Ms to raise prices for Office (except 365)

Hi there

seems Ms is definitely on the way to pushing Office/365 subscriptions.
Microsoft Ups Office 2019 Prices to Push Office 365 Subscriptions

Myself I don't like this model -- even if subscriptions are initially cheap (they can always be raised when you've hooked enough customers in). After a while one can have subscriptions for dozens of things -- might only be a few USD etc per month but add them all up and wham - it can become quite a huge wodge of money.

I'm staying with Office 2010 until it doesn't work any more and then I'm looking at alternatives -- a good one seems to be this which runs nearly every spreadsheet I've thrown at it

WPS Office 2016 Free Edition

for those interested it also works on Linux.

I think though it might not support VB macros -- however most people don't use a lot of those in spreadsheets. Works also on Android. I'll do some more testing as I'm not going to be suckered in to paying out any more monthly subs (utilities, internet, Netflix, Amazon etc).
I've given up also montly contract on phone -- Pay as you go sim is zillions cheaper once you've got the phone.

Cheers
jimbo

I just refurbished my sister's ailing W7 PC, which, incidentally, upgraded to W10 freely!!!

Installed Office 2010 Starter, all she needs is basic Word. Good to go!

Hi there
@Edwin
Great stuff

I really can't see any major improvements in office suites these days -- the only area might be in other things I've sometimes posted about like some sort of AI (Artificial Intelligence) programming -- decent wizards to enable you to construct spreadsheets of what you want or need would be far more valuable and useful.

Not easy to do but these sorts of programns could be relatively independenant of the actual office suite used to create the end result provided they had access to the programming interface (API) of the target application.

I remember absolutely Donkeys years ago there was a sort of Report Generator called "The Last One" which advertised itself as the last program you'd ever have to write -- probably well before your time. It actually was quite advanced for its age.

Google Translate

Hopefully we all learn new stuff every day - but I don't think too many people would have these days heard of that one. If only development had continued along those lines -- well a bit like NASA abandoning the moon for 50 years after the initial success I suppose.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

I really can't see any major improvements in office suites these days -- the only area might be in other things I've sometimes posted about like some sort of AI (Artificial Intelligence) programming -- decent wizards to enable you to construct spreadsheets of what you want or need would be far more valuable and useful.

Already if you are writing a CV Word will notice and offer tips.

In 5 years I won't have to bother doing anything. A recruitement consutltant (or more likely their program) can email me, Outlook can get my data off LinkedIn, Word can format it like everyone else's CV and Outlook can send it back. Then perhaps their version of Office can discuss with mine whether to employ each other.

Basically exactly what I do now but in future I can stay in bed.

@lx07: Lol!

I fear, as companies push towards exclusively subscription based services, there will be a palpable surge in piracy.

Hi there

@lx07
@Edwin

Actually I think Ms Office was one of the most pirated pieces of Software in History which is probably why Ms decided to go the subscription route which really doesn't solve the issue.

I do find EXCEL useful for all sorts of reasons and even after I retire I can still see a load of reasons for continuing to use it -- I agree I won't be writing CV's with Word etc but I could see myself still also using things like powerpoint for the odd bit of free lance presentational stuff.

The real solution for Office would be to make it 100% free open source.

I don't think the CEO's of these companies actually have a clue of how "the alternative market !!" really works out there on Planet Earth. Silly things like Geo-blocking, regional restriction of DVDs and riddling music with DRM just emcourages people to get round the problem anyway.

Keep stuff freely available at sensible affordable prices and get rid of things like geo-blocking and DRM will do more to cure piracy than blocking ISP addresses etc etc -- that only keeps the Lawyers busy - and it doesn't stop anybody with even those with a peanut sized brain .

As for free office suites a couple of decent ones are pretty good now - wps office for instance

https://www.wps.com/

If Windows becomes cloud only or subscription based there are alternatives out there which can pretty well replace windows for quite a few people and unlike former times these alternative desktop OS's work pretty well out of the box so a huge amount of geekery isn't necessary any more.

Cheers
jimbo