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back to article Office 365 - what's in it for you? Speak your brains

Microsoft Office is the planet’s most ubiquitous productivity suite and Word and Excel still set the standard on personal productivity apps. The way the software suite is embedded in each office's day-to-day business means that with each new update, Microsoft finds itself struggling to convince people to upgrade. After all, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    365 is so basic why not use an alternative FOSS option...?

    IMHO 365 is a joke. It doesn't support MACROS therefore it kills a key feature of Office.

    Anyone not running Macros could find a FOSS alternative i.e. LO / Open Office etc will suffice...

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    1. LHS
      Reply Icon

      Re: 365 is so basic why not use an alternative FOSS option...?

      O365 comes with a full fat client of Office 2013 Professional Plus - I'm sure you'll be able to run your macros there.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 365 is so basic why not use an alternative FOSS option...?

        That's not the point. I was specifically questioning the lack of VBA Macro support in the Cloudy version of Office! You can always use a standalone version of Office for running macros. But what I take issue with, is that MS does not do a good enough job at disclosing the limitations of its Cloudy Office products in its marketing literature!

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  2. Cliff

    Is this a marketing pitch?

    Or, to put it another way -

    Is there any part of this that isn't just a marketing pitch?

    In fairness, I could be interested in Office365, but having bought various bits of MSO for real money for my business, then it would seem moving to 365 would mean effectively throwing away my existing perpetually licensed products, even though the last bit is only a few months old?

    As for macros, AC above me, SOME of the licensing options don't include installables, others do. If you need them, go for that license instead?

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Is this a marketing pitch?

      @Cliff

      My understanding is there's no cross-product VBA support, i.e. It is technically impossible to execute VBA Macros in the Cloud so to speak. Macros were / are a key feature of MS's hold on the spreadsheet market in particular. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but a different licensing model won't fix this....

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    2. Trevor_Pott Gold badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Is this a marketing pitch?

      They told me to be blunt and honest. I have no dollars in my pocket for marketing. And a list of experiences both good and bad with Office 365 as long as my arm. Seriously guys, when have you known me not to take the piss out of Microsoft when piss needs to be taken? I also give them an attaboy when they deserve it. *shrug*

      Let's just say that Microsoft marketing and I don't exactly see eye to eye. It's not as bitter as the divide between Microsoft Licensing and I, but it's still a hell of a gulf to cross. Ask your questions; you'll get real answers.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dear AdBlock

    Please fix your filter. It's blocking the &*%^ing enormous flashing purple 'ADVERTISEMENT' banner above this article. But it's not blocking the article itself.

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    1. frank ly
      Reply Icon

      Re: Dear AdBlock

      I just turned off AdBlock to see what you were talking about. OMG! It's just like family, you don't appreciate it until it's not there.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Windows

    Lame interface(s)...

    My main gripe with the new Office is the new interface and the way they changed several usability features, I simply can't bring my self to liking it even though I'm a die-hard 2010 user.

    It's simple; the new Word or Excel 2013 gives me an headache. I can't stand the all-bright, vaguely coloured and extremely NOISY interface. There's no longer a clear separation between your work space and the Ribbon section above. Totally unworkable for me since its too distracting. At the very least make sure there's a clear separation like there always was. Even Office 2003 (pre-Ribbon time) used clear separation and easily spotted sections.

    I also dislike the way Office starts. When I fire up Word I do so because I need to start working on something. If I need to work on a document otoh. I simply open that. Usually through the use of the jumplists in the start menu.

    Yet when you start Word 2013 you'll first have to go through the start screen, you can't make Office skip this. So hit escape to make it go away and you can start on your work. Absolutely annoying to me since the times where I had to use the backstage view after starting Word (or Excel) can be counted on one hand.

    And yeah; I know this start screen is a detail. But that's as far as I got with Office 2013; the interface didn't exactly make it appealing for me to check it out some more to see if there were any other options which I might have liked a lot better in comparison to 2010. It did the total opposite; so after the start screen ticked me off I called it a day and didn't bother any more. I'm very happy with Office 2010 and I see absolutely no reason what so ever to upgrade to this migraining catastrophy.

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    1. Neil McAllister
      Reply Icon

      Re: Lame interface(s)...

      I work with the Ribbon minimized so I don't think I agree with your criticisms there. It's not distracting; in fact, it's practically invisible.

      You can skip the Start screen, too. It's there by default, but you can configure it to go away. It's the very last check box under Options->General. That was a must for me.

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  5. Binkle

    SoftMaker Office

    @shell_user, I totally agree with you. Plus, Microsofts license and price policy gets more and more greedy. I played around with several alternatice office suites, but most of them (LibreOffice, OpenOffice, Kingsoft,..) had interoperability problems with Microsoft Office formats. I need to handle my thousands of Word-, Excel, and PowerPoint files perfectly. But SoftMaker Office Professional is a great alternative, I use it since one month and I will continue. Bye bye Microsoft. It comes with word processor TextMaker (including Berlitz dictionaries), spreadsheet PlanMaker, presentation software Presentations, plus eM Client 5 Professional. Excel is better than PlanMaker, but I miss no single feature of Word or PowerPoint, it has them all. Support by phone is free of charge.

    I still need to use a MS Office on a Windows machine at work, but I use SoftMaker Office Professional at home, and I don't have any problem going back and forth. Interface is similar/familiar to that of MS Office 2003 (no ribbons), so there's not too much of a learning curve. Coding is tight, and program is small and runs fast. Price is reasonable at ~$99 for three licenses, upgrades from earlier versions ~$40, educational discount ~$25. They also run frequent/sales and promotions. A free 30 day trial download of 2012 is available. Have a look.

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  6. zen1

    bpos by any other name

    Big Piece of Shit I refuse to pay MS one damn dime after Windows 8. I'm going to stick with my old apps.

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