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No upgrade pricing for Office 2010 [news.office-watch.com]For as long as anyone can remember Microsoft Office has a cheaper 'upgrade' price option - but not for Office 2010.
Microsoft has confirmed to Office Watch that there will be no upgrade pricing offers for existing Office users.
Everyone, existing customer or not, will pay the same prices for Office 2010 with no 'reward' for customer loyalty.
I'm guessing this one isn't going to go over too well with existing customers. How are they going encourage upgrades?
[edited by: bill at 6:47 am (utc) on Jan. 7, 2010]
[edit reason] No links please [/edit]
I know old habits Die Hard, but when I got used to the new Menu System I found it much more efficient, I find it's also easier to teach newbies to use it as everything is more visual.
You seem to be in the minority on this one... read reviews on Amazon to see what I'm talking about.
I didn't like it at first either. It does take some getting used to, but I can work with it just fine now. It is designed to be intuitive for the user, and after a bit of use I realized the changes are not as bad as I initially thought. I reacted much the same way as most in the beginning. It wasn't initially intuitive to me either after more than a decade working with Office products. If you give the interface a chance it will grow on you.
To stay on topic...
I don't think the ribbon interface is big draw feature for most Office users who would be upgrading. Initial reactions from experienced users tend to be negative.
Maybe this move by MS will push more folks over to OpenOffice.
They can go pound sand.
In related news: NO UPGRADE PRICING FOR OPENOFFICE - STILL FREE! :)
I've already starting using OpenOffice.org on one of my computers.
Ditto.
Their stuff seems to do everything I've needed from Office for the last 10 years without the added expense of actually paying for the software.
Sure the menu system looks like it's from Windows 3.1 and it may not have a few features here and there but it gets the job done and that's all that really matters.
And for those who wish a snazzier GUI there's the slower IBM Lotus Symphony built on an OpenOffice base.
if you are typing and printing documents, sure open office is for you. but MS Office has many features that blow away open office, its the really advanced stuff where MS office is the clear winner.
that and try to make a PPT on open office that doesn't look like office 97 spit it out.
open office can get the job done but lets not get ahead of ourselves.
The "no upgrade pricing" policy may help drive more users away, but it'll be harder for corporate business to move away than for home or SMB users.
What is the OpenOffice analog for MS-Access?
OpenOffice BASE - it's not compatible but it does similar things.
Other people recommend installing XAMPP on Windows and using PHP and MySQL, which is more powerful than Access but still not compatible.
I've had document compatibility issues in the past.
The only documents I had issue with were large manuals with style sheets.
Luckily I don't write large manuals anymore ;)
Seriously. What other evidence of them relying on their monopoly could top this? I use excel to a pretty advanced degree and I regularly interchange these documents with different people. Unfortunately for me I'm stuck with MS, but I'm sure as something not going to be paying them $499. What an insult to their customers!
The funny thing is, when a meeting of how to reduce piracy comes, the only thing they can think of is getting more lawyers. Actually treating their customers with decency so that they aren't angry is something I'm sure they won't even consider.
I can't for the life of me understand why folks still use MS Office.
Open Office refuses to implement an Outlook clone. If they would, Open Office could become dominant.
Outlook is the link between the home and business user.
Outlook is the link between the home and business user.
Outlook uses Word for it's editor and saves as junk HTML and doesn't render properly to the rest of the world.
Not a real show stopper for the rest of us.
Besides, Firefox and Thunderbird is the combo I use with OpenOffice.
corporate business to move away than for home or SMB users.
I guess I should have said corporate (vs business) user. Large corporations with IT departments standardize on one and only one software configuration for most corporate PC's. From my history in the large corporate world Outlook was by far the server based mail client standard. (Therefore, so I could put in even more hours, corporations make sure Outlook is set up at home!)
If Open Office would clone that standard, corporate IT managers might start thinking about the (tremendous) cost savings of Open Office.
I use Firebird too, but the same argument applies in the corporate world for Firebird. What's the corporate IT standard?
(Plus Firebird's startup and shutdown times are bad, clearly memory management issues.)
At work I have to live with XP Pro, Office 2003 and IE6 and at home Windows 7, IE8, and Office 2007, so I have to know both interfaces.
In Australia there was initially no attractive pricing for Win 7 but after hearing a lot of public criticism they brought in a Family Pack. We already had the Office 2007 Student & Staff Edition that almost anyone could buy, but at an even cheaper price MSFT brought in a "It's Not Cheating" (huh?) version for tertiary students for AU$75. They have just introduced a similar deal for Windows 7.
My guess is that MSFT is merely testing the reaction for Office 2010 upgrades but will eventually "relent to public pressure". No story here.
