@AC Troll

And just what would you suggest is truly on par with office ? Please be carefull and avoid making a fool of yourself by answering the usual "Libre Office", Open Office solutions, they are really not on par.....

Ask yourself why the German Foregien Office made a u-turn ? In the end it would have cost them more money, not less to deploy the "free" solution. Go figure...

Lockin

If you are saying lock-in to an expensive suit is the reason, then what you are doing is getting yourself even more locked in. It's a short term tactic, not a long term strategy. The frog does not detect that the water is slowly warming up....

Re: @AC Troll

@Khaptain, ask yourself why most people need MS Office over Libre Office, Libre Office is on par with Office 2000 at least plus it has many advantages - non-changing, open file formats being the biggest, and also no licence fees and open source code (more secure in these days of back doors and chinese hacking).

You mention Germany - ask yourself why, so far, Munich have already saved 11 million Euros switching to Linux / Open Office - they'll save faster in the future too, now they have absorbed the cost of switching.

Who is "trolling" here?

Re: @AC Troll

LibreOffice on a bar with Office 2000 LOL

I think you'll find that we're on 2013, which is 5 releases later. The later versions are a lot more easier to edit documents, contain more useful features, etc.

Looks like you're the troll.

Re: @AC Eadon

No one forces office users to use office. I gave my users tbe possibility to use both. Out of thirty users only one of said he prefered Libre Office and he is the one that wants Linux to be brought into the office. Evetyone else just keeps using Ms Office.

Personally I also prefer it. It is stable Outlook is an excellent tool that has no true alternative. The interfaces and usabilty are extremely mature. They use a common enterprise format. Installations are simple. It costs us about 30 euros per position. Most problems can be resolved with Google. It doesnt feel like using technology from the 2nd world war. The macros and vba ensure endless possibilities. Etc etc etc etc.

As much as it peeves the Linux crowd Ms Office is an excellent product.

The Germans are returning to Ms Office or did you miss that point. They have saved money on their servers but not on their office suite.

Re: @AC Troll

Fair enough, Libre Office has far more features than to be on par with Word 2000. But at the very very worst case scenario, let us assume that it is on par with Word 2000. Then that is good enough for nearly everybody. In my serious opinion, I find it easier to edit documents using Word 2000 and Libre Office than in Office 2007 and later - not least because the ribbon makes my life miserable when using Office 2007 onwards.

MS Office has regressed as well as progressed since Word 2000.

Re: @AC Eadon

@Khaptain, - people will tend to stick with what they are useful sure, that's not surprising, but not necessarily a reason to continue using an expensive product.

You say, "The Germans are returning to Ms Office or did you miss that point. They have saved money on their servers but not on their office suite."

- well, that's not enitrely true - no firm decision has been made. Furthermore, in Munich (Germans) they are sticking with Linux, the government has already saved 11 billion Euros and counting.

If the English Government would do that, we would reduce the deficit without making cuts.

In my view, all governments should use open source, free systems wherever possible, and not spend tax payers money -our money - on licence fees and licence management overhead. It is simply not necessary to use MS Office when alternatives do the same job using open standards and non-binary, genuinely standard and open formats.

Re: Another "fresh bottle of bubbly"

Who cares?

Stick with 2003 - no one is forcing you to move.

However, that doesn't mean companies must simply stand still. 2013 is available and if people want it, they'll get it.

No one really cares about you and your mates sticking to 2003. Congratulations *slowclap*

Re: Another "fresh bottle of bubbly"

@Khaptain - "Linux from the command line" - pure FUD - desktop Linux systems use GUI's and always true. And, also MS keep changing their binary document formats to force people to upgrade, in effect, this is called the forced upgrade treadmill. The only way to get off it is to go with Libre Office or similar. They stick to ODF so you don't have to upgrade to read documents, and also if you do decide to upgrade, it costs £0 to do so in licence fees.

Re: Another "fresh bottle of bubbly"

@Test Man - "No one really cares about you and your mates sticking to 2003. Congratulations *slowclap*

- newer does not been better. Older - toolbars and menus - these are superior to the ribbon where you have to think about where things are and which ribbon tab to click on. Newer does not mean better, by that logic, Vista is better than XP or Win 2000. Quite often an old product is fine, and people ruin it by ignoring the "if it aint broke, don't fix it" law. (Usually to falsely attempt to justify an upgrade).

Re: Another "fresh bottle of bubbly"

"If I have to pay 30 Euros per year for an employee in order to provide with the industry standard in Documents and Spreadsheets then I wouldn't even blink at the idea."

So you are not thinking critically, you are stuck in the 90's, a slave to a single vendor, to whom you keep giving - you are the gift that never stops giving. You should more than blink at this idea :-)

A smarter manager would prefer open formats such as ODF rather than ever-evolving closed format binary formats. People are using google docs and Apple products these days in any case, and standardising on PDFs for doc exchange.

As for Germany, Munich has saved 11 million euros to date switching to Linux - reference here, as requested. http://www.itworld.com/operating-systems/321474/switching-linux-saves-munich-over-11-million

People are moving away from proprietary solutions towards open source, that is the trend. Yes, there are costs associated with switching, but likewise MS are incurring costs to switching people over to Win 8 (Metro), which is arguably a larger change than moving to Linux.

@Eadon - Re: Another "fresh bottle of bubbly"

Microsoft ditched the proprietary binary formats with Office 2007. Since then, the default file formats have been based on Office Open XML. Also, since Office 2007 SP2, the ODF file formats are supported in MS Office, as well as the PDF format you mention.

Re: @Eadon - Another "fresh bottle of bubbly"

@garden-snail - currently there is no available office suit, not even from Microsoft, that implements OOXML- the dodgy standard that MS created to satisfy governments that it wasn't just supporting binary standards. MS corrupted the ISO by stacking the board with partners, to force OOXML (notice even the name is designed to be confused with Open Office) through the ISO standards committee. Those dirty tricks alienated MS with a lot of people.

In any case, the standard has clauses that are not open, e.g. "format like Windows 95" and it refrences binary blobs. It is unimplementable in a genuinely open way. Also it is 6000 pages long, there's little chance of this being very interoperable. And MS themselves do not support it, docx is not genuine OOXML, though apparently this latest version of Office might have a closer support for it.

If MS refuses to support its own BS standard, then it's just another cynical marketing exercise to get a tick in the box, which, indeed, has apparently satisfied you.

Caveat emptor!

Re: Another "fresh bottle of bubbly"

@Test Man - Not until 2014 if your using office on an in-scope device for PCI - then you will have to move.