Comments on: Microsoft wants Office 14 to get along
As part of designing the next Office, Microsoft is supporting more standards and trying to make the software fit better with back-end business software.
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During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft.
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Hey, it's not fair but that's reality and why every other major office suite has to make sure it's compatible with Office, not the other way round.
Unfortunately, the newer versions of MS Office, don't support the older Office formats very well. Instead they support .docx and have spotty support for the older formats. OpenOffice.org has better support for older MS Office documents than newer MS Office versions, so its either install free OO.o or go hunting for available licenses for older MS Office, or exercise downgrade options for newer MSO. Actually, I just install OO.o on everything, regardless of whether or not there is an MS Office installation since it's pretty good at document conversions, opening corrupted documents, and creating .pdfs
Office 2007 supports previous Office versions, it's just the default is set to docx. OO in no way has better support for Office
Just wondering?
Ina is in the difficult position that being in the public eye as a reporter that if she is not up front about her lifestyle people criticize her for hiding things, and if she is open about it she gets criticized for putting it in people's faces. Your question might seem innocent to you but really these sort of questions can easily be offensive and unnecessary when Ina is lady enough to deal with it with a lighthearted mention in her bio and leaves it at that. It is then up to us to have sufficient manners to also leave it at that.
Meanwhile I will add that her honesty and candor in this subject is an important part of why I would regard her as qualified to report on any subject for any company. Not many reporters would show that much courage and that gives me confidence that what she writes on any subject will be frank and the truth so far as she knows it.
So true. Anyone courageous enough to reveal so much about her identity is going to be courageous enough to give us the (sometimes) ugly truth.
I do not understand why as senior editor you would feel this is fitting. I could understand if this was a college news site or other non professional site. Please do not force your liberal ideas down our thoughts. Keep to reporting on the technology news.
I guess my next comments will be to the CEO of Cnet. As someone that pays to advertise on your site I will most likely be removing my account
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So when it comes down to it. I can pay several hundred dollars extra for a few features I might need 10% of the time?
KieranMullen
http://360oregon.com
Alternatively, there are also those corporations which haven't quite gotten up the nerve to leave MS products because of the large amount of lock-in involved with using them in the first place.
Or maybe people just like Microsoft Office. I know it's hard for a bigot like you to believe but think about it... oh wait..
Is this fair? Hell no! Is this reality? Hell yes.
KieranMullen
http://360oregon.com
Why?
Funny. I was using MS Office at a neighbors house while helping with some document work. I use OOo at home so I have an actual basis for comparison.
MS Office opened more slowly and took longer to render documents.
As for bugs, maybe you could name some instead of just saying they exist.
What isn't in OOo that is needed for an Office setting? Again, you say it's incomplete but you don't say how.
Welcome to news.com
Instructions
1. There's menu on top to navigate around
2. Clicking a news item will open details
3. You can also create your very own personal account
4. blah blah blah
Start reading the news and you'll realize half a billion people uses office.
Many people use Microsoft products such as Office at work because they don't have a choice. My father for example has had Office pre-installed on every machine. He uses it to open documents sent to him from other people, but he doesn't create anything with it.
This is why I'm always skeptical when people say there are XYZ number of a Microsoft product. Install base, people who are forced to use it, and people who choose to use it are 3 different things. I suspect that third number is much lower.
If your computer is opening office documents slowly, you need a new computer....seriously.
I have a 5 year old computer and a brand new one, both custom built, they open documents instantly.
Doing a "benchmark" test by feel is very invalid. Get some solid, verifyable numbers.
2) Outlook
3) We have to because of Outlook.
I hate large corporations just as much as the next guy. But Microsoft is far from being an evil company. Saying that Microsoft is an evil company would be like living in the suburbs and saying you are afraid of getting shot. Could it happen? Yes. Is it going to? Probably not. As for Microsoft, are they greedy? Yes. Do they charge more than they need to? Yes. Welcome to the world of business, this is how you make money. But that doesn't mean that it isn't worth it sometimes.
You say that Microsoft makes you go to them as if you don't have any other choice. If you want to attempt making the same or better software and selling it for a cheaper price, go ahead. Nothing in this world is going to stop you. Consider that mabye, just MABYE Microsoft started out as a small company, with hardly any money, market share, advertising potential, etc. They didn't just start off being how they are today. They grew because people LIKED what they have to offer....and a lot of people still do. There are 5 or 6 different OSes that are worth their weight in salt, most of them are a lot cheaper than Windows. They aren't on a whole lot of people's computers though because they just don't compare to Windows in the same way. It's like the arguement that iMacs are more secure. Apple's OS isn't more secure than Windows....it's just targeted a whole lot less. The people who make viruses and the like WANT people's computers to get infected, as many as possible. That's the whole point of creating it. So if they want to infect as many computers as possible, they write it for Windows, not the Mac, because Windows has such a staggering market share. So the arguement that Apple's OS is more secure in that sense is kind of like throwing 7 rocks at one window and 1 at another and claiming that the 2nd windows is stronger and better because it didn't break as bad. It's complete and total BS.
So the moral of the story? You have options. You are a free peraon. You can use what you like. But you are not forced....and don't tell other people that you are when you are not.
The comment was to the question that people still buy office, they do, they don't have a choice or they do is a different question. BTW I use ubuntu and open office and i love it.
30% more compatibility!
Disclaimer you'll still need Microsoft Office to view the other 70% of this document.
Microsoft does something to help benefit the customer and still gets reamed......
People will find any reason to hate something.
However, congratulations to Microsoft for trying to meet their customers' needs.
It's pathetic when they make both buying, and installing the software a PITA.
OpenOffice isn't as nice but I don't have to beg to buy it, don't have to beg to get a product key, or phone home to activate it.
Idiots like you fill up the customer service demands so that real problem can't get through.
MS Office wasn't meant to install on 10 computers with one license. And MS office software is available easily at your local retail store. Stop BSing.
if ur not , an u just need to type a letter , make a simple spreadsheet , or watever , there openoffice
or google docs
i like good docs, i have office but havnt used to exp for business work, for my personal use i find google easier , its all web based an free ,its not powerful but it just works for wat i need,
PS, our company is dumping outlook (crashes too much an to slow) for a online service called planplusonline.com , they have a email client, cal, database, contacts....
- by Jonnygthedrummer March 11, 2009 5:48 AM PDT
- btw i dis like the ribbon , just keep it simple, File, Edit, Insert, Help ,,, not icon ribbon stuff
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (66 Comments)(dont fix it if its not broken)
but besides that office is good