Are you familiar with Microsoft Works? It’s sort of a My First Office Suite kind of thing which includes support for Microsoft Word and Excel documents. It is usually not sold separately, but instead comes pre-installed on new OEM machines. Well, Microsoft has announced today that it will kill Microsoft Works, and replace it with Microsoft Office 2010 Starter – an ad-supported version of Office 2010.
Microsoft Works is something I personally despise with all my heart. While it is compatible with ordinary Word and Excel documents, it also has its own built-in file format that can’t really be read or edited by anything. I recall several occasions on which I had to help people out because they received documents in a weird format that they could not open – even though the people sending it to them claimed they had used “Microsoft Word” to create the document.
The situation when it comes to file format compatibility between Works and Office is complicated and annoying. In a table (made in Excel 2007, darn it!), it looks something like this:
Microsoft Works, at version 9.0, is quite outdated. Version 9.0 offered Windows Vista compatibility, but it for instance still sports Windows 95-esque icon design. As an experiment, Works is currently also available as an ad-supported version, but only in some countries and it’s limited to OEMs.
Microsoft Office 2010 Starter is supposed to remedy all of this. It is a true Office product – so not a rebranded Works suite – but is cheap and ad-supported. Its feature set will also be limited compared to the regular versions of the product line. It will sports the ribbon user interface and use regular Office file formats.
I guess Microsoft Works no longer… Works. Yes, I’m here all week.
Microsoft also announced the concept of Product Key Cards, single-license cards that allow people to upgrade to one of the three full versions of Microsoft Office 2010, (Home & Student, Home & Business 2010, Professional). These cards will be sold through OEMs and at retail outlets. Whether these cards allow you to upgrade from a trial version to one of the full versions, or also from Starter is not yet clear.
Another product that’s coming from the Office department is Click-to-Run, a downloadable version of Office that uses virtualisation to run side-by-side with previous versions, so that users can test it out without harming their current installation. It also uses streaming technology so that users can start using it right away, even before the download is finished.
Microsoft Office 2010 will arrive in the first half of next year, and will be the first release in both 32bit and 64bit. In what we would really want Windows to be like, the 32bit and 64bit versions ship on the same DVD.
First ads in windows live, now this? It isn’t enough they bombard us on web pages, radio, and tv, not to mention bundling pretty much every windows software now with some crapware toolbar that nobody wants? Yet another reason for me to keep away from windows, at least most Mac software hasn’t eaten this rotten egg yet. Microsoft, I give you the flip of my finger.
Edited 2009-10-08 22:16 UTC
I second that. I look at Apple iWork and the only thing that is stopping me from using it is the lack of an integrated bibliography like Word 2008 has; as soon as Apple provides that with the next version, I’ll be leaving Microsoft Office for good.
Office 2008 has been a piece of crap the moment it was released; I setup my locale to New Zealand in the preferences, my language to British English, and Microsoft *INSISTS* on reading the keyboard setting (Australian) instead of my language setting (British English). It is that sort of stupid shit that pisses me off – no attempt to use common sense at all. The language I use for Mac OS X is the language I want to use in my Office suite.
I hope that OpenOffice.org starts to receive some love from Oracle because it can easily be an alternative to Microsoft Office if it is giving some TLC when it comes to the interface and adding some features that are in high demand which keep Office users from moving.
Although it is difficult to measure, OpenOffice already has perhaps 20% of the Office market or more.
What features are these that are in high demand which OpenOffice allegedly lacks?
I don’t think it is so much features that are need as a push to get it too people. That being sad I wonder if Oracle realizes what they have bought, With what they are holding they could really take it to MS, Hell if they can gather enough money to buy Novell they could push edirectory, and really go in for the Kill.
All Oracle has to do is construct a list of features that the big customers demand, find 1000 programmers, put them on a 3 year contract each and get them living, breathing and eating OpenOffice.org source code. Same can be said for OpenSolaris – they need to go out, hire 1000 programmers who eat, sleep and drink driver writing.
Oracle has some of the best assets, all they need to do is allocate the resources, hire the right managers and you’ll get results. Having seen the hiring procedures of Sun Microsystems based on past experience – I am not surprised in the slightest that Sun got themselves in the situation that they are. Here is a quick time – how about interviewing people and hearing what the person has to offer the organisation instead of churning a CV through a parser looking for key words.
Edited 2009-10-09 07:03 UTC
What? you mean actual, human interaction? No one does that anymore.
OpenOffice.org is my fathers office suite of choice – all I got over a period of 2 months from him was him ringing me up constantly asking about how to get even the most basic things working with Office 2007. He has now moved to Fedora 12 for his operating system, my mother is in the same situation (father has a Dell Inspiron 1318 and my mums desktop is a Studio 540s). Both of then are incredibly happy and I haven’t been asked for assistance by either mum or dad.
OpenOffice.org is around 95% of the way there; make the interface a little sexier, improve doc and docx, and improve the speed – according to the Sun blogs, 3.2 is going to bring some major performance improvements.
The speed is fine. I run it under Linux (KDE4) on a very modest machine, and it is faster than Microsoft Office running under Vista on a far beefier machine.
Doc compatibility is reasonable … probably almost as good as say Office 2007.
You would be insane to save files to docx format. OpenOffice can, however, read docx format in case someone who was insane sent you such a file.
OpenOffice GUI requires less retraining than Office 2007 GUI.
So far, from what you have mentioned, I am still waiting for an enumeration of these alleged missing features.
Edited 2009-10-09 09:37 UTC
For me, it’s not a feature, it’s a number of things put together.
First of all, the interface to 2007 is MILES ahead of the archaic menu-driven interface in OpenOffice.org. It took me 2 minutes to figure everything out, and now I wouldn’t want to go back if you paid me for it. The thing about the ribbon – something most OOo advocates tend to overlook – is that the ribbon not only makes it easier to use the features you were already using, it also makes it easier to find or encounter features you did not use before because you didn’t now they were there.
That, in my book, is one of the main reasons why I prefer 2007.
Another really big problem (which isn’t really OOo’s fault) is the very crappy .doc/.docx compatibility in OOo. Even basic documents get their text flows messed up, image positioning is off, imported Excel tables in documents look completely messed up, colours do not match, and so on, and so forth.
I live in a world where I’m expected to deliver something to my professors and co-students that looks the same on my end as it does on their end. I cannot rely on OOo in that regard.
Then there’s the speed issue. I use Windows, so both programs get the preloading crap, but Office 2007 is still way faster in first load up and document loading. OOo just doesn’t compare.
I already knew all this, but then I wrote my thesis this year and realised just how archaic and ancient OOo really is compared to Office 2007. For me, the latter is the superior product in every regard, worth its pricetag (student discount here we come).
I’d rather shove shards of small pocks-infected glass underneath my fingernails than use OOo for any serious work. Or at all.
Interface is, of course, a very subjective topic. However, what you consider archaic, I consider very keyboard friendly and much simpler than that stupid ribbon bar that changes based on context. I don’t want to have to go looking for an item when I already know where it is, and with the ribbon I have to do exactly that. It’s irritating beyond all imagining. Too bad it seems OO.O might move to something similar. Oh well, for what I need, Apple’s iWork 09 is the perfect fit anyway.
let me guess: you never used office 2k7
but i’ve made a little photo-story for you about the endles keyboard-journey to change the active font…
http://temp.funtech.org/Office2007.png
Looking at that screenshot I’m glad I use Latex for my document processing.
Thank you for saying that. I had to edit a large PowerPoint document recently. It took more than 24 man-hours. The whole time I was thinking, “all I should have to do is change a template and re-latex, all I should have to do is change a template and re-latex…”
and i’m sure that the person creating the presentation (while ignoring all template-features of office) would have done it right just because of latex
After looking at that screenshot, all I can say is “I sure hope Ctrl-Shift-F still works.”
No, interface is not subjective, it is a science. Colour and graphics are subjective.
Millions of hours of feedback data were used to shape the ribbon and thousands of hours of user testing. It is *proven* to be better.
How is it for keyboard-centric users? Is the ribbon easy to use without a mouse? Can you use just the arrow keys to navigate the ribbon?
That’s why PDF was invented.
Unless the person on the receiving end actually has a *need* to edit the file, you shouldn’t be passing around editable files.
Hrm, I’ve yet to find anyone who has used any version of MSO with large files (more than 5 pages) that actually liked using it. Perhaps you’ll be the first.
Compared to Lotus WordPro and Corel WordPerfect, neither OOo nor MSO are usable for large documents with tables of contents, footnotes, end-notes, embedded graphics, tables, and what-not. The whole “save the format in a hidden character after the return at the end of a paragraph” stuff is the achilles heel of MSO/OOo.
That’s my sentiments exactly for all versions of MSO. They’ll pull my copy of WordPerfect out of my dead hands before I’ll use MSO for anything more serious than a grocery list.
That looks the same for you and everyone else? PDF does a great work at that
Well, everyone has its tastes.
I hate the 2007 UI. The ribbon is a something for play-skool with its icons.
Well-organized traditional menus are just more powerful. Maybe for the basic features you need some more training, but those are in the toolbar too.
It is what I like about OO.org! Sadly I have seen screenshots of them copying the ribbon in the upcoming releases.
For me OO.org has only one fault: bad MS-Office compatibility. I need to be able to load and save a doc, xls or ppt file in an office suite. The files come from customers, colleagues, they can use Office 2003, 2007… I can’t enforce that. I need to be able to load, modify and re-save that file.
If this operation messes up graphics, settings… then it is of no use.
For my “own” work, sure it is fine. It has more features than I need (Exactly like MS-Office). BUt that is different, for my personal work I can choose also other programs.
For me, it’s not a feature, it’s a number of things put together.
First of all, the interface to 2007 is MILES ahead of the archaic menu-driven interface in OpenOffice.org. It took me 2 minutes to figure everything out, and now I wouldn’t want to go back if you paid me for it. The thing about the ribbon – something most OOo advocates tend to overlook – is that the ribbon not only makes it easier to use the features you were already using, it also makes it easier to find or encounter features you did not use before because you didn’t now they were there.
That, in my book, is one of the main reasons why I prefer 2007.
You prefer 2007 because you’re a brain-dead moron with the attention span of a gnat on speed.
The asses that came up with ribbon should be put against a wall and shot *DEAD*
You prefer 2007 because you’re a brain-dead moron with the attention span of a gnat on speed.
So anyone who has different taste than you on things is automatically a gnat on speed? Wow, you sure are open-minded and friendly. Can I have your children?
100% compatibility when opening .doc and .docx files. Right now these filters are vaporware.
While I use OpenOffice personally and professionally, my company does not and cannot. We have a crap ton of Excel documents with macros, for instance, that simply won’t work properly in OpenOffice. It is cheaper for my company to pay to upgrade to the latest version of MS Office than it is to convert the macros in all of those old documents.
That is probably the single biggest “issue” businesses have with using OpenOffice as a drop-in replacement for MS Office.
http://go-oo.org/discover/#vba-support
That might be true, but surely it would be cheaper still to use one of the many variants of OpenOffice that has support for VBA macros. That way your company wouldn’t have to convert anything.
I’m pretty sure that, as well as the Go-OpenOffice fork, commercial versions of openOffice from Sun (StarOffice) Novel and IBM (Symphony) all offer this capability.
Edited 2009-10-11 07:11 UTC
I did try the Go variant about two years ago and it was not as compatible as needed at that time (at least for management). I will have to check it out again, but my company recently upgraded everyone to Office 2007 Pro so the likelihood of them entertaining another round of upgrades, even if initially “free”, is unlikely at best.
It’s almost as if the corporate mentality is to automatically be dubious, and sometimes suspicious, of anything labeled “free”.
One missing features of OOo:
clipping graphics using the mouse. (Can now be done in presenter, but NOT in writer.)
http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/featurelistbeta.html#Improved_C…
Use openoffice draw to make the graphic (including raster graphics). There is a “crop picture” icon on the graphics toolbar, so that it can easily be cropped. One can even add annotations etc to the original graphic. Having got it how you want it, then copy and paste it into writer.
There is no equivalent of draw in most Microsoft Office installations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OOo_Draw_Screenshot.png
http://why.openoffice.org/images/draw-big.png
Some installations of Microsoft Office do however include Visio at significant extra expense.
If you need some help using OpenOffice correctly, here is a good resource:
http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/draw-2009/
Here is some help specifically on cropping, which you seem to have had trouble with:
http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2008/10/normal-graphic-cropp…
Note that, if you really, really don’t want to use draw to prepare graphics, then the current 2009 version of writer allows you to crop the picture directly in writer:
http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/writer-2009/
As explained in the above link, the trick is to “Right-click on the graphic and choose Picture”. Then go to the “Crop” tab.
Edited 2009-10-13 01:13 UTC
Have you seen the ads and how will be presented?
“Sure we had ads in the 20th century, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio… and in magazines… and movies, and at ballgames, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written in the sky. But not in dreams, no sirree.”
Someone will probably find a way to get rid of the adverts sooner or later.
Probably, but why bother? If you want to use “illegal” software, why not just go for the full version?
Why go illegal? Just run a patch like the ones that modifies Messenger.
I don’t think that’s legal either. I am not sure though.
BTW, I wonder, why are they not calling it Office Live?
i actually really liked Works. it was quick and did what i needed it to do, it was light a light MS office. kinda sad to see it go, i hate all this add suported crap.
Abiword and Gnumeric do what I need on the very few occasions I need it.
I never minded using Works, simple and fast, but the incompatibility between Works and standard Office files prevented it from actually being useful.
MS Works has always been able to open MS Word and MS Excel files.
It’s the other way that (open .wks in Office) required the purchase of an expense add-on File Formats package. Talk about shooting themselves in the feet, legs, arms, chest, and head. Instead of Works being the stepping stone into Office, it became the bastard child that nobody liked and that got blamed for everything.
Works was perfectly compatible with Office. Office was completely incompatible with Works.
I didn’t mean to say it was primarily Works at fault, just that the two didn’t always play well together. With most businesses and schools using Office, the lack of Office compatibility was a major problem for Works users.
Besides, I recall file compatibility being a two-way problem: opening Works files in Office, and Office files in Works.
When it comes to standard office files, Microsoft is not your choice anyway.
Older versions do not use standard formats, and the new format follows a really braindead standard, nobody will implement this atrocity of a standard in full anyway.
IMO, MS Works 3.0 was the pinnacle of office productivity apps from Microsoft. It could do pretty much everything MS Office 2.0/6.0 could, but it was so much faster, simpler, and easier to use. Plus, you had a wordprocessor, a spreadsheet, a db app, all in one binary.
Too bad they butchered it in the port to Windows 95, and it’s been a downhill slide ever since.
More crippled crapware for off-the-shelf computer shoppers, this time with ads too. I hope some OEMs say “no thanks.” Enough is enough.
Doesn’t matter to me though; I build my own machines, and will continue using Office 2000 until it absolutely won’t install any longer.
there is always openoffice.org for when office2k won’t install any longer
I’ve used Open Office quite a bit, both on Linux and Windows. Features are impressive, but it just doesn’t feel as ‘snappy’ as Office 2000.
OpenOffice has improved a great deal speed-wise in recent versions.
Vista and Windows 7 both use a feature called “Prefetch” or “Superfetch” which pre-loads oft-used software. This can considerably reduce the start-up time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefetcher
To get the same functionality in Linux, install the daemon called “preload”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preload_(software)
Start-up time of applications is most often what people are judging when they speak of “snappiness”.
In general use, after startup, the OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office programs will be equally as responsive, depending on the resources used by other applications and the underlying OS. In general, Vista is quite noticeably slower on the same hardware than any version of Linux.
Compared to Linux machines, Windows machines quite often have extra processing overhead such as background virus scanning, or multiple different update monitors, to perform.
MS is really trying to get people addicted to their software. They give free Office 2007 Ultimate copies to many universities, and even if yours is not in the program you can get it for $60 by yourself.
They have also sponsored DOCX filters for Open Office, so you can still use their format on your Linux/OOo machine.
Now this free edition is the final step in total word processor format domination.
Shoot, have you looked at the pricing for Adobe’s Creative Suite? The educational price is < $300, the full price is around $1200!
Fact of the matter is that all the software vendors do this, and yes they do try to get students using the system so they can take it to the workforce.
It’s also well-known that Apple started that game.
Yeah, what a bunch of morons, eh? I mean, if they had any business sense at all, they’d recommend a competitor’s product instead of their own.
I don’t say it’s bad. I’m just telling what they are doing. Actually I’m able to use Windows 7, Office 2007, and Visual Studio 2008 for free due to these kinds of agreements, and I’ve become addicted to C#.
Nevertheless, hooking you up with their products is what MS has been doing. Previously they used pirated versions as a gateway drug, then trials, now they give away fully functional software. They know their game, since there is no way I’d pay $600 for Visual Studio, however my employer buys that whenever I’m working at a software company.
Doesn’t sponsoring DOCX-filters actually help OpenOffice so that people can open their old files with it?
I’ve haven’t heard of people converting from OpenOffice to MS Office.
I like Works 9. I thought they got it right (finally) for the role that it was intended for. I use it daily and I find myself productive in it.
When I need a more complicated document done, I fire Framemaker.
I remember using Works 2.0 in Windows 3.1. It was a nice suite, simple and it got the job done, while Office 6 was already bloated and heavy to run on a 386.
Microsoft Works was only “free” in that the OEM paid for it as part of a deal with MS. To boot, it was not office compatible and so didn’t work for the masses who want to share documents between work, home, friends, etc. It cost MS money to keep that product going, that didn’t give the customer what they really wanted (Office at a lower price), so it was a waste of everyone’s time, let’s face it.
Office Home 2007 only costs $150 for three licenses, that’s $50 a machine. Pretty cheap. If you work at an employer that has an Enterprise License Agreement, which many of us do, you can get the entire Office suite for $20. Microsoft also offers a 60-day free trial of Office, not great but at least you can try before you buy.
All in all MS has become MUCH more friendly over the years and the new suites and pricing show it. The latest suite has proven incredibly popular with end-users. Most (granted not all) users in our org are smitten with it and want us to load it up after they try it for just a little while. We are primarily a unix dev shop mind you.
Since pricing hasn’t been announced for the Home equivelent of Office 2010, there shouldn’t be any complaints yet. Fact is you’ll get Office–not Works, Office–for free. That costs MS something, so asking you to watch adds is not that big a deal as it helps offset their costs.
I’d also like to point out that OSNews is itself ad-supported.
If anyone needs to use an Office suite with ads, well then I feel sorry for you. You can get OpenOffice for free, if not you can use ZohoOffice and Google Docs online for free.
MS doesn’t seem to have even bothered much about backwards compatibility in Works itself. I bought Works in the mid-nineties, last upgraded to version 3, and eventually stopped using it in favour of other products. When I bought a laptop a couple of years ago, it came preinstalled with the then current version of Works. So just out of curiosity, I tried to open my old documents. No joy. I searched MS website in vain for a converter that would handle the old format.
But guess what will open my old Works files and display them properly? Open Office!
As far as I’m concerned, the ribbon can go the way of Clippy. Whenever MS thinks it knows what I want to do in a document, it is almost always wrong.
I’m not sure what you mean here, the ribbon is just a menu/toolbar replacement, it does not try to anticipate your actions. It’s like a tabbed toolbar.
Obviously you haven’t used Office 2007.
Amazingly OpenOffice(.org) has supported Works formats, and many others for a very long time. There is a complete version suite for Windowz. Free for download and use. NO ADS. Ever. Seriously.
🙂
Oh goody, something even bigger than MS Works that I have to uninstall when I buy a new computer!
I didn’t even know that was still in existence with so many free alternatives.
I’ll concede that I’m a happy user of MS Office (including 2007 and its ribbon, yes) — but for any non-primary machines I’ve been a fan of any free software including OpenOffice, AbiWord and Gnumeric with excellent compabability.
Nothing lost here, and nothing but gain for other more capable tools, IMO.
This is an attempt to outflank google. Microsoft has tried and tried to break Google’s hold on the online ad market, with zero success. With this move MS can leverage its desktop dominance to challenge Google in advertising.
Most documents created by office suites these days are created to be shared. And most document creators are connected to the net. So imagine every document created with MS Office and being sent around the world came with an ad! Now imagine that MS can build a database of info about all the documents on your computer, then link this database to Bing. The possibilities are endless!
I’m sure MS hopes this will break Google’s market dominance plus allow them to monetize all those windows users who don’t buy office.
emk
So imagine every document created with MS Office and being sent around the world came with an ad!
Umm. The ads are displayed by Office, they are not linked with the documents themselves. Heck, that’d just drive corporate users away from Office, they pay huge money in order to get a full Office suite without any kinds of nags or ads.
Now imagine that MS can build a database of info about all the documents on your computer, then link this database to Bing
What would the use be? Other than obvious privacy issues, would you want all your documents and work data be searchable via Bing?