back to article Microsoft throws Office 2010 at shoppers

Microsoft's Office 2010 has hit retail stores with consumers being hailed as the suite's savior. The latest edition of Microsoft's suite hit high-street retailers and online merchants Tuesday in three flavors for the general public. Office 2010 is available or the first time as download with activation via a key card in …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Outlook

    So, if Outlook Express is not included in Windows 7, and the Home/Student version of Office doesn't include Outlook, what is the case for domestic users paying for Outlook when Thunderbird is free?

    Paris.....because she knows what it means to be past your sell by date.

  2. TeeCee Gold badge
    Gates Horns

    Download and key activation?

    Let the FleaBay bent license fest begin!

  3. Cameron Colley

    Does anyone need this at home?

    For businesses with a lot of investment in MS infrastructure I can kind of understand why they would continue with MS Office. But, for the home user who doesn't need exchange integration (not that they get outlook) or any DMS integration and the like this seems like overkill.

    Surely for the majority of people the adequate-if-slightly-flaky OpenOffice.org with a price of zero is a better option? It allows the opening of MS Office documents and the ability to write letters/CVs etc. which can be read by MS Office if necessary.

    So, is there any reason anyone but a Corporate user needs MS Office?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Also...

    They also have the ultimate steal package again. Not sure if its available in the UK, but it offers the full suite to academic users for $80. Only downside seems to be that they charge extra if you want a hard copy mailed to you.

    It worked fine for me with Office 2007, so I'll probably upgrade again.

    Link for the interested: http://www.ultimatesteal.com/

    1. James Turner

      For ac.uk types

      http://www.software4students.co.uk/default.aspx is what you want.

  5. Dest
    Grenade

    It's A New Version!

    It amazes me that people frivolously hand over their money that they no doubt worked hard for to a company like Microsoft for a product that offers nothing that wasn't available in the previous version.

    I mean how many different ways can you repackage what is essentially a word processor and a database application?

    And I certainly wouldn't pay for their Outlook application especially when there are alternatives that are a lot better.

    Personally I use Open Office and quite frankly I like it much better, even at work.

    I actually get more control with the Open Office apps and I donate what I can afford to donate to them for their outstanding work.

    Oh, I am sure that Microsoft has made some minor improvements to Office 2010 but it's basically the same thing as it was before warmed over and repackaged as a "new version" with some engineered obsolescence added in to prevent users of previous versions from opening documents made on this version so people are compelled to buy the new version.

    I look at it this way, if someone sends me a document and I can't open it, I send it back and ask them to put it into a format that I can open.

    I already get enough of that rubbish from Autodesk having to stay current with each new version.

    The difference is, I need AutoCAD because nothing else will do but I don't need Microsoft.

  6. Trokair 1
    Dead Vulture

    Give it up

    Not too long now and MS will have to give up the ghost. They have been over-charging for their glorified word processor and its iterations for far too long. Google has forced their hand and now they have to give it away for free. I have refused for some years to pay the extortionist prices for the suite and I approve of it's death with trumpets blaring.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pointless

    Pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless.

    More bloat, struggling for useful new features, that bloody ribbon, over-priced, over-complicated. Outlook looks a bloody mess. I could go on all day.

    The only value I see is possibly 64bit edition of excel; I hope it can actually handle sheets with HUGE numbers of rows...

    Sorry...I checked out when they introduced the ribbon in 2007, and I'm not seeing any reason to return here either.

  8. frank ly
    Thumb Down

    Funny

    I just dipped a toe in the water with Office Web Apps. I have Office 2000 installed on my laptop and use Firefox. I had to enable half a dozen things in NoScript and Request Policy to get everything going. I got in via my Hotmail account, that I keep going for old times sake.

    Office-Excel Web Apps will not perform copy-paste of cell values between itself and the installed Office-Excel 2000 application. (I think you may need Office 2003 or later to support this.)

    Google Docs WILL perform copy-paste of cell values between itself and installed Office 2000, lol.

    I tried to copy-paste an Excel chart to Google Docs but that failed and was too much to hope for of course.

    So, there is better cross-use compatibility between Google Docs and Excel 2000, than between Microsoft Office Web Apps and Excel 2000.

  9. Kirstian K
    Thumb Up

    HUP

    Bought my 2010 profesional Plus today for 8,95..... (Home user program)

    nice..

    dont mind for that kinda price, any more and there aint any point for home really.

  10. Change can be good
    Happy

    Great alternatives

    OpenOffice, Google Docs and Zoho are great alternatives that are free!

    Ubuntu 10.04 is an excellent free alternative for Windows 7.

    I think the boxed version of Office 2010 Professional is $499, while the download is $349. I could get a decent computer with a great free OS like Ubuntu WITH OpenOffice (also free) bundled with it for that price!

    Now, thats sweet especially in this tough economy!

    1. Barry Lane 1
      Thumb Up

      IBM Symphony is free, too

      Downloaded Symphony a couple of days ago from IBM - it's their take on OpenOffice, apparently - and it's really rather pretty, although I haven't had a chance yet to check it out for compatibility with MS. On my new Mac I was still able to use Office X, which must be ten years old, thanks to XML Converter to handle the newer docx files.

      Microsoft's fondness for selling its bloated software at stupidly high prices has brought about its own semi-demise, thanks to Sun et al in support of the open source approach. If these projects will continue to thrive once MS accepts that it has eaten itself, Office-wise, we'll have to wait and see, of course.

      For now, Symphony will probably do rather nicely.

  11. Terry 6 Silver badge
    FAIL

    version sense

    So, Home users won't want Publisher to make the kiddies' party invitations, church jumble sale notices etc? But will need Excel to...... err?

    Over the decades I ought to have got used to Microsoft's marketing strategies, but I haven't.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Mix n Match

    We're still using 2003 at home and that's perfectly adequate, but at work I have to use 2007 (and 2008 for Mac), and 2003 won't open the docx/xlsx files (without a plugin that doesn't seem to work properly). I think I might use the WebApps to open the newer file formats and soldier on with good old 2003 for a little while yet.

  13. Mark Eaton-Park

    DUH M$ is a bit slow , me thinks

    When you can have OpenOffice and Thunderbird why would anyone still buy M$Office for home use? Exchange integration is the only thing that you can't get for free that is if anyone wants it, M$ have lost the PDA market so I see exchange going down the pan too

    It might be time for M$ to pull the usual add applications to OS and give office away free?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    More of the same rubbish

    As a MS partner I subscribe to this yearly tat and with 2010 I was looking forward to getting rid of the ribbons, or finding some way of having a classic toolbar. Unfortunately all I have is more ribbons, bloated interfaces and mega background searching thats bringing my 2 year old decent laptop to its knees.

    Outlook has more useless bells and whistles that covers the screen - why do I want a picture of the person im sending an email to? Thats assuming that Outlook starts as just about every addin known to man fails on startup for one reason or another.

    Excel has become a bigger nightmare when trying to do simple tasks, such as page preview. In the old days, 1 click on the preview icon, now its file, print, nothing, oops its in protected mode, exit, open enable editing, file print, fiddle, fiddle, give up and open 2003.

    MS is killing usable software just to force more and more useless features on us

  15. Daniel Warner
    Thumb Up

    If you actually USED it...

    For anyone that needs any office software this is an absolute MUST. Openoffice just doesn't cut it in ANY way. Yes, for those people who very rarely do anything office-y then it's fine, but for anyone who needs PROPER office software that is powerful yet easy to use, there really is no alternative.

    I'm no M'soft fanboi, but this one they have got right. I don't need to list why, there are 100s of reviews out there already and most of them are glowing.

    I urge you to at least try it, not just bash it coz that's the popular view on here.

    1. frank ly
      Stop

      Example please

      To set your comment in context, can you give an example (or two) of how Open Office doesn't 'cut it', compared to Microsoft Office, in a real world, common, normal, office-y type of environment?

      (Please don't say 'pivot tables' or 'Exchange integration', those are big, bright, known things).

      My experience of office-y type work is that the biggest problem is the people, those who don't follow procedures, can't communicate properly, etc. The software used to create a report or make a pretty graph in a spreadsheet is usually low on the list of things that need to be improved.

  16. Jean-Paul

    How about

    The ability to actually use referenced meta data in headers and rooters instead of manually adjusting it and breaking the links for ms office users. Especially since you started talking about following procedures ;-)

    Or just keep formatting intact without throwing the fonts out of place. That would be a good start. I agree open office is ok for a home user ish. But I wouldn't even trust my cv with it, the bureaus use automated integration with embedded metadata for their searches. So if you don't set your properties correct you don't show up at the top of the list. Also if the formatting is different than intended chances are you are out in the first sift round.

    With ms office being so cheap I would not recommend open office to anyone.

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