end of this year). XP support dies in 4 years
gfx: Microsoft broke Access databases with every new release…
Only the last one doesn’t complain to loudly about Access2000 files…
Access is a totally different beast. It is made mainly to manage Office files, not being a Office file. When was the last time you recieved a Access database in your mailbox? Importing files from older versions of Access is quite easy too.
I don’t know about managing Office files with Access, but it gets a lot of use as a database around here. It’s always been a bit of a half-breed, though, and isn’t included in the standard version of Office anyway.
Now more users will be upgrading to XP. Thefore now more companies will care less about backwards compatibility. WINE efforts are now also going to be crushed, WINE has never worked for me with an APP that only works on 2000/XP and so I think it only emulates 9x code.
People who are running 2000/XP will like the better integration and it will be better tested since they do not need to focus on so many platforms.
Many people will upgrade to XP, this is the final push for them to want to upgrade.
There are many more reasons, but as you can see it works out great.