Onedrive is shrinking
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@scottalanmiller said:
Something I've always wondered, and is probably worth a thread, is I get why people use expensive software and I get why we use free but I rarely see a value in picking expensive software that we can't keep updated. Office makes sense to me, but if you are stuck on 2007, why not move to LibreOffice and be able to keep updated?
Cost of retraining users can be prohibitive for small companies.
Also, is it 100% compatible with all the funky macro's and lord knows what other garbage our users have created?
Will it still be there in 10 years? If we invest in the training will this company still be around making and updating it?
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@scottalanmiller said:
Something I've always wondered, and is probably worth a thread, is I get why people use expensive software and I get why we use free but I rarely see a value in picking expensive software that we can't keep updated. Office makes sense to me, but if you are stuck on 2007, why not move to LibreOffice and be able to keep updated?
Another decent one I've used for Linux is WPS Office. It's free on Linux and has the ribbon interface.
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WPS? Who makes that?
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@scottalanmiller said:
WPS? Who makes that?
Used to be Kingsoft. It started on Android and they made a full suite.
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@MattSpeller said:
Cost of retraining users can be prohibitive for small companies.
Exactly. LibreOffice lets you retain the same people and the same training decade after decade with the lowest cost up front and the lowest cost for training and you get to stay up to date and compatible with the least interruption and impact. Why go to all of the problems associated with running long outdated versions of Office, especially a version that had just caused the big Ribbon re-training?
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@MattSpeller said:
Also, is it 100% compatible with all the funky macro's and lord knows what other garbage our users have created?
Will 2007? That stuff causes problems there moreso than on LibreOffice from what little exposure I've had. But that's talking about migrating now, I'm asking how the situation arose.
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@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Something I've always wondered, and is probably worth a thread, is I get why people use expensive software and I get why we use free but I rarely see a value in picking expensive software that we can't keep updated. Office makes sense to me, but if you are stuck on 2007, why not move to LibreOffice and be able to keep updated?
Cost of retraining users can be prohibitive for small companies.
Also, is it 100% compatible with all the funky macro's and lord knows what other garbage our users have created?
Will it still be there in 10 years? If we invest in the training will this company still be around making and updating it?
I'm sure it will still be around. There are governments that have switched to the odt format.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Something I've always wondered, and is probably worth a thread, is I get why people use expensive software and I get why we use free but I rarely see a value in picking expensive software that we can't keep updated. Office makes sense to me, but if you are stuck on 2007, why not move to LibreOffice and be able to keep updated?
I looked at moving from Office 2003 to LibreOffice and other options 8 years ago. All of our templates would have had to be completely redesigned, and MS Word files often didn't maintain the correct formatting. Maybe this isn't so much of a problem today?
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@MattSpeller said:
Will it still be there in 10 years? If we invest in the training will this company still be around making and updating it?
You have made three strong cases for going to LibreOffice. I see you are as questioning of this as me. Yeah, LibreOffice has been around for 30 years and is open source protecting it from being shut down my its vendor when users still want it. So MS Office poses a bit threat that MS might decide that it costs too much to make or support or no longer fits their vision and it just goes away.
The reasons to not be on old versions of MS Office are very strong.
Why why do people do it?
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Something I've always wondered, and is probably worth a thread, is I get why people use expensive software and I get why we use free but I rarely see a value in picking expensive software that we can't keep updated. Office makes sense to me, but if you are stuck on 2007, why not move to LibreOffice and be able to keep updated?
I looked at moving from Office 2003 to LibreOffice and other options 8 years ago. All of our templates would have had to be completely redesigned, and MS Word files often didn't maintain the correct formatting. Maybe this isn't so much of a problem today?
What's the cost to change templates and formatting vs buying multiple licenses for office for multiple years though?
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Something I've always wondered, and is probably worth a thread, is I get why people use expensive software and I get why we use free but I rarely see a value in picking expensive software that we can't keep updated. Office makes sense to me, but if you are stuck on 2007, why not move to LibreOffice and be able to keep updated?
I looked at moving from Office 2003 to LibreOffice and other options 8 years ago. All of our templates would have had to be completely redesigned, and MS Word files often didn't maintain the correct formatting. Maybe this isn't so much of a problem today?
It's a problem going MS Office to MS Office as well as going to LibreOffice. No idea which is better or worse. The nice thing about LibreOffice is once you make the switch those things mostly drop to zero.
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@johnhooks said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Something I've always wondered, and is probably worth a thread, is I get why people use expensive software and I get why we use free but I rarely see a value in picking expensive software that we can't keep updated. Office makes sense to me, but if you are stuck on 2007, why not move to LibreOffice and be able to keep updated?
I looked at moving from Office 2003 to LibreOffice and other options 8 years ago. All of our templates would have had to be completely redesigned, and MS Word files often didn't maintain the correct formatting. Maybe this isn't so much of a problem today?
What's the cost to change templates and formatting vs buying multiple licenses for office for multiple years though?
And for the indefinite future. One is a one time cost, one is a recurring one.
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@johnhooks said:
@scottalanmiller said:
WPS? Who makes that?
Used to be Kingsoft. It started on Android and they made a full suite.
Doesn't appear to be open. That adds a lot of risk.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Something I've always wondered, and is probably worth a thread, is I get why people use expensive software and I get why we use free but I rarely see a value in picking expensive software that we can't keep updated. Office makes sense to me, but if you are stuck on 2007, why not move to LibreOffice and be able to keep updated?
I looked at moving from Office 2003 to LibreOffice and other options 8 years ago. All of our templates would have had to be completely redesigned, and MS Word files often didn't maintain the correct formatting. Maybe this isn't so much of a problem today?
It's a problem going MS Office to MS Office as well as going to LibreOffice. No idea which is better or worse. The nice thing about LibreOffice is once you make the switch those things mostly drop to zero.
We haven't seen any issues moving from 2003-2007-2010-2013. Of course we aren't really using that advanced of templating. But even so, back in 2008 when we tried it.. the pre existing files looked like hell when opening them in Open Office specifically (don't recall the results for LibraOffice - is it really around then?)
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@johnhooks said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Something I've always wondered, and is probably worth a thread, is I get why people use expensive software and I get why we use free but I rarely see a value in picking expensive software that we can't keep updated. Office makes sense to me, but if you are stuck on 2007, why not move to LibreOffice and be able to keep updated?
I looked at moving from Office 2003 to LibreOffice and other options 8 years ago. All of our templates would have had to be completely redesigned, and MS Word files often didn't maintain the correct formatting. Maybe this isn't so much of a problem today?
What's the cost to change templates and formatting vs buying multiple licenses for office for multiple years though?
Oh my point was why to stay put. You can stay on office 2007 or whatever and your stuff will keep working. If you don't need the new versions, why bother upgrading and spending any money at all?
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@Dashrender said:
@johnhooks said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Something I've always wondered, and is probably worth a thread, is I get why people use expensive software and I get why we use free but I rarely see a value in picking expensive software that we can't keep updated. Office makes sense to me, but if you are stuck on 2007, why not move to LibreOffice and be able to keep updated?
I looked at moving from Office 2003 to LibreOffice and other options 8 years ago. All of our templates would have had to be completely redesigned, and MS Word files often didn't maintain the correct formatting. Maybe this isn't so much of a problem today?
What's the cost to change templates and formatting vs buying multiple licenses for office for multiple years though?
Oh my point was why to stay put. You can stay on office 2007 or whatever and your stuff will keep working. If you don't need the new versions, why bother upgrading and spending any money at all?
But if you are going to stop updating, why stop on something expensive? They could have "upgraded" to something free and avoided all of the problems with MS Office updates, kept up to date fluidly and saved money. None of the reasons for not going to LibreOffice now make sense, but why did they create the situation that locked them into 2007 in the first place?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
Also, is it 100% compatible with all the funky macro's and lord knows what other garbage our users have created?
Will 2007? That stuff causes problems there moreso than on LibreOffice from what little exposure I've had. But that's talking about migrating now, I'm asking how the situation arose.
We're on 10/13 (about 30/70% split) and have no issues between versions that I've heard of. If true, I'll have to give it a crack. I don't know how we're going to wean off Outlook though, I think that'll be the major challenge.
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@Dashrender said:
Oh my point was why to stay put. You can stay on office 2007 or whatever and your stuff will keep working. If you don't need the new versions, why bother upgrading and spending any money at all?
My point exactly.
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I don't know about the OP, but I know my office started using Office in 2001 with Office 2000. They got Office 2003 on a few new PCs as they came into the company.
They were sharing documents with other hospitals who all had MS Office. OpenOffice back then had at least as many compatibility issues in 2001 as they did in 2008, so they went with a product that ensured compatibility with those they were working with externally.
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@scottalanmiller said:
But if you are going to stop updating, why stop on something expensive? They could have "upgraded" to something free and avoided all of the problems with MS Office updates, kept up to date fluidly and saved money. None of the reasons for not going to LibreOffice now make sense, but why did they create the situation that locked them into 2007 in the first place?
Because even today we'd probably stay with Office.
But we've been A-OK since 2007 with out current version.
I'd ask what features were really that necessary to upgrade for you. Special cases, yes, but probably not what the majority of Office users are doing.
