Microsoft Focusing Office Suite On Web Services
Posted by WishX on 22 August 2004 - 18:58 · 17 comments & 1382 views
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(1 reply)
#1 Posted by Jason on 22 Aug 2004 - 19:04
- Refocusing on what Office is and does is good news as they cannot just keep adding features to each new version.
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(3 replies)
#2 Posted by Mister Lamar on 22 Aug 2004 - 19:20
- Office 2003 is nice, Im looking forward to the next one...Open Source is something MS may benefit from, but I don't think they will ever issue Office for free or dirt chip
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#2.1 Posted by Jason on 22 Aug 2004 - 19:29
- Of course Office will never be free as the developers need to earn a living, the same as Ford won't give away their cars for free and Burger King won't give out their burgers for free etc....
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#2.2 Posted by markjensen on 22 Aug 2004 - 21:04
- Burgers and cars are material goods. They are manufactured.
Software is a pattern (true, the CD is a manufactured good), and programming is more of a service-based commodity. One that is extremely low-cost to mass produce. Not true of the manufactured goods you use in your comparison.
Like comparing apples to a jpeg image of an orange.
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#2.3 Posted by Jason on 22 Aug 2004 - 21:21
- Software needs to be developed, cars need to be developed, it all costs billions in R&D per year. So what if there isn't always a physical product at the end of the software development (eg downloadable from MSDN) that is irrelivant as there are stil expensive development costs to recoup.
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#3 Posted by Xabora on 22 Aug 2004 - 19:21
- Meh... I'll just stick to my Office XP.
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#4 Posted by normal_blue on 22 Aug 2004 - 19:28
- for the moment, I think office 2003 is the best but look forward what will havein the next office?
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(4 replies)
#5 Posted by hardgiant on 22 Aug 2004 - 20:38
- Open Office 2.0 could change everything.
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#5.2 Posted by 123_kid on 23 Aug 2004 - 03:09
- What is going to be in Open Office 2.0 that could change everything?
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#5.3 Posted by hardgiant on 23 Aug 2004 - 06:50
- Open Office 2.0 reportly will much more compatible with all office version up to office 2003 and will have a much improved GUI.
There working hard to make Open Office 2.0 the break out office product that will finally put some heat on Microsoft Office. -
#5.4 Posted by cdcase on 23 Aug 2004 - 20:53
- yeah baby. I use Open Office exclusively. Its DA BOMB. Microsoft should be VERY afraid. I have converted more than an handful of people to OO, and they all love it. My Father in law was going to fork out a few hundred for Office 2k3, but after I convinced him to give OO a try for a few weeks he never followed through with his purchase.
If OO could get an Outlook equivalent going then it would be game over for MS Office.
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#6 Posted by dduardo on 23 Aug 2004 - 10:49
- I don't like this idea of web services. For a home user this almost has no value. For a business your putting all the trust of many computers into one (or a few if load balanced) computer(s) and the local intranet. When the next windows worm comes and disrupts the network, the company will be crippled and the employees won't be able to work. That's something no company can afford. Not only that, but your now going to be locked into paying the Microsoft rent.
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(2 replies)
#7 Posted by chacho on 23 Aug 2004 - 15:57
- be assured that if the next version of office is a web service, i will then switch to OO.o
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#7.1 Posted by Jason on 23 Aug 2004 - 17:01
- You have read it wrong, they are not turning Office in to a web service but delivering more Web services to the desktop via Office.
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#7.2 Posted by cdcase on 23 Aug 2004 - 20:59
- which suxors...
just what we need - more bloat and more security holes. I already hate the smart tags and "nifty neato" stuff in Office 2k3 (I have to use it at work). Its just more fluff I have to wade through to do my work.
And I respectfully beg to differ with Bill G. that Office defines business productivity (of course he is biased and is trying to implant mental associations). Office does NOT define productivity, PEOPLE define it. Office is a TOOL to enable productivity. If your people are dolts, then Office won't help. If your people are worth their salt, then OpenOffice will be just as good an enabler (excluding Outlook functions of course).
"Office defines business productivity," Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, told financial analysts in July. "The productivity area is probably the most important franchise that we have." Microsoft is banking on the Office initiative to help it fend off the challenge from open source software and other competitors.
"Microsoft is trying to make Office less a product and more like an online service," said Nate Root, an analyst for Forrester Research. "Adoption is going to be slow because Microsoft is trying to change the paradigm. It's a fundamental cultural change in how people think of and use Office." Because the next version of Windows, called Longhorn, may not ship until 2007, analysts say, the Office overhaul is needed in the meantime to deliver more Web services technology to the desktop. The new capabilities in the Office system are also needed to lure software developers to create more applications that run on Microsoft products.
Challengers like Sun Microsystems' StarOffice, OpenOffice.org and the Open Source Applications Foundation offer free or very inexpensive alternatives to Microsoft's Office programs. At the same time, Microsoft faces strong competitors in the collaboration field. IBM (NYSE: IBM) , for example, has sold Web conferencing, Web-based work spaces and other software for years, and leads in some market segments.
What's New in This Release:
· - New JPG option: Auto-rotate image according to EXIF info (Properties->JPG)
· - New advanced batch resize options: Set long/short side, load/save settings
· - New options for DigiCam RAW formats (Properties->PlugIns)
· - New options for multipage extract (View->Multipage images)
· - Option to use eBay search in the toolbar (Properties->Misc 3)
· - Option to show common shell folders in Thumbnail directory tree
· - Support for CR2/X3F formats (Properties->PlugIns, see also i_plugins.txt)
· - Option to sort files using the XP sort order (for names with digits)
· - New PlugIn for DXF/DWG/HPGL formats : CADImage.DLL (Shareware, see i_plugins.txt)
· - New hotkey: Shift+L = Lock/Unlock Zoom (fullscreen mode too)
· - New/changed hotkeys: CTRL+P = print, CTRL+PageUp = previous multi-page, CTRL+PageDown = next multi page, Shift+T = toolbar edit field, Shift+M = send by email, CTRL+Shift+B = Batch scanning; (removed: CTRL+N)
· - New options for toolbar edit field (file filter, see help file)
· - New options for batch IPTC mode
· - Several PlugIns are changed/updated, please install the newest versions
· - Some minor bugs/features fixed/added