Posted on 06/20/2007 6:30:02 PM PDT by Salo
Microsoft is making Office 2007 its default productivity suite for system builders, less than five months after the suite's full-scale launch.
Say Goodbye to Office 2003
Microsoft will stop supplying (http://blogs.msdn.com/mssmallbiz/archive/2007/06/18/3384613.aspx) OEM Microsoft Office 2003 from June 30, Microsoft exec Eric Ligman wrote yesterday on the company's blog for small businesses.
The declaration means that Microsoft partners without inventory of Office 2003 must ship Office 2007 from July onwards.
Microsoft is making a heavy push for Office 2007 and seems to be now using OEM partners in the vanguard for driving sales.
Previous editions of Office have sold relatively slowly during the last 10 years, with a sizeable percentage of the customer base clinging to increasingly out-dated editions. That's a problem for Microsoft, as it means a key product in its core business isn't growing as it should.
Office 2007 is relatively early in the Microsoft lifecycle, having officially launched in January following limited availability in November, while Office 2003 was launched in October 2003. The older product still enjoys mainstream product support (http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/) from Microsoft and partners, while also being well within its extended lifecycle support.
Customers on volume licensing agreements can still run Office 2003 by activating the downgrade rights in their contracts from Office 2007. OEM Microsoft Office does not have downgrade rights.
Microsoft is running a webcast (http://blogs.msdn.com/mssmallbiz/archive/2007/06/15/3316782.aspx) on June 21 to explain licensing options to resellers for Windows, Office and Server products. ®
There's where I disagree with you. I generally like MS Office, but I think it sucks on my Mac.
LOL (emacs/vi flamewar thread highjacking warning)
hogwash! vi is the best editor in the world!
I think I need one of those myself. Trolling is bad enough, but the guy's overuse of metaphors is downright painful.
It does the same thing... until you need to program it. For most uses, OOo will work great. But more specialized tricks use VBA to combine Office's tools in unique ways.
And OOo doesn't have anything compatible with Access.
If the OpenOffice.org folks can create an Access-compatible DB and a universal, VisualBasic compatible scripting engine for OOo, Microsoft will be in very deep doo doo.
As it is, Office can do things others just can't.
For the average user, yes. But, OOo Basic is not as feature-rich, cross application compatible, and easy to use as VBA. Unfortunately, VBA is very easy to exploit as compared to OOo Basic.
If you want to pour the power on - easily - you need MS Office. Annoying flaws and all.
lol....Just a few seconds off with the same post.
I'd suggest Linux--you keep your existing hardware, and you can still run your Adobe and Macromedia products in a windows VM when you need it.
Great minds, and all that. :-)
Well....”Geek” minds, anyway. You flippin’ nerd. >:)
:-)
What languages do you speak?
I'm pretty fluent in BASIC, C/C++, SQL and HTML... (and bit of Pascal)
No Office 2007 or Vista for me.
MEPIS is really good. I've been using it off and on for years (using it right now on my Dell Latitude laptop). But it's not a build of Ubuntu; it was around long before Ubuntu ever showed up.
I prefer it.
Actually, up to 4.3 was a debian etch build. Warren began using UBUNTU on version 6.0. It is an EXELLENT distro. I am always the evangelist for it, and am thrilled you like it too!
The God’s honest truth is you can get by with Windows XP - you should not be having any BSODs with it. I honestly can’t remember the last time I had one of my PCs trip off the line.
Run a firewall (hardware), a virus scanner made by anyone other than Symantec - in fact, do not run anything made by Symantec, stay patched and you should be fine. Depending on what condition your machine has gotten into, you might wish to consider backing up your data and reinstalling everything - format the hard drive and go to town.
If you want to upgrade to linux or Apple, either system should work well for you. As Shadow Ace mentioned, you can run your windows in an VM, or you can run linux equivalents of what you use in Windows. Slowly, but surely, companies are making native linux versions of Windows software, but it’s coming slowly.
I have a mac that runs OSX and it’s a great machine/OS. The software designed for it runs well. I have heard over and over, once you go Mac, you never go back. :-) Any chance you can get upgrade pricing on your software since you already own Windows versions, or, OMG, is that upgrade pricing you are referring to? BTW, Apple isn’t perfect, but they are a lot better to deal with than PC companies when it comes to tech support.
Heh...I think the first version I tried was 2004.04 or something like that. I left Libranet for it.
Apple OSX is an American product and a far better alternative than the foreign clone Linux, and supports virtualizing Windows as well, including easily running your physical Windows partition virtually or natively. There’s just not much reason to use Linux on a desktop unless you need free software from “the community”.
Let me get this straight: open source software is evil because it is predominantly made by leftists...so instead a person should obtain software from a different set of leftists who they must pay?
Apple is a better product and Jobs isn’t near as far left as that whacko Stallman, who goes from communist country to communist country trying to drum up support for Linux. Use Sun Solaris, it runs on Intel too and is free, if you want another option. Personally I usually stick with Windows, and laugh off most of the jealous haters of Gates.
Hear, hear.
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