Personally I think that SharePoint is worth its weight in gold. It is an amazing system and has totally changed the way my department works. Everyone can get and share information quicker than before and automatic versioning for some of our project managers is great. I can't wait for Office 2007 to see what Microsoft bring to the table. They may be behind in the OS world but they are lightyears ahead in the office applications world. Things like InfoPath and SharePoint will be huge in the next 5 years.

I'd rather buy Office XP or even Office 2000 for dirt cheap than suffer incompatibilities with Open Office. Likewise for Windows. Windows 2000 is an excellent business OS. Anything higher is mostly "fun" to have, not all that essential (if you're a small operation, like 95% of businesses). Teaching users "foreign" office suites and OS's? Yeah right... Quickly you'll see how costly "free" can become, my friends...

ya Open.ffice.org 2 is best one.
MS office 2007 too much price.
Get all softwares through P2P sharing/ Torrents.
Lets us share links for Torrent for office 2007.

If OOo 2 is the "best one" then why waste your time downloading/sharing Office 2007 on torrents? You claim Office 2007 is too expensive yet you waste time sharing it with others on torrents for hours (days?). You sir, are an idiot.

Well, I switched to OpenOffice.Org 2 few months back and I am very happy with it. Compatibility with Office 2003 is 100%, as far as I can tell, everything I tried worked, conversion both ways is excellent. Plus PDF export also work great. And it is free and few times smaller then Office. Office 2007 is mostly only facelifting, with only few really new features.

And way to expensive for regular home users. More then 200 dollars for only limited number of features. It is too much.

MS needs to release free version of Office to compete with OOo2.

I completely agree, however I have come accross word documents that openoffice ****ed up, not anything worth pauing a fortune for though.

Watch out for this: If you have an encrypted file from M$ Office (with the stronger encryption), OpenOffice cannot touch it b/c it doesn't support that encryption. This can be really bad if you are switching and have a lot of docs that are encrypted this way.

just my $.03 (ya, it's more because I'm better than everyone)

//stony

One shortcoming of Open Office that's a killer for me is the inability of Base to be compatible with Access. Tables work, but any forms, queries, modules and so forth would have to be developed from scratch. I've put too many hours into development of Access applications to want to do them all over again.

"And way to expensive for regular home users. More then 200 dollars for only limited number of features. It is too much.

MS needs to release free version of Office to compete with OOo2."

Last I knew Microsoft was and still is a "for profit" corporation and as such makes a profit. Even if they were non-profit they would not give their product away. "MS" needs to continue to do what they do. A free version? Use Open Office it that's your cup of tea. Personally, I can afford MS Office and I use it. If you can't afford it, use something you can afford.

Fantastic Office SharePoint new additions

I have Office 12. I have yet to see one feature, that's worth the switch. I know this is just progression, but I am beginning to think people are running out of good ideas..

Even browsers are beginning to plateau on new features.. I like office, but I doubt that most users use even 10% of the power of the current version as it is..

And like new applications, Office 12/2007 is bloated and its a pig. It looks nice, but I am not yet convinced I need it.

Uhmm..This will make it a good download!-

Can only hope that Outlook 2007 has rules that actualy work rather than the half arsed implimentation that is currently in 2003 and continualy breaks.

Microsoft sure is keeping these days. Windows Defender the other day, Office 2007, IE7, Vista, Live everything.

Fantastic! OneNote will now be included in the widely purchased Home version!

Got full version of OneNote sent via mail, I didnt even order it, claimed it is because there are students in the household.

Look Peeps, its real simple. If you like it buy it, If you prefare open source dont buy it donwload it. Real simple, some people like OS Office some dont, instead of cussin it, make up your mind real easy, buy it or dont, but please dont rubbish it for those that prefare it.

$239 for a word processor and email client?

Yeah.... If it doesn't move people to OpenOffice, it *will* move them to piracy.

Niiiiiice, MS. Real nice.

Our company looked at OO.o when we last upgraded Office suites. I have a hunch we'll be looking a hell of a lot more closely the next time around.

Don't forget the Corel Word Perfect line. Which you get their entire office suite for that much.

You could give me both suites for that and I'd still not pay that amount. It's ridiculous.

Its cheaper than the current version...

OO versions won't have the same feature set or support. And if there are bugs, who are you going to turn to for support? Ever tried converting a document from OO to Office 2003 and back again? It loses formatting..

It may be expensive, but I would rather have the genuine article than some knock off..

That's like saying you can buy a kit Ferrari and it looks the same, they are not. Corel Suite is pathetic. Why do you think its switched hands multiple times, because it sucks.

Have you even downloaded Corel? Try it, I think you will find its lacking. I would rather have MS works, than a FREE copy of Corel any day.

Word Perfect's time has come and LONG gone. The rest of the suite isn't even integrated.. They are bundled, but the don't have the same level of quality as Office.

you obviously have not used office with any degree of indepth knowledge, because you would know its not about the price.

I agree, $239 dollars does seem pricey, but its not going to come out for another year, AND there won't be a need to switch in the short time. By the time you are ready to purchase, you it would be less than 20 cents a day.

I take it you are using some form of Office now. No one is forcing you to get the new version. I don't like the new file format, its like a glorified zip file with a bunch of extras.

I don't like paying for office updates either, actually I only use Office at work, not at home. Word pad, while severely lacking in features, does provide support for Word Documents.. Other than that, I really don't miss it..

Everything is web based at our company now anyway.. so this may be a moot point.

Then don't buy either of them. It's that simple.

"And like new applications, Office 12/2007 is bloated and its a pig. It looks nice, but I am not yet convinced I need it." - rijp

Hmmmm....based on that stellar review, you would recommend against someone taking a look at another product?

The interface alone will be worth the update.
I tried office 12 beta 1, and the interface was a little annoying at first, but then it became second nature.
The interface is the biggest reason to update, and of which i will be buying.

I really prefer using the Office "2006" beta to the older versions. Whilst the last few releases have had little differences visually, this one changes the interface big time and, as already mentioned, things which used to take a lot of time and effort can be done on single click (headers/footers, contents, cover page).

Nicely written.

As for Office 12; I love the new interface. Right click is much more powerful. The speed at witch you are able to complete something is outstanding compared to some of the older versions. The new lay out sucked at first, but has really grown on me and OMG Publisher and the new "FrontPage" (SharePoint Designer)still not named, yet, as far as I know, is the best version I have ever worked with. I feel that the new Office will be one of the best.

I think I'll stick with Office 2003.

3 Options:
Buy it
Buy a pirated copy for under $20
Download it for nothing while sitting right at home

It takes about a day to download. What do you think people will do?

Yeah me too, I don't like the new version...

Buy it -

Buy a pirated copy for under $20 - Thief! SPA fines you $10K, and you risk being sued for theft, and going to prison yeah! Good move, lets all encourage pirating!

Download it for nothing. You must be what, 17, 18 maybe? You will learn VERY quickly in life, NOTHING is free. NOTHING. Yeah its free, to YOU because you didn't develop the product, you don't have to get paid to work, becuase your mommy and daddy provide for you. Its easy to download, but its definately NOT for NOTHING.

I love when people pirate. It reminds me of how simply you take life, and the fact that SOMEONE had to create this product, and it cost them SOMETHING. But you, don't see this because you don't care. Everytime you buy or download products for free or "street price" you undermine the free enterprise system. We are paying almost 3 dollars for the price of gas, and increased insurance every year, and $500 leather jackets, because idiots like you, don't care.

ITS FREE!! Woopie.. yeah, you will work as a janitor and be happy, because you could care less HOW that building got there, but it wasn't FREE. ITs all about self, and you don't care about how this impact others.

rijp your ignorance is larger than your mouth. You clearly know very little about who the theifs are in society. If your were educated you would know that the banks, stock exchange, large corps, etc are the biggest theives in the world. The do sweat f.. all and get paid large because they have implimented laws to keep it that way. Im not going to lower myself into explaining this as your puny brain-washed mind would not be able to comprehend how the above mentioned elitist group (totaling about 2% of the population) are shagging you me and everyone up the a** so badly they are coming out your mouth. Your the kind of person that thinks someone on welfare is taking your hard earned taxes when corperations are being paid billions of taxpayers dollars each year for nothing, and the bank is lending out your $1000 savings to 10 different people AT THE SAME TIME at 20% interest each (20%x10=200%p/year ie they make $2000 dollars a year on your $1000 invested) and giving you 1% yeah thats a 199% profit for the banks. Then they have the nerve to charge service fees. Or a building owner of 100 units charging $1000 a month rent per unit ($100,000 a month) for doing sweet F... All except having the money to buy the building and keeping those people in his/her building in poverty. I wont even begin to mention that over 60% of all products are made in third world countries for slave labour (it costs nike $1 to make a pair of sneakers and you buy them for $120 and they were made for slave labour. Good on you). If you want to pay the same price for a word processor program that has a few 'masks' over the top of the one that you already have (they dont write them from scratch you know) go ahead. I say thank god for free downloading while it lasts we're finally getting a tiny share of the massive amounts of cash they have been stealing for years. Print all the crap you want about my comments i wont be checking back here, it would be a waste of my time reading your brain-washed attacks on my truths. All America, England, etc have is because it was stolen from someone else (ie indians, blacks in past; third world slaves today) get a friggin History lesson stop watching the news and get informed. Have a nice life and start downloading

Pricey? Those are the same prices as Office 2003... which I suppose is what some of you are whining about... but still.

Actually, MS aims to sell new versions of the software slightly cheaper..

Why do people need an expensive new version of Office every few years? They all do the same thing. I can type letters with Office 95 so why buy 2007?

nevermind :)

Because people do far more than type letters with a word processor. Companies upgrade to save time/money in transferring information.

I can understand your point of view however for a word processor and for spreadsheets. 99% of the features that are needed have been there for a while and the rest is collaborative tools. Outlook has probably changed the most in the suite.

Some people may need the new features. Me im happy with and will stick to my old copy of OfficeXP until i switch to open source. The prices on this stuff is, for my needs, just not worth upgrading to every latest and amazing new suite.

So far two people have given polite and helpful replies, while yours was rude and insulting. Nice to know that two out of three BetaNews users aren't jerks though.

I'm not a jerk. Your comment was simply pure ignorance.

I was asking a question, it just stands to reason that I'm not an expert on Office since I was asking about it don't you think.

Can Office 95 open Office 2003 documents? NO

Can Office 95 open XML? NO

Can you bother to do just a couple minutes of research and see if any of the new features are applicable, and not say something stupid like "why buy 2007?" NO!

Why did you even get Windows? Just stick with DOS, why buy Windows 2000/XP.

Why not keep your VCR, why do we need a DVD player?

Its called "improvement".

Maybe because your question wasn't well thought out..

Helpful? they found a polite way to say the same thing he did, because you aren't the only person on the planet that uses Office, OBVIOUSLY someone found a need for Office 2003 didn't they? They didn't stay stuck in the 90's.

pure AND unadulterated ignorance.

You DIDN'T think.. that's our point.

A question without forethought or insight isn't much of a question.

2 minutes on the MS OFfice website would have given you the answer, instead you chose to ask a stupid question.

I bet the next time you won't be so hasty in asking such an ignorant question.

LOL, Office fanboys. Who would have known.

That from the betanews expert on unadulterated ignorance - rijp.

You should have known!!! ;o)

~LOL!~

a little on the pricy side if you ask me...

No kidding... you've got to be out of your mind to spend $500 for something like that. Count me out, I'll switch to OpenOffice.

Viva la opensource.

I wish I could agree.

OpenOffice will never be as organized or as feature rich as Microsoft Office. Simply because Microsoft has lots of cash to throw at R&D.

Plus, the OSS is not pushing the envelope, all it's doing is trying to offer free (and in some cases - less capable) alternatives to shareware.

The new Office is a marvel from the usability and architecture point of view, it's a kick-ass product.

OpenOffice will get the work done, but it's nowhere as sleek or powerful as MS Office, and as long as Microsoft is Microsoft it never will be.

And when opensource fails, because they don't own the copyright to office documents, and when Microsoft releases a patch to cripple open source products, then where will you be?

I'll be watching Microsoft get owned in court, because they can't do any of the ridiculous crap you just said. As for open source failing the MS lovers have been saying that for years. Hasn't happened yet and isn't going to.

"Microsoft releases a patch to cripple open source products, then where will you be?"

On the side that expects them to be held accountable for it. (again)

i use office 12beta...I'm LOVIN it!!

You always say that, and then you beg for us to send you beta invites and ask for download links... If you're using it, that's great, fabulous... enjoy. Otherwise, seek help.

heheh..

see, previous versions of office didnt really have that many improvements .... it was then until office 2003 that upgrades became apparent.... i dont think any of that is overpriced, as a matter of fact you indeed get what you pay for

Office 2007? I hadn't heard anything about this until just now.

I thought Office 12 was going to be their next release...

If this is supposed to be some sort of intermediary release, those prices are outrageous.

Office 2007 is the final name for Office 12. "12" was a code-name.

More specifically, a version number, with Office 2003 being Office 11, XP being Office 10, etc.

Wow. I feel dumb.

So, the next one will be 13, or will they skip that one like the 13th floor in a tall building?

...

"My concern is that Microsoft has introduced too much complexity, making more difficult the arduous purchase decision process"

...

Reminds one of General Motors with it's numerous brands and models with minor differentiation.

Seems like a bad practice that huge corporations naturally gravitate to.

And, like most big corporations as they mature, marketers are replacing technologists in Microsoft's leadership.

Thus we see hype replace innovation.

All part of a Darwinian-like decline of a species until it becomes extinct ...replaced by more competative [corporate] species.

Make no mistake: The PC Rat AIN'T the anti-Microsoft Taliban !

Microsoft has done a ~lot~ of good things, has had a ~lot~ of great products, and has unified the standard for personal computing to the advantage of us all.

But the last few years they've been a hapless giant unable to create exciting new products ...or even conceive of exciting new ideas.

...

The Computer Rodent

...

Well, dont forget about how all the people want differenct options and by only offering 3 version they might be forcing someone to buy something they dont want to use and then they would get sued for that. Kinda like the EU making a big deal about the media player in windows. MS has to walk the line in conforming to what local governments want (like a kazillion different stupid options) and what real people want. Standard, Pro and Enterprise.

Although you make some very good points, especially about marketing replacing technological innovation, there is a significant and generally well received change in the Office UI that most customers should find fairly compelling. Most testers agree that they have made the programs easier and more enjoyable to use (once you get past the initial learning curve). However, I do agree that the many versions and sometimes confusing pricing structure could (and probably should) be simplified.