The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Microsoft punts 'significant' Office for Facebook update

Microsoft claims to have significantly reworked the Office applications for Facebook adjunct to its main, $14bn Office applications business. The company Tuesday unveiled changes to Docs it said addressed two key shortcomings following feedback from users. Those shortcomings? The inability for users to organize their own …

This topic is closed for new posts.
Barry Rueger
Troll

An Unlikely Combination

Yup, one of the things that has kept me away from Facebook has been the inability to create Powerpoints between status updates and pokes.....

And I thought that Farmville was the most inane thing ever to hit Facebook....

Anonymous Coward
Troll
Reply Icon

"I thought that Farmville was the most inane thing ever to hit Facebook..."

OK, my curiosity finally got the better of me and I looked on YouTube to see what the hell this Farmville thing was like.

First video I found was called "Hay Stacking Tutorial"

The need for that film alone shows the intelligence of your average Farmville player let alone the utter tedium of such a "game".

It's a troll feeding frenzy.

Alastair 7

Let me guess

By the time my comment gets posted, it will be preceded by two dozen "Why does anyone use Facebook?! All I need is the SMTP server I have set up on an old Linux box in my basement" comments. Oh, and a smattering of "Office is retarded lol" comments. The combination of Facebook, Microsoft and Office will be irresistible.

The end of the article gives a very clear clue as to why why this is happening: college/university students love Facebook. College students often have to collaborate on presentations, papers, you name it. A tool that combines the two is, despite what you say, a good idea for a product.. I know you won't use it, it isn't targeted at you. Doesn't mean it won't be useful for someone else.

Anonymous Coward
Grenade
Reply Icon

Alastair

Your pre-emptive "everyone is going to complain" about every recent Twitter/Facebook article is getting more annoying than the actual complaints. So you like Facebook, go and play Farmville and leave El Reg to the adults.

Cameron Colley
Reply Icon

Ok, I'll bite.

College students are not always the best judges of what is the right way to do things. For example, I'll bet that a good many college students used Kazaa back in the day when it pretty much guaranteed that malware would infect your PC the moment it was installed (OK, exaggeration, but I hope you see the point).

College students also, no doubt, will post stupid pictures and slanderous comments on their facebook pages -- let's hope they don't regret them when their prospective employer sees them.

Most of the people who comment against facebook and Office on here probably do so because their experience in the IT world has made them cynical and mistrusting. Years of problems with Office and reading news stories and forum posts of people being "owned" and having their the embarrassments of their lives laid bare can do that to a person.

Microsoft were bound to jump on the Facebbok bandwagon and, yes, college students may well like it -- but that doesn't mean it's a good idea any more than doing beer bongs or setting off a fire extinguisher in the corridor.

Alastair 7
Reply Icon

Erm.

"College students are not always the best judges of what is the right way to do things."

So? Is there anything inherently wrong with a business doing something that will prove popular, even if it isn't going to be the most efficient/effective solution? They are, after all, a business, in the business of making money.

And to the AC that called me out without showing their own identity: your post shows the reason why I post defending Facebook. I don't think it's a life-line, but it is a useful tool. The fact that you immediately dive for the 'Farmville card' shows that you like to lay into Facebook without actually knowing what you're talking about. It's quite possible to use the site and get a lot of out of it without getting involved in inane stuff like Farmville. Keep your moral superiority to yourself.

Can I disparage anyone that uses a web browser as an idiot because a lot web browser users watch stupid videos on YouTube?

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward
Reply Icon

Google Docs?

We get GMail and Google Docs at Uni, almost nobody uses it because they don't know what it is.

Slasher
Paris Hilton

Profit anyone?

Perhaps m$ see an opportunity for a profit here. Jumping on the facebook bandwagon. Who next? Google? Perhaps they are already intertwined with facebook... Maybe Oracle will try and get facebook to use their database!

Paris, because who wouldn't want to get intertwined with her...

Anonymous Coward
Grenade

mental note...

Not only no christmas card for Ray Ozzie, but he's going to be an anonymous recipient of 10 years worth of fruitcake that I have been unable to take to the local dump.

What part of "if you ignore it, it will go away" do people NOT understand about FB? Next to Windows and Adobe, it has to be #3 on the threat vector list, for malware.

I will give zuckerberg one thing, "his creation" actually outranks the entire country of Nigeria, when it comes to suckering people into giving up their identity. Now microsoft is engaged? This is a greek-frigging-tragedy unfolding right in front of our eyes.

Daniel 1
Reply Icon

RE: What part of "if you ignore it, it will go away" do people NOT understand

The part that comes right before "if you pump $270 million into it, it won't go away - and then you'll have to find something to justify this preposterous investment."

Anonymous Coward
Grenade

coming soon..

Office for Toddlers 2010 - now you can call your Lego APIs and even custom Tamagotchi DLLs straight from Word! Just what you need to boost productivity in your busy creche.

This topic is closed for new posts.