Windows 7 to be Released in Next Year

[ilbob]

I can't imagine anyone voluntarily "upgrading" to Vista. Even if it worked right, it would not be much of an upgrade from XP. There was little or no functionality added.

[Manedwolf]

OpenOffice 3.0 will be out in about 150 days or so.  They're promising built-in PDF editing, a serious killer feature.  The 2.3/2.4 series out now is very good and almost all the "office app" anybody needs.

It had better be better. A vendor sent me a document that my Office would not open. They said they did it in OpenOffice. I replied that I was going with a vendor that could afford to purchase software.

[Phyphor]

I can't imagine anyone voluntarily "upgrading" to Vista. Even if it worked right, it would not be much of an upgrade from XP. There was little or no functionality added.

EXACTLY.  The only things they added are DRM and a new interface.  Oh, and supposedly now your video drivers can no longer cause kernal crashes.  There's also Supercache, which ain't that great IMO.

From what little I've played around with it, it looks to me like there's just more bloat.

Oh, and .NET is considered to be the native API for Vista, not Win32, so Win32 stuff is pretty much emulated.

No thanks.

[mtnbkr]

A vendor sent me a document that my Office would not open. They said they did it in OpenOffice. I replied that I was going with a vendor that could afford to purchase software.

I bet that gave you warm and fuzzies didn't it?  No matter the quality of their product, they didn't use your favorite apps.  Considering how often I've received documents that wouldn't open properly even though they were created in the same apps I have on my machine, I'd let it slide and ask them to check the format or version.  Every time MS changes file formats, I have to wade through this even though *I'm* using Office as well, just an older version.

Then there was the time I had to upgrade to a newer version of Acrobat to read a vendor document...

Chris

[Manedwolf]

A vendor sent me a document that my Office would not open. They said they did it in OpenOffice. I replied that I was going with a vendor that could afford to purchase software.

I bet that gave you warm and fuzzies didn't it?  No matter the quality of their product, they didn't use your favorite apps.  Considering how often I've received documents that wouldn't open properly even though they were created in the same apps I have on my machine, I'd let it slide and ask them to check the format or version.  Every time MS changes file formats, I have to wade through this even though *I'm* using Office as well, just an older version.

Then there was the time I had to upgrade to a newer version of Acrobat to read a vendor document...

Chris

No, they didn't use the STANDARD apps, and really, if an enterprise can't purchase the standard business software, how much faith does it give me in their financial stability? I don't want to call in the middle of a contract and get "We're sorry, this number is not..."

I considered it a prudent business decision, as I did not want to deal with the hassle of recieving documents that I couldn't open easily, and it didn't give me faith in their financial stability as a company. That's all.

Like it or not, Word, Excel and Powerpoint are the standard front office business suite. And if something can't be opened by it, it's a problem! 

Acrobat, on the other hand, is an unfortunately entrenched piece of crap with a bloated, crashy reader.

[never_retreat]

It had better be better. A vendor sent me a document that my Office would not open. They said they did it in OpenOffice. I replied that I was going with a vendor that could afford to purchase software.

Why is it bad for a business not to want to give money to bill gates?
Why is that a bad business choice?
What they should have done was say it as something ultra low tech like .txt anything can read that.
Hell or a PDF for that matter.

[Manedwolf]

It had better be better. A vendor sent me a document that my Office would not open. They said they did it in OpenOffice. I replied that I was going with a vendor that could afford to purchase software.

Why is it bad for a business not to want to give money to bill gates?
Why is that a bad business choice?
What they should have done was say it as something ultra low tech like .txt anything can read that.
Hell or a PDF for that matter.

You can tie goods to the top of a Geo Metro instead of buying a proper van, as well.

If you want to run a business, you need to make decisions that make your deliverables as painless as possible for as many customers as possible.

Sorry, but that's my reaction to that sort. If someone wants a contract from me, they need to be using the big-boy toys. Office, not Openoffice. Adobe Photoshop, not "gimp". And so on. If it makes you feel better, I also axed a vendor for asking me to download and use a strange third-party plugin to see their content. I've also done that for people who used a cheap web meeting solution that kept crashing during a product demo. I was not impressed.

Yeah, I'm cold about that. I don't want to make a mistake in choosing a vendor that loses my company money or screws up some deadline because they vanish overnight. And to me, not having the standard office software sets off warnings. You want to sell to me as a vendor, be perfect, because there's a hell of a lot of fish in the sea.

[mtnbkr]

No, they didn't use the STANDARD apps, and really, if an enterprise can't purchase the standard business software, how much faith does it give me in their financial stability? I don't want to call in the middle of a contract and get "We're sorry, this number is not..."

I considered it a prudent business decision, as I did not want to deal with the hassle of receiving documents that I couldn't open easily, and it didn't give me faith in their financial stability as a company. That's all.

BS.  You judge a company's financial strength by looking at their financial reports, not by the software they use.  That's very amateurish. 

Like it or not, Word, Excel and Powerpoint are the standard front office business suite. And if something can't be opened by it, it's a problem!

It's only a problem in your mind. 

Chris

[Regolith]

It's only a problem in your mind. 

Chris

BS.  It can be a very BIG problem.  I'm the production manager for a newspaper, and advertisers routinely send us ads saved in the most bizarre file extensions. despite being told we prefer .jpeg or similar photo format.  If we can't get those documents open or can't get back to the businesses in time to request a new ad copy in a different file format, that's lost revenue for us and the company because they can't be inserted into the paper in time.  It's been a problem more than a few times, and quite frankly it damn sure makes me not want to deal with those businesses.

If you can't get your act together and make your files/documents easily readable by your clients, you pretty much deserve to lose business.  It's called professionalism, and businesses that lack it tend not to last long.

[Perd Hapley]

Captain Obvious says, "Maybe software standardization matters more in some businesses than others." 

[Iain]

There's also the point that I can create documents in OpenOffice that will open in word and more than likely you'd never know.

I can also create documents in Office 2007 that won't open in previous versions of word. That's been a problem for some who have received stuff from the non-technologically literate who have upgraded to Vista/Office 2007.

I'd be annoyed if a business sent me a document created in OpenOffice that would not open in Office, but only because they weren't competent enough to save it in the proper format.

[mtnbkr]

Captain Obvious says, "Maybe software standardization matters more in some businesses than others." 

Bingo.  And it matters more in some situations than others.  Files used in printing newspapers with short production lead times is a different situation entirely than gathering marketing/technical docs for review.  There's also a difference between sending the wrong format once by mistake and doing it over and over to a client after being told what to send.

I can also create documents in Office 2007 that won't open in previous versions of word. That's been a problem for some who have received stuff from the non-technologically literate who have upgraded to Vista/Office 2007.

Yup.  I ran into similar issues "back in the day".  Funny thing is, had Maned's mystery vendor said that was the problem instead of using OO, he probably would've been ok with it.  It's all about the bias.

Chris

[Brad Johnson]

BS.  You judge a company's financial strength by looking at their financial reports, not by the software they use.  That's very amateurish.

Actually, no.  Amateurs are the ones who piss away their time getting non-standard apps to work within the system just because they have a beef with "Big Software".  They force themselves and everyone they deal with, including clients, to jump through endless hoops in order to be able to say they stuck it to (insert software company/product here).

There's a reason you see standardized apps in most successful companies.  The real pros put something in place that allows them to concentrate on their business, not software compatibility issues.

Brad

[roo_ster]

BS.  You judge a company's financial strength by looking at their financial reports, not by the software they use.  That's very amateurish.

Actually, no.  Amateurs are the ones who piss away their time getting non-standard apps to work within the system just because they have a beef with "Big Software".  They force themselves and everyone they deal with, including clients, to jump through endless hoops in order to be able to say they stuck it to (insert software company/product here).

There's a reason you see standardized apps in most successful companies.  The real pros put something in place that allows them to concentrate on their business, not software compatibility issues.

Brad

Now, that ^^ is freaking hilarious.  "Real pros" 

We received some docs from some company, let's call it OweinBay*. One of the The largest of its type on the planet.  Had insisted on MSOffice 2000 being the standard format for office docs.  None of that flighty OpenOffice crap for them, no siree...

Well, OB sends us some .ppt & .doc documents that just flat will not open in MSO200.  Turns out that MSO2003 .ppt & .doc are not read-able by MS02000.  Caused quite a ruckus until I fired up an ancient version of OpenOffice (pre-1.0), opened the files and saved them in older .ppt & .doc formats that MSO2000 could read.

Also, their collab tools are a re-configuration nightmare.


* Name changed to protect the worthless humps who can't follow their own standards.

[Brad Johnson]

Turns out that MSO2003 .ppt & .doc are not read-able by MS02000. 

No kiddin'?  Wow, imagine that a newer software version will produce an end result that older versions may not be able to read.  That happens occasionally when you implement this thing called "technology".

So they went into the system and changed the default file type to MSO 2000.  Big deal.  One click and it's done.  Beats the living crap out of spending a couple of weeks down because your one-off Stick It To The Man office system won't work with anything.

Brad

[mtnbkr]

Turns out that MSO2003 .ppt & .doc are not read-able by MS02000. 

No kiddin'?  Wow, imagine that a newer software version will produce an end result that older versions may not be able to read.  That happens occasionally when you implement this thing called "technology".

So they went into the system and changed the default file type to MSO 2000.  Big deal.  One click and it's done.  Beats the living crap out of spending a couple of weeks down because your one-off Stick It To The Man office system won't work with anything.
Brad

Except that even OpenOffice files are compatible with their MSOffice counterparts as long as you save them in the same format as MSOffice.  One click and MSOffice2000 becomes the default "save as" format.  That's why Maned's example is amateurish.  The user could simply resave and resend the doc (just as they would have to do if they saved it as a newer version under MSOffice), but he had to have is ego trip.  I wonder what his response would have been if they claimed it was Office07 or something...

When it comes right down to it, I'm not against "Big Software" or for it.  I use a mix of everything at home and work as long as it does what I need it to do.

I work for a "really big company", one that can make or break smaller venders by buying from or not buying from them.  I would NEVER pull a stunt like Maned described because they sent a doc I couldn't read.  Having run into this problem many times because of mere version mismatches (not everyone upgrades on the same schedule), it's just not worth the bad kharma. 

Chris

[Iain]

Big deal.  One click and it's done.  Beats the living crap out of spending a couple of weeks down because your one-off Stick It To The Man office system won't work with anything.

Brad

But that's how it is done in OpenOffice. Save as .doc or .xls and thats it.

[Sergeant Bob]

You can tie goods to the top of a Geo Metro instead of buying a proper van, as well.

If you want to run a business, you need to make decisions that make your deliverables as painless as possible for as many customers as possible.

You must mean this guy?

Big deal.  One click and it's done.  Beats the living crap out of spending a couple of weeks down because your one-off Stick It To The Man office system won't work with anything.

Brad

But that's how it is done in OpenOffice. Save as .doc or .xls and thats it.

Thats probably fine, as long as they are smart enough to do that. I'm sure Maned doesn't have a beef against Open Office in particular. If he has to spend a bunch of time (and time is money) trying to find out how to open people's documents, or go on the intarwebz and download all different kinds of "freeware" in order to do his job, I can't blame him for not wanting to deal with it.

Here's a pretty good word program which is "similar" to Word. Angel Writer

Hey, you get to send files that are unreadable by many clients and stick it to the man at the same time!

[ilbob]

I don't personally care what version of software is used, or what software is used, as long as it does not negatively impact me. The price of MSOffice is so cheap when bundled with a new computer (or site licensed) that the "free" nature of OO is not really an issue. IMO, if you cost me an hour of my time because you are trying to avoid paying $100 to get MSOffice on your computer, you as a vender are off my list of acceptable venders. My time is not free, and I do not care whther you have some jihad against Bill Gates or not. Send me stuff that will open in the most commonly used file formats, and I will not care one bit what software created it.

I have noticed that the Acrobat reader after version 4 seems to have all kinds of weird quirks. OTOH, it is as close to a standard for the kinds of things it is used for as there is, even with the occasional weirdness.

[AZRedhawk44]

Getting away from OfficeWare and back to OS's....

I'm a geek at heart and love *nixes of all flavors, but my home PC has a core OS of Windows XP x64 with 8gigs of RAM.  Any toying around I want to do with other OS's is virtualized.  I need my computer to WORK when a work emergency comes up, and XP-x64 is by far the most robust and reliable offering Microsoft has ever put out.

I love to bash MS with the best of 'em, but I cannot say anything nasty about XP-x64.  It's as close to stable and reliable as you can get in a mainstream package without running Linux.  The only drawback I've ever come across is that some extremely old games no longer function.  Oh, well.

[Ben]

I love to bash MS with the best of 'em, but I cannot say anything nasty about XP-x64.

Same here, which is what irks me about this Vista and now Windows 7 thing. XP is a fine OS and doesn't need to be sidelined. I admittedly went kicking and screaming from NT3 to NT4 to 2000 to XP, but looking back I recognize improvement with each of those iterations. Vista is a throwback and who knows what Windows 7 will be. 

I just don't understand the marketing strategy. If MS is selling boatloads of XP or Vista, what's the difference as long as they're selling product? If people are happier with XP, why not continue supporting a stable and proven package?

[mtnbkr]

I just don't understand the marketing strategy. If MS is selling boatloads of XP or Vista, what's the difference as long as they're selling product? If people are happier with XP, why not continue supporting a stable and proven package?

They only sell so many units before market saturation.  A new version means a whole new market.  People think they have to upgrade even though they can't verbalize exactly why they must upgrade.

Then the other venders get involved and created devices or applications that only support the new version, further pushing sales.  That's why we're going to XP as our primary home OS.  We're starting to acquire devices that don't work under Win2k, even though Win2k works perfectly well otherwise.

Chris

[ilbob]

I just don't understand the marketing strategy. If MS is selling boatloads of XP or Vista, what's the difference as long as they're selling product? If people are happier with XP, why not continue supporting a stable and proven package?

Who knows. Most people get their OS when they buy their system, and it is not as if people are likely to buy a new computer just to get a new OS.

Some claim that a new OS tends to result in newer peripherals not being supported by the old OS forcing peopel to upgrade. In reality, most venders support the newer OS as long as their are sufficient units of the old peripherals left in place to make it worth their while. The fact is that computers and peripherals have a life span typically measured at less then 5 years. There is not much sense for the manufacturer to spend a whole lot of money supporting products any older than that.