Posted on 05/09/2010 12:32:36 PM PDT by max americana
In the beginning, there was word processing. Then, simply, Word. Spreadsheets became Excel. Presentation software, if it was ever known by such a name, was simply PowerPoint. Long before Google's preeminence in search, Microsoft dominated business and personal software with a suite known as Office.
The company launches its latest version, Office 2010, on Wednesday in New York — and the stakes couldn't be higher. The lucrative franchise is threatened by a changing market spouting a four-letter word: free. The biggest threat comes from Google, specifically Google Docs, Web applications accessible from any computer. Because of Google, Microsoft has been forced to make a free ad-supported version called Office Web Apps. Google's software is unlikely to depose Office, especially among heavy business users who write reports, draw up corporate budgets and put together sales presentations. But Office 2010 does represent a slow tipping of the entire technology industry, from a PC world Microsoft long has dominated to a cloud-computing world, where software roams free on the computer, phone, tablet and television, and the old ways of making money are changing.
"We think it's actually an opportunity for us," said Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft Business Division, which makes Office. "We have an opportunity to draw in many, many people who today are not engaged in the Office experience, or have not paid for software along the way, or are on very old software."
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Maybe in cities. The internet and its infrastructure currently lacks the required level of reliability in non-urban areas for CC to be truly viable.
Didn’t want you to name the company. Just realize google has no respect for privacy.
We are aware and the people who approved the change made sure it was....
True, but since I work for a global company it helps to talk to work with my fellow people overseas..
You must be the only Freeper I know of who uses WordPerfect..no offense.
MS hasn't done any Office innovation since Office 2000. They just gussy it with cosmetic changes every few years and re-release it.
I still use WordPefect. WordPerfect talks up to you. MS WORD talks down.
And I like the fact that it reveals the codes which you can edit.
Sounds good. What if the other business that you send a Wordperfect doc to uses MS Word?
I want my office 2003 back. And NO, I do not want a web-based program of any sort. I like to maintain a self-contained computer.
OO takes far longer to start, but once it's running it's reasonably fast. I haven't compared Linux+OO and Windows+MS Office, but the differences would be irrelevant in practice.
What is very relevant is bugs. OO has too many of them, everywhere. I made a document in OO about 6 months ago, but I couldn't maintain it because it was falling apart at every seam - flow / pagination issues, image anchoring issues, TOC issues... finally I gave up and converted the thing to the .doc format, for MS Office 2003 that I still have.
Startup for either windoze/MS office or linux/oo is about the same for me. No real time delta.
I'm running simple HP or Compaq dual core laptops with 1G on both Wista and Suse. Cheap, common, not bleeding edge hardware. Well established with good drivers (NVIDIA on both).
/johnny
Personally I use MS works, which is cheaper and totally compatible if you wish to view Word or Excel docs. It isn’t as loaded with features but it usually comes free when you buy a new Windows machine and it is fine for home use. I find it more than adequate.
Open Office is the threat.
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