Report: Microsoft to Detail Office 2010 on Monday

[JMcEntegart]

All day long the rumors have been brewing about a mystery announcement Microsoft is planning on making next week.

Report: Microsoft to Detail Office 2010 on Monday : Read more

 

[jacobdrj]

OneNote had better get 'fixed' for 64 bit...

 

[E7130]

I like the 2010 Beta I got, very interested in what web based office they will provide and at what cost as Google Docs is free.

 

[crom]

Well the one thing that Google still has over Microsoft is that their docs are free. Why should I fork out 150 - 300 bucks every couple years for minor upgrades?

 

[chaohsiangchen]

[citation][nom]crom[/nom]Well the one thing that Google still has over Microsoft is that their docs are free. Why should I fork out 150 - 300 bucks every couple years for minor upgrades?[/citation]

You really shouldn't unless you have confidential documents in which you need to protect while running Windows Server 2008 to manage networks in small business.

Otherwise you can choose between IBM Lotus Symphony (Free download) and OpenOffice.

 

[fooldog01]

If you are a student you can get Office Ultimate for $60. Heck of a deal considering its MSRP. Im a fan of Office 2007 personally. I much prefer it to Open Office but I make use of a lot of the suite. A lot of home users could make do easily with OO.

 

[Guest]

I don't love Microsoft, but, when they have a winner, they have a winner. Their Office products are excellent overall (except PowerPoint - WWWWAAAAAYYYY to big for what it does...). It is the industry standard. And I love being able to save my documents on a far more secure personal hard drive than over the web, where any hacker who can force their way onto online servers can get your confidential information and that of thousands of others at a single time rather than hitting thousands of individual computers.

In addition, you obviously do not utilize Office that often, crom, because 2003 to 2007 was in no way "minor." Excel alone added much-needed formula creation (sumifs, countifs, etc.). The "ribbon" is ingenious. Not too happy about less macro support, but you can't have everything.

Lotus is a bit player, at best. OpenOffice poaches MS Office's extensions...if MS decided to sue Sun over the use of their extensions, everyone would be up in arms about "evil" Microsoft, even though Sun is using MS IP. Plus, it is inefficient at best, especially with spreadsheets. Google Docs is a rich text editor that hasn't even come close to maturation yet.

Office is TOTALLY worth $150 for the entry version, and, with larger companies, the Pro and Standard versions are worth every penny. God forbid a company attempts to recoup their research and development costs AND attempt to make a profit in a free-market environment, all while producing a product used by 80% of the population that utilizes such programs (450 million sales of Office vs. 15 million individual Google Docs users).

 

[Guest]

How many times do I have to say this: Microsoft's OS and office suite is not in a free market. IT IS A MONOPOLY. It maximizes revenue by preventing market effeciency. Even with the small competition it is still a monopoly and acts accordingly.

OpenOffice is a great product that can do 95% of what MS can. However, it still doesn't look as slick as MS and IMO that could always be the deal breaker in a business setting. I often write papers in OO but then publish them in MS because of better looking fonts and a better grammar check.

 

[IzzyCraft]

Has to be something good else i'll stick to my usual upgrade office 2000 and 2007 haha i held out that long before upgrading i think i can do it again.

 

[DXRick]

I gotta wonder what their intended market is for this "Office in a browser" concept. Business users either send docs as attachments or store them on the server where they can control who has access to them.

So their target is the casual user that is using Google Docs now. These are the people that just want something simple and free. How are they proposing to squeeze money out of this crowd?

 

[TheZander]

[citation][nom]blazer_123[/nom]How many times do I have to say this: Microsoft's OS and office suite is not in a free market. IT IS A MONOPOLY. It maximizes revenue by preventing market effeciency. Even with the small competition it is still a monopoly and acts accordingly. OpenOffice is a great product that can do 95% of what MS can. However, it still doesn't look as slick as MS and IMO that could always be the deal breaker in a business setting. I often write papers in OO but then publish them in MS because of better looking fonts and a better grammar check.[/citation]

Sir, we are still seeing a largely free market in effect here. If people really liked Open Office equal to or better than MS Office they would definitely save their money, especially in the economy's present state. It's not a monopoly. I don't have to buy Office if I don't want to. I can buy Word Perfect, iWork, or use Open Office and a few others for free if I want. Microsoft's monopoly issues arise when they bundle their own stuff right along with the OS, quelling the need for you to look elsewhere for a particular solution, thus severely hindering the competition's business.

Most computers simply come with an Office trial, as well as a crapload of other trial software. If you like it, you still gotta buy it. I actually bought one of the new Macbook Pro's for photo editing on the go, and because it came with the free iPod at my school. They suckered me into the iWork deal they had going where it was pretty cheap after mail in rebates, and I thought that iWork 09 would at least be close to as good as Office 2004 for what I needed in class.

i tried it and it sucks like you wouldn't believe. "Office compatible" they say ??? YEAH RIGHT!!! I was so upset with how crappy of a suite iWork was, that I actually convinced my school's bookstore to let me exchange it for regular ol' Office 2008. Their Apple direct rep was very nice about it. Not only does Office 2008 completely wipe the floor with iWork, but it has VAST improvements that benefit me as a student and regular home use EVERY DAY.

It was, however MY FREE CHOICE. Take your monopoly BS elsewhere. I payed the extra money and went through the extra hassle to get Office because it's just FLAT BETTER than anything else out there. You don't want to pay? Don't pay. If it's worth $150 dollars to someone, then it's WORTH $150!!! It's totally determined by market and competition. Semi-viable competitors like Open Office and others are part of the reason they made discounted home versions more accessible to the public and retail stores in the first place, and promotions abound. I've seen it in B&M stores for as low as $59 with the purchase of a new PC or $79 without on sales that happen every year. You want it free? Be my guest, but this would only be a monopoly if you didn't have other options. The fact that some of the options don't give people what they want is not Microsoft's fault. Come up with something more appealing/valuable and I'll buy it. Obviously for you that's Open Office. Guess what? It's a free market and a free country so you can use Open Office ALL YOU WANT.

 

[Guest]

I highly recommend you actually learn what a monopoly means. Here is a good intro http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly and by all means read an microeconomic textbook. In a monopoly you have a FREE CHOICE not to buy a product. But the price of the product is NOT determined by supply and demand. The price of MS office is NOT deteremined by supply and demand. The office suite market is not even an oligopoly. You obviously have no understanding of the terms your using. If what you said was true then neither oligopolies or monopolies would exist.

For the same reason Intel is considered a monopoly in the CPU business even though it roughly controls 'only' 80% of the market.

Free will on the part of the consumer doesn't have anything to do with this conversation. It is an issue of producers.

 

[TheZander]

[citation][nom]blazer_123[/nom]I highly recommend you actually learn what a monopoly means. Here is a good intro http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly and by all means read an microeconomic textbook. In a monopoly you have a FREE CHOICE not to buy a product. But the price of the product is NOT determined by supply and demand. The price of MS office is NOT deteremined by supply and demand. The office suite market is not even an oligopoly. You obviously have no understanding of the terms your using. If what you said was true then neither oligopolies or monopolies would exist.For the same reason Intel is considered a monopoly in the CPU business even though it roughly controls 'only' 80% of the market.Free will on the part of the consumer doesn't have anything to do with this conversation. It is an issue of producers.[/citation]

If there was something better, people would buy it.

This is from the article you linked:

"There are important points for one to remember when considering the monopoly model diagram (and its associated conclusions) displayed here. The result that monopoly prices are higher, and production output lower, than a competitive firm follow from a requirement that the monopoly not charge different prices for different customers. That is, the monopoly is restricted from engaging in price discrimination (this is called first degree price discrimination, where all customers are charged the same amount). If the monopoly were permitted to charge individualized prices (this is called third degree price discrimination), the quantity produced, and the price charged to the marginal customer, would be identical to a competitive firm, thus eliminating the deadweight loss; however, all gains from trade (social welfare) would accrue to the monopolist and none to the consumer. In essence, every consumer would be just indifferent between (1) going completely without the product or service and (2) being able to purchase it from the monopolist."

You HAVE a choice. You can open Word documents and Power Points just fine in Word Perfect and Open Office. (iWork actually pretty much sucks, in my opnion.) You have choices - you don't have to "go without" any type of office suite software. I think if there was something better, the market would shift in that direction. Look at how our automobile market has shifted to foreign models, even to the extent that those foreign companies now build their own factories here. When someone produces a vehicle with better quality and better reliability for a similar or better price, it will be purchased. In this sense of the term, and in the beginning of the definition of Wikipedia's description of monopoly it seems to fit. But that huge market share is because the competing products, even though they do 95% of the work, according to you, fall short in other areas. By your logic if it's 95% as good, then there IS no monopoly. If it's 95% as capable and it's the same type of product then that all of a sudden provides OPTIONS which would not normally exist in a true monopoly.

Now the article does point out that a monopoly can form even through no fault or intentional malice of the company due to a combination of factors, but I would definitely not call this a coercive monopoly.

 

[Guest]

All but the most elite spreadsheet composers could get by just fine with OpenOffice. The reason for the continued monopoly is pretty much that MS Office has become a standard. I have no choice but to use it at work, MS practically gives it away to large corporate customers, they'd barely save any money at all by switching. Colleges tell their students they have to have it, many students(and non-students) don't even know about OpenOffice. It's not like OpenOffice can just go out and buy Super Bowl ads with their imaginary revenue, they really need the help of their users to spread the word...

 

[james800]

Great office 2010, At our company we are working with M$ trying to get office 2007 to work right with many of our other entprise applications, mainly out collaberative enviroment.

 

[Guest]

TheZander: I'm glad you (maybe) learned the theory behind a monopoly. However, your missing the point. I have already stated "In a monopoly you have a FREE CHOICE not to buy a product. But the price of the product is NOT determined by supply and demand." The caveat you introduced is important to note but not still not as important as the paragraph before and below that passage. If you look up price discrimination you will find "Whether it is profitable to price discriminate is determined by the specifics of a particular market." Also you fail to understand the difference between a monopoly theory and empirical examples. Ex: Intel controls 80% of their respective market on CPU's but they are still considered a monopoly by economists. Why? Because even though there is technically competition they hold such sway over the market that they can control prices very much like a theoretical monopoly would. The gov't will only break up a monopoly if they see a significant social risk resulting from a monopolists practices (which is why MS was almost broken up during their monopoly lawsuit).

Comments like these, "I think if there was something better, the market would shift in that direction," show that your either a neo-classical economist or your still ignorant of what the definition of a monopoly is. BTW, car manufacturing was never a monopoly but is a good example of oligopolies and what may happen to complacent firms.

Where you get my 'logic' I have no clue. My entire argument is that MS IS a monopoly. By OO doing 95% of what MS is a testament to the quality of a free alternative. It is good but not as good as MS Office.

What you do not understand is that EVEN WITH OPTIONS a monopoly may still exist. It is a matter of whether a firm can dictate the price of the good/service beyond what a competitive firm would have. In a free market a firm cannot sell above the equilibrium price. MS is a monopoly, they have been found to be a monopoly by the US and the EU, and office productivity suites are just one example of their monopoly.