Where your Uncle Dave works, our IT department (a group who makes Mordac look like a saint) has us use Office 2003 on XP. At home, I still use a copy of Office 2000. I’ve tried newer versions, but am annoyed at the seemingly gratuitous UI changes MS loves to make, plus I haven’t needed anything the new versions add. I’ve tried the assorted free ‘replacements’ like OpenOffice and others and found them impressive but wanting. I just find MS’ offering extremely easy to use and well designed for the things I do. For now, I’m sticking with what I have.
What do you think of Office? What version are you using? Planning to upgrade? What about the online alternatives like Google’s? Will you try out/start using MS’ online version? Given this article’s final point, why would anyone buy the upgrade?
It’s difficult to overstate the success of Microsoft Office. Calling it one of the best-selling tech products of all time is a bit like calling Michael Jackson a very popular musician—it’s certainly accurate, but it woefully misses the mark. According to Microsoft, more than 500 million people around the world use the Fantastic Four of productivity apps—Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
[..]
Office 2010 offers lots of new features and several user-interface improvements over previous versions. [...] Still, as I tested out the new version, I couldn’t help wonder about Office’s future. In its last couple of earnings reports, Microsoft has reported rare declines in revenue from sales of Office. The company blames the sluggishness on weakness in the economy—a reasonable explanation, though one that perhaps masks a larger malaise. For one thing, Office’s success has bred a kind of inertia. Once you’ve grown used to a certain version of Word—and can do pretty much everything you need to do with it—why would you ever need the next version?
[...]
So the next version of Office looks to be an improvement on the 2007 edition—and with the Starter Edition and great new Web apps, it could even succeed in staving off competition from free online rivals. That sounds great for Microsoft, except for one thing: In trying to win the war against free apps, Microsoft will have had to emulate them. You used to have to pay several hundred dollars for a copy of Office. Now, you don’t really have to. Online and in new computers, Microsoft will give away a slate of productivity apps that, for most people, will be good enough. And thus, the question remains: Does anyone really need to buy a new version of Office anymore?
UPDATE: Commenter AC_in_Mich mentioned that in the latest versions, the majority of the changes to Office relate to collaboration on documents. Exactly how often do multiple people actually work on a single document? Is this really something that goes on a lot? I’ve never seen it in the wild.
who even uses 2003 with no ribbon anymore. u guys r the biggest bunch of reactionary fogies on the net.
I still use 2000 Pro.
I really don’t want to spend 500+ dollars for another version thanks. I’m cheap.
To all you whom use Outlook…
STOP
You are the ones allowing the maximum amount of spam and malware to continue to exist. Go to web based accounts and get away from that application.
Oh and if you use Excel, stop that shit too. No one needs to use that anymore either. Spreadsheet usage is like people still using RPG or COBOL. Either use real accounting software if you REALLY work with money and figures or use an actual database application if that is what you are using a spreadsheet for now.
Cursor_
#22
Our real accounting software outputs all its reports into Excel sheets directly into Exchange hosted shared folders, which are easily accessed in outlook, and reopened, and edited and copy pasted to and from in Excel.
And Open Office, Guffaw… LOL
I’ve used just about all of the versions of Office, including the newer ones. For my purposes at home, there’s really no reason to have anything newer than Office 2000. Would I use Windows 2000 today? Hell no.
Our office recently upgraded to Office 2007 after two years of prodding, and it’s been a support nightmare; one guy almost broke down in tears because it was so different.
Even though 2010 isn’t all that different from 2007, and despite our office being able to upgrade to 2010 for free, there’s no way I’m upgrading anyone’s version except mine.
Call it morbid curiosity or lazy impetuousness but I have just this moment finished installing 2010 onto a three year old Dell. And I am still here.
What do I think of Office?
One day I’ll buy a baseball bat and fly to Seattle to explain to the developers exactly what I think.
#11, I just opened up word and its 11Mb of RAM is pretty small.
Notepad by comparison uses up a massive 4Mb which seems EXTREMELY high given what it is capable of in 4Mb an what word can do with 11Mb.
Amazingly, Wordpad uses up 16Mb! WTF!
Not these numbers are just one Office/text editor application open with no documents loaded, but how can you claim that Office is a memory hog? Especially compared to editors that have 5% the functionality but use more resources?
#18, so let me get this straight, you hated Word so much you switched to OO, but only because you could make it look just like Word.
Um, something doesn’t quite make sense about that…
Not that I’m the world’s biggest MS/Office fan but it does what it does very easily and well especially in comparison with the lacklustre alternatives out there.
I’ll only go to 2010 when I actually need to though. 2007 is fine for me, though it would be nice to have the same ribbon UI in all the office apps. It actually seemed to do what MS hoped, which was get all the relevant tools out in the open instead of making users drill down through various menus to do pretty simple things like pre 07 versions did.
I don’t hate Office or like it. It just has way more features than I’ll ever need. Occasionally I need a spreadsheet, but it doesn’t justify the cost.
The real reason people buy it is file compatibility, and unlike most people posting here, they won’t even try something new. The thing that makes me sick about the upgrade is they’re trying to shove SharePoint down everyone’s throat. SharePoint is the work of the devil.
28,
and which comes up fastest?
AND did you know that OFFICE, installs most of its drivers when you BOOT windows? they are always there running. And for those that know this, there is also a speed load for Word.
TRY Safe mode, and check the size windows is running.. should get a closer estimate.
29,
as you say..
PRICE for what it does.
ECA, I personally think of Windows mainly as a platform to run Office.
31,
thats saying a lot about Office, considering the CRAP with windows..
#30 Your point is completely irrelevant. Other apps are free to do exactly the same, but you single out MS for making use of OS features that any other office and productivity app is free to also use.
ECA, maybe I overstated it, but I think Windows and Office are tightly linked.
Uncle Dave, you asked about collaboration.
Yes, lots of people use it. I worked in an area in our Engineering department for a few years where we did a lot of technical standards writing and prepared a lot of RFIs and RFPs. These were invariably group efforts with very large documents with large quantities of technical stuff in them. Collaboration functions are a necessity in such an environment.
Our sales department does a lot of sales proposals to large businesses and responses to RFIs and RFPs. They also live or die by collaboration functions.
Office 2010 makes my eyes hurt. Its interface is cluttered, it has a bazillion icons now, and oddly enough the important most used controls are tiny and out of the way, and the least important ones are bigger.
Its backwards compatibility with older sharepoint is ZERO, and of course its ridiculously expensive, just like the operating system it runs on.
34, qb..
TOTALLY..
Even in win 95 game makers would make games, and they would CRASH..
MS would buy the game, make a few changes(bad ones(mech warrior 4)) and it WOULDNT crash as often.
MS made the Language that MAKES windows work.
For every FAULT in the programming language, it ADD’s FAULT to windows. For every FAULT in windows, is a FAULT in OFFICE.
Work’s still running ’03, I’m still running ’03 at home. No need to upgrade.
I said I hated OO. OO had the look of page-setting software. I preferred the look of Word, as it did not show margins and empty space around it in normal view.
I use OO because it is free. If I had to use Word, I would use 2000 as that was the last version without activation and has all the required features.
Not a chance in hell. I’d rather eat my own gun. OS X comes with TextEdit and I’ve never needed anything else.