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Thread: Would the world stop running without MS Office?

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    0iD
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    Would the world stop running without MS Office?

    Are there many business & organisations out there that don't rely heavily on Microsoft's office products for their day-to-day running? After reading Microsoft announces UK Office 2010 pricing and http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-net/18...0-pricing.html it just got me to thinking again how Office is priced & marketed. On one hand, the student license is a great idea, letting poor students work with the industry standard apps, but is it?

    Why have we become so reliant on it, when there are plenty of great alternatives...?
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    Welcome to stampytown! Salazaar's Avatar
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    Re: Would the world stop running without MS Office?

    You could ask the same of Windows itself... Like it or not, it's still the desktop of choice for a very large majority.
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    jim
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    Re: Would the world stop running without MS Office?

    I've spent time with MS Works and OpenOffice and found both of them (unsurprising with Works) really uninspiring. Most of it was okay, but the spreadsheet stuff felt really rubbish and amateurish.

    With the new UI as well, I think they're going to keep powering off into the distance. A lot of the time you can talk about underhanded tactics and so on being the catalyst for a product's dominance when it's actually inferior, but I would say that Office genuinely is an excellent product. Outlook as well, compared to the vast majority of email clients is a very, very good product. Then consider its support for MS Exchange, and it's no surprise that a lot of businesses use it.

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    Senior[ish] Member Singh400's Avatar
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    Re: Would the world stop running without MS Office?

    Most big corporations (like the one I work for) get huge discounts on software like Office.

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    Anthropomorphic Personification shaithis's Avatar
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    Re: Would the world stop running without MS Office?

    Plenty of great alternatives?

    Hmmm, I think that is very much up for debate TBH.

    How many of those "great alternatives" have the support structure behind it that MS Office does? How many of those will work closely with it's customers to iron out issues in their templates, macros, etc?


    That's why businesses use MS Office and it's because businesses use it that people use it at home also......people use what's familiar to them.
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    Senior Member oolon's Avatar
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    Re: Would the world stop running without MS Office?

    Which version would be the "standard" then looks of people have to be helped through the "docx" problem and can't understand why they both have word and the files don't work. OpenOffice is as compatible with word as word is with other versions of word.

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    Re: Would the world stop running without MS Office?

    I started out on Ability+, moved to WP 5.1 and then when it was time to update the network machines, I opted for Office 97 Pro. (~ 1998)

    There was a lot of pissing and moaning from the staff, but they got used to it fairly quickly.

    When I updated the network machines a few years ago we initially used OOo but it's inability to work with all our previous documents (lots of old contracts etc still in WP 5.1 format <cough>) caused endless issues and in the end it was more productive to just buy and install Office 2k7.

    I wont be getting Office 2010, because Office 2k7 works fine.
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    Re: Would the world stop running without MS Office?

    I've never had any great need for 'Office' style applications, very occasionally someone will ask me to make a document for them and I'll just do it in OpenOffice.
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    Get in the van. Fraz's Avatar
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    Re: Would the world stop running without MS Office?

    Quote Originally Posted by oolon View Post
    Which version would be the "standard" then looks of people have to be helped through the "docx" problem and can't understand why they both have word and the files don't work. OpenOffice is as compatible with word as word is with other versions of word.
    That simply is not true, at least in my experience. In fact, I'm yet to meet an office application that doesn't screw-up the look of the document/presentation when opening a file from either:

    1) The same office application but on another platform/OS
    2) A different office app on the same OS.

    (God forbid a different office app on different OSes...)

    Case in point: Office 2004 and Office 2008 for Mac. Put in some fairly standard greek symbols in office 2004 and open the file on Office 2008 and you get these weird space invader symbols everywhere.

    I'm baffled as to why this should be so hard. Personally, I wish someone would just take the font/layout engine used in LaTeX and just lever it into a really good GUI, with all the compilation stuff happening in the background. LaTex code always delivers the same document no matter what platform/version is used (at least, in my experience).

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    Senior Member oolon's Avatar
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    Re: Would the world stop running without MS Office?

    Quote Originally Posted by Fraz View Post
    That simply is not true, at least in my experience. In fact, I'm yet to meet an office application that doesn't screw-up the look of the document/presentation when opening a file from either:
    I would ask you read what I said again, I said "OpenOffice as compatible with word as word is with other versions of word". I didn't state that they were perfectly compatible, I know they are not, pages change length as font rendering is different or table margins seem to move. My backward point was people state you must use word because its the standard, however its not standard across its versions. I would admit word has a better range of filters for importing documents like WP etc, however is quite simple to important and save these things once into something a bit more modern.

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    Mostly Me Lucio's Avatar
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    Re: Would the world stop running without MS Office?

    The main part of the suite that carries Microsoft Office is Excel, I have just never found a viable alternative that can do as much as Excel can in terms of data manipulation and presentation.

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    Senior Member usxhe190's Avatar
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    Re: Would the world stop running without MS Office?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lucio View Post
    The main part of the suite that carries Microsoft Office is Excel, I have just never found a viable alternative that can do as much as Excel can in terms of data manipulation and presentation.
    True to an extent but Excel isn't that good for everything related to data manipulation. Also, there are some well known bugs with Excel.

    However, I agree that Excel is the standard in spreadsheets because MS just has the massive funding to back this program.

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    Re: Would the world stop running without MS Office?

    When most people speak about Office they are thinking about Word, but for me it's all the other apps that make office stand out. The whole of office works together, so you can pull information from source and view it in another app.

    Then as Lucio says, Excel is a really excellent spreadsheet app, Access too. People may give it a hard time, but it is certainly a lot easier than a DB engine and something else to give it an interface. I've not seen anything else that can do what Access does as easily.

    Everyone hates the thought of Powerpoint, but it does what it is meant to do very well and is very easy to use.

    Personally I think office is great and have no desire to try anything else (having a TechNet subscription really does, I'll admit that) and I really like the ribbon interface, the old toolbars are horrible no use for me these days.

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    Re: Would the world stop running without MS Office?

    Also Excel is the defacto standard because it can do things so simply compared to the alternatives such as OO or even Lotus123! This was apparent from 97 onwards.

    How much money do people think is handled by Excel spreadsheets. I would be surprised if it was less than 50% of the worlds dosh.
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    Senior[ish] Member Singh400's Avatar
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    Re: Would the world stop running without MS Office?

    Agree with my boy Funk here. When you say "Office" people instantly think "Word". But really, I don't really use Word at all (at work). It is more 90% Access, 9% Excel and maybe 1% Word. Access is the real gem for me. The amount of stuff you can do with it is amazing - and I am sure I've only scratched the surface.

    Hell most departments here use Excel, every time I walk past Finance they all have Excel 2007 open. Only department that uses Word 2003 as their main application is Communications.

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    Anthropomorphic Personification shaithis's Avatar
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    Re: Would the world stop running without MS Office?

    If people think "Word" when they hear "Office", then they do not know what Office is

    And as a SQL Server DBA, the thought of using Access makes me shudder!
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