Hotmail creator challenges Microsoft
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/Hotmail creator challenges Microsoft I’d rather buy the software and use it at leisure, I don’t like the idea of online version of MS Word, Excel etc. I recently upgraded from Office 97 to Office 2007 and the software lasted me for 10 years … Office 2007 will last me for a fair bit.
Me too, hate the idea of laggy online 'app stuff' replacing localized sw.
Im happy with OO.o does everything i want and its "free"
Im happy with OO.o does everything i want and its "free"
I don't think that Bhatia or O'Reilly or Paul Graham are right, either. Maybe I'm a dinosaur and history will prove me wrong and evolution will make folks like me "redundant". But I simply prefer the usability of a local client over --any-- Internet application that I've ever used. Flash-based clients are the only online apps that get a decent look and feel done anyway, and, still, the don't replace the feel of a desktop app.
Terminal Servers are a different story. Provided that there will always be sufficient bandwidth to even play games through it, that could one day be a serious threat to fat clients. It still leaves the question wether I trust any hoster with my data, documents and files. And unless I am that hoster myself, the answer is NO, I DON'T.
By the way, Microsoft is doing great in that Terminal Server niche. If that'll be the way where the Internet is headed, they will come out of it just fine.
I also do not see big businesses moving to Internet-hosted web apps. They would change back to dumb Terminals in a heart beat, but they would always want to host and control the applications themselves. Unless folks like Google or Mr Bhatia will license their software to enterprises for local installation, that business model won't take off in the enterprise market (where the real money is). But since these people are smart, they already know that and will have fitting offers. The problem is that Microsoft already is in that market since Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition...
Terminal Servers are a different story. Provided that there will always be sufficient bandwidth to even play games through it, that could one day be a serious threat to fat clients. It still leaves the question wether I trust any hoster with my data, documents and files. And unless I am that hoster myself, the answer is NO, I DON'T.
By the way, Microsoft is doing great in that Terminal Server niche. If that'll be the way where the Internet is headed, they will come out of it just fine.
I also do not see big businesses moving to Internet-hosted web apps. They would change back to dumb Terminals in a heart beat, but they would always want to host and control the applications themselves. Unless folks like Google or Mr Bhatia will license their software to enterprises for local installation, that business model won't take off in the enterprise market (where the real money is). But since these people are smart, they already know that and will have fitting offers. The problem is that Microsoft already is in that market since Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition...
After playing with iWork, I've come to the conclusion that any office document suite which relies on HTML's limited in-line layout options is crap. While Word, OO and Google Docs have us positioning images in the same single block of content (unless some menu hunting is gone through to find the equivalent "add absolute positioned layer," which is trouble to figure out and complete nonsense to the average user who does not do web pages), iWork allows the smooth, absolute placement of any content on the page. Goodbye, fussing over font sizes and indentation just to get things lining up!
(Now all we need is a Windows / Linux version...)
How is it that Apple, who are considered the bottom rung as far as office software is concerned, have something so much nicer to use than the competition?!
By the way, their HTML editor is just as smooth to use as their word processor, so "HTML export is that important" is still a completely invalid excuse. (Although it's probably worth pointing out that instant HTML export out of the box really is not as important as being able to create complex documents without it being a painful ordeal; people print from the word processor and save in the native format a lot more than they export HTML).
Anyway, this was apparently launched two days ago, but I have yet to find any links... Do links exist, or is this a phantom web site discussed blindly by the media? I want to see if it beats Google Docs in this front.
(Now all we need is a Windows / Linux version...)
How is it that Apple, who are considered the bottom rung as far as office software is concerned, have something so much nicer to use than the competition?!
By the way, their HTML editor is just as smooth to use as their word processor, so "HTML export is that important" is still a completely invalid excuse. (Although it's probably worth pointing out that instant HTML export out of the box really is not as important as being able to create complex documents without it being a painful ordeal; people print from the word processor and save in the native format a lot more than they export HTML).
Anyway, this was apparently launched two days ago, but I have yet to find any links... Do links exist, or is this a phantom web site discussed blindly by the media? I want to see if it beats Google Docs in this front.
Yep, iWork is very nice. Especially Numbers with its canvas approach is an amazingly great 1.0 release. And the price is also right.
But well, you won't ever see it on a non-Apple OS, that's for sure. It also doesn't stand a chance in an enterprise environment, the reason being this acronym: VBA. It's unbelievable how much companies use and actually need it.
MS Office is a horrible beast, but there's nothing out there that's getting anywhere near its feature set or programmability to be a serious threat. Now with Sharepoint Services and MS Office's tight integration into it, it became even more difficult to replace.
You have to give it to them: Microsoft did an extremely great job with Sharepoint, and they gave companies a tool that they were really looking for. At least they did for us, and I had spent a lot of time looking for a non-MS solution for our specific problem - and could not find one that worked. We've been using Sharepoint Services for more than two years now, and it really works for us and our specific project. On the corporate level, our headquarters are now using Sharepoint Portal, and it's also working on that much bigger scale.
Anyway, that's running somewhere off topic and I gotta go. ;-)
But well, you won't ever see it on a non-Apple OS, that's for sure. It also doesn't stand a chance in an enterprise environment, the reason being this acronym: VBA. It's unbelievable how much companies use and actually need it.
MS Office is a horrible beast, but there's nothing out there that's getting anywhere near its feature set or programmability to be a serious threat. Now with Sharepoint Services and MS Office's tight integration into it, it became even more difficult to replace.
You have to give it to them: Microsoft did an extremely great job with Sharepoint, and they gave companies a tool that they were really looking for. At least they did for us, and I had spent a lot of time looking for a non-MS solution for our specific problem - and could not find one that worked. We've been using Sharepoint Services for more than two years now, and it really works for us and our specific project. On the corporate level, our headquarters are now using Sharepoint Portal, and it's also working on that much bigger scale.
Anyway, that's running somewhere off topic and I gotta go. ;-)
I wouldn't count on online tools. In years to come, hobbyists will outperform the major packages, and we'll all be using open-source, or at least free stuff. OO is a clear example, so are all the free Mozilla thingies. Can hobbyists outperform Office? Who knows.. let's see what companies made in the 80's, and what a hobbyist can make today.. it's all a matter of time. And that time may very well be when the big names hope to be starting with web apps.
The difference between Microsoft Office and Open Office is that whilst OO does everything you think you want, MS Office does everything you actually *need*. For example, MS Word has a reasonable grammar checker. OO Writer doesn't have one at all. Due to the hobbiest nature of Open Source software the features that are worked on are the ones that are of personal interest to contributors or require solely software engineering skills to implement. Other essential features are ignored or implemented badly due to the lack of interest and - more crucually - the lack of specialised non-software engineering related skills. Continuing my prior example, if Mirosoft wants to implement a better grammar checking tool it can throw a mountain of money at a bunch of linguists, grammaticians, and software engineers and tell them to get on with it.
Isn't that where open source comes in? So that everyone with specific/unique skills can contribute to the whole?
In theory yes, but in practice it doesn't work. This is because people with unique skills are not necesarily interested in technology, let alone software development, and they often need incentives (financial ones usually work best) in order to persuade them to lend their skills to software development.
To put it simply: its pretty geeky to want to contribute to the development of open source software, right? There's nothing wrong with that. But the thing is, people with unique non-technologically inclined skills and talents are just as geeky about their own fields of interest, and so they won't look twice at open source software development. Not everyone has the free time (or is altruistic enough) to lend their expertise to open source development.
To put it simply: its pretty geeky to want to contribute to the development of open source software, right? There's nothing wrong with that. But the thing is, people with unique non-technologically inclined skills and talents are just as geeky about their own fields of interest, and so they won't look twice at open source software development. Not everyone has the free time (or is altruistic enough) to lend their expertise to open source development.
For example, MS Word has a reasonable grammar checker.
Besides the fact that the grammar checker is far from flawless, not everyone needs (or wants) a grammar checker. Continuing my prior example, if Mirosoft wants to implement a better grammar checking tool it can throw a mountain of money at a bunch of linguists, grammaticians, and software engineers and tell them to get on with it.
Sure. However a corporation rarely does anything "because they want to", particularly a publicly traded company with shareholders to appease. Such a company needs to be somewhat careful about what they "throw money at", because everything they do needs to have an almost immediate return on investment. > Sure. However a corporation rarely does anything "because they want to",
True, companies do it to try and get a return on investment, Open Source do things for all kinds of reasons, but since they don't focus on ROI they generally don't come up with the most usable solution. With a few notable exceptions.
True, companies do it to try and get a return on investment, Open Source do things for all kinds of reasons, but since they don't focus on ROI they generally don't come up with the most usable solution. With a few notable exceptions.
hehe, there are some good Open source projects that fall down on really annoying things. Line Blender, no one seems to care about UI design and integration, they have a nice toolset but using it is such a chore compared to almost any other professional tool
Blender could be so much more if someone bothered to work out a good UI, Even the load/save dialogs are cumbersome before you even start using the tools.
I balk at the idea of running my office app online. Untill the internet is secure and runs at HD like speeds its just not feasible for me. I want instant access to my applications. Adobe has similar plans for the future, lets hope common sense of the users prevails.
Blender could be so much more if someone bothered to work out a good UI, Even the load/save dialogs are cumbersome before you even start using the tools.
I balk at the idea of running my office app online. Untill the internet is secure and runs at HD like speeds its just not feasible for me. I want instant access to my applications. Adobe has similar plans for the future, lets hope common sense of the users prevails.
Have you ever tried mentioning that the UI needs a rethink on the Blender forums? I made that mistake once. wowzers, those guys sure can get furiously defensive.
If not the UI, at least the open / close dialogs. Those messes have no excuse.
The difference between Microsoft Office and Open Office is that whilst OO does everything you think you want, MS Office does everything you actually *need*.
Actually for me (and most standard 'office' users) its;- OO.O+evolution DOES everything i want and need for both personal use and running a small business. I can wordprocess, spreadsheets, presentations, draw diagrams and write macros, read and write MS2003 format. Plus email + calendars on Evo. All together this is all i need and suits me fine. (and would most home/small office users)
- MSO does everything i want too but is stuffed full of other stuff most people never use, or want to have, and have to pay a fortune for. While better (mabe?) for a corporate environment, most of MSO's features are overkill for smaller scale use.
Blender could be so much more if someone bothered to work out a good UI, Even the load/save dialogs are cumbersome before you even start using the tools.
I agree totally on the load boxes. win32/gtk ones would be much better. As for blenders UI though, it is very efficient once you get used to it, much more so (i think) than max and truespace which i used to use, but i admit, until i watched the training video on the UI i was totally lost with it. Love it now tho.PS- before anyone thinks people like them simply because they are 'free', then its not the case, i would happily pay to use them and have "donated" to both by buying manuals.
While we're on the topic of open source and UI, I think GIMP and even Blender should be commended - not bashed - for their user interfaces. Unlike a lot of other open source projects, such as OpenOffice, they took the chance to build something fresh. Here's to 12 years of not cloning Photoshop!
(And for some reason I was just inspired to learn about its future. Just as Photoshop is moving to shoot itself in the foot with a web app focus, GIMP is adopting a fantastic new compositor that shall kick the ass of every other raster editor out there, as well as an updated interface. Hooray!)
There are really two sectors of office software. Firstly, there is the business-oriented stuff, which tends to have ugly interfaces and a lot of over-engineering. For example, Evolution and Microsoft Outlook seem absolutely horrifyingly bad to me because they have designed entire shells to handle the different components. (You idiots! You already have a shell!).
Then, of course, it hit me: I just don't understand the messed up businesses that like (and could not live without) that kind of fat / ugly software. To each their own, I guess.
I don't think "office software" was originally intended much for home use, since around when Word and OpenOffice first came to be, printers and even computers were quite a bit less common in homes. That stuck for too long and office software never grew out of it, so now we have a lot of terrifyingly big suites that do too much, trying hard to appeal to both business users and home users alike. For me, using office software for non-businessy stuff has never been a very welcoming experience, and judging by the problems people tend to have with Microsoft Word, I don't think I am the only one. Peoples' uses for these programs have really changed, but the programs themselves have not changed to reflect it. Office software is used by not just businesses, but simpler individuals to maintain schedules, send mail to friends and keep scores in small public events. Office 2007 shows an attempt to be easier for that use (through a friendlier, less fat / ugly user interface), but it is still really big, and limited by the same faults as MS Office always will be, because it has to appeal to its old business users.
iWork is great, then, because it is the first office suite designed in this century. It is intended for home users instead of androids, and that really shows through. Even so, I think it's pretty flawed. iWork has three different components, and I am having trouble finding what the differences really are between them and iWeb. I bet a home oriented, creative document maker tool could be done in a single component. Sort of a word processor where multiple booklets can be added to one document (eg: slides), with "number crunchers" as a spreadsheet without the (appallingly unnecessary) chart portion
(And for some reason I was just inspired to learn about its future. Just as Photoshop is moving to shoot itself in the foot with a web app focus, GIMP is adopting a fantastic new compositor that shall kick the ass of every other raster editor out there, as well as an updated interface. Hooray!)
There are really two sectors of office software. Firstly, there is the business-oriented stuff, which tends to have ugly interfaces and a lot of over-engineering. For example, Evolution and Microsoft Outlook seem absolutely horrifyingly bad to me because they have designed entire shells to handle the different components. (You idiots! You already have a shell!).
Then, of course, it hit me: I just don't understand the messed up businesses that like (and could not live without) that kind of fat / ugly software. To each their own, I guess.
I don't think "office software" was originally intended much for home use, since around when Word and OpenOffice first came to be, printers and even computers were quite a bit less common in homes. That stuck for too long and office software never grew out of it, so now we have a lot of terrifyingly big suites that do too much, trying hard to appeal to both business users and home users alike. For me, using office software for non-businessy stuff has never been a very welcoming experience, and judging by the problems people tend to have with Microsoft Word, I don't think I am the only one. Peoples' uses for these programs have really changed, but the programs themselves have not changed to reflect it. Office software is used by not just businesses, but simpler individuals to maintain schedules, send mail to friends and keep scores in small public events. Office 2007 shows an attempt to be easier for that use (through a friendlier, less fat / ugly user interface), but it is still really big, and limited by the same faults as MS Office always will be, because it has to appeal to its old business users.
iWork is great, then, because it is the first office suite designed in this century. It is intended for home users instead of androids, and that really shows through. Even so, I think it's pretty flawed. iWork has three different components, and I am having trouble finding what the differences really are between them and iWeb. I bet a home oriented, creative document maker tool could be done in a single component. Sort of a word processor where multiple booklets can be added to one document (eg: slides), with "number crunchers" as a spreadsheet without the (appallingly unnecessary) chart portion