Re: Cost of MS Office relative to LO, was: Fwd: [libreoffice-users] Re: moving to new version of MS Office

2013/11/29 Paolo Debortoli <paolo_debortoli@yahoo.com>

> hi. I work in a state school, using ms windows and ms office...  i think I
> know the policy of microsoft.  I think they use a sort of (apparent)
> programmed obsolescence for the software.  I mean: periodically they add a
> new version with some changes in interface, macro programming, functions
> and file structure, which is installed on new computers. the new version is
> voluntarily incompatible with the previous ones.  It's a matter of
> marketing, not innovation.  where I work, people are always complaining
> that what works on a computer (files, macro etc..)  doesn't work on
> another.  the school, on the other way, doesn't want to spend money on new
> software licenses  (very expensive in italy).  so, why don't they change
> ?   they don't know enough about LibreOffice; they would need
> demonstrations or some training (some training is done, but always on ms
> office, I don't know which version...  are they trained every new
> version?), I guess...   I
>  think microsoft did the same politics with charities and schools:
> discounted prices (but they are still stealing money somehow...). other
> software producers (autodesk) are doing similar things...   schools are
> good marketing targets... ideas?

​Paolo, here a link (http://autotelic.com/windows_is_free) to a
six-year-old article which describes the techniques Microsoft used and
continues to use to achieve «lock in» to their expensive and buggy
programmes. The article discusses Windows explicitly, but the same
techniques are of course used to get their favourite cash cow MS Office on
as many computers as possible and to establish it and the proprietary
formats it employs as the *de facto *standard. Changing a graphic interface
in ways that make it less, rather than more intuitive, and making minor
changes to a proprietary format in order to force users to purchase the
latest and greatest are part and parcel of the business idea....

Henri  ​


> On Friday, November 29, 2013 8:31 PM, John Meyer <john.l.meyer@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> I didn't know we considered trialware "cunning".
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 29, 2013 at 10:04 AM, James Knott <james.knott@rogers.com
> > wrote:
>
> > Tom Davies wrote:
> > > Also on newer machines MS have started running a cunning scheme
> > > whereby people get to use a trial version of MS Office which then
> > > stops working after a month or so.  In order to keep on using it
> > > people have to pay an extra bit.
> >
> > That happened to a friend of mine about 3 years ago.  She's now running
> > OpenOffice.

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