Onedrive is shrinking
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@Dashrender said:
Surprisingly - lately I've actually started seeing LibreOffice on a few.
That's always what I recommend unless they have a given need for Office.
Which can be a SO/kid who wants it.
In which case I recommend O365, the family one.
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@Dashrender said:
@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
Figured once every 10 years would be a good goal.
Why not make the move to LibreOffice once and have zero cost and no update issues indefinitely? What drives you to pay for, but not leverage, the MS ecosystem?
How are you not leveraging?
To some degree, you are, but you are not using "what people see at home" or "MS support ecosystem" or other aspects that you get when you keep up with everyone else. For example, if you go to work and use 2007 today, that's likely far behind what you have been using at home or school for many years. So your begin to get farther and farther away from the top selling point of MS Office - that your users are used to it at home.
As you keep something for this long, support from Microsoft and their partners begins to dwindle. Patches remain for a while but tools, plugins, compatibility and whatnot begin to fade. 2007 doesn't work completely with a modern MS ecosystem nor with third party products. You start spending time figuring out what information applies to systems no one tests or talks about any more.
Things like that.
Never had any issues here. If these issues WERE to occur, of course we'd look into changing.
And then people would still want Office at home, and we'd have the same issues.
I'd have to agree with this in general.
As for people having office at home, If they have Office at home, how many of them likely got it from their office? Sure some schools these days have Office licenses that can be installed at home, but definitely not all.
I haven't seen Office installed at home in general for probably 4 years.
Surprisingly - lately I've actually started seeing LibreOffice on a few.
Seems like that would suggest that there is a strong reason to migrate to LibreOffice. MS Office at home was touted strongly as the reason why people could not switch over.
Although I've seen a lot of MS Office at home since MS has gone to great length to let people take their office Office home.
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@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
Surprisingly - lately I've actually started seeing LibreOffice on a few.
That's always what I recommend unless they have a given need for Office.
Which can be a SO/kid who wants it.
In which case I recommend O365, the family one.
I actually recommend Google Docs unless there is a specific need for MS Office.
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@Dashrender said:
I actually recommend Google Docs unless there is a specific need for MS Office.
So far I have found people to be resistant to cloud apps.
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@Dashrender said:
@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
Surprisingly - lately I've actually started seeing LibreOffice on a few.
That's always what I recommend unless they have a given need for Office.
Which can be a SO/kid who wants it.
In which case I recommend O365, the family one.
I actually recommend Google Docs unless there is a specific need for MS Office.
Here too, mostly because I recommend Chromebooks so often.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Although I've seen a lot of MS Office at home since MS has gone to great length to let people take their office Office home.
Software Assurance allows employees to get Office for $10 for use at home. Additionally - if an employee has O365 through work, and assuming they have a full local install account level, they probably have enough licenses after installing everywhere needed for their office, they can probably still install it on a home computer or two.
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@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
I actually recommend Google Docs unless there is a specific need for MS Office.
So far I have found people to be resistant to cloud apps.
Don't take this as a personal thing, but I only find that when they are not fully or properly explained. I find everyone resistant to them until they understand why they are better for them. Safer, easier, cheaper... those are hard things not to like.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
Surprisingly - lately I've actually started seeing LibreOffice on a few.
That's always what I recommend unless they have a given need for Office.
Which can be a SO/kid who wants it.
In which case I recommend O365, the family one.
I actually recommend Google Docs unless there is a specific need for MS Office.
Here too, mostly because I recommend Chromebooks so often.
I logically understand the Chromebooks - but I just can't bring myself to ever recommend them.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Although I've seen a lot of MS Office at home since MS has gone to great length to let people take their office Office home.
Software Assurance allows employees to get Office for $10 for use at home. Additionally - if an employee has O365 through work, and assuming they have a full local install account level, they probably have enough licenses after installing everywhere needed for their office, they can probably still install it on a home computer or two.
Yeah, which is why it was designed that way, I think.
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@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
I actually recommend Google Docs unless there is a specific need for MS Office.
So far I have found people to be resistant to cloud apps.
If someone tries to resist, I call them stupid and charge them more.
Seriously. I do it politely, but my time goes up because of all the time proving how stupid they are.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
I actually recommend Google Docs unless there is a specific need for MS Office.
So far I have found people to be resistant to cloud apps.
Don't take this as a personal thing, but I only find that when they are not fully or properly explained. I find everyone resistant to them until they understand why they are better for them. Safer, easier, cheaper... those are hard things not to like.
Yep - same here. Once I tell them there is NO cost and NO setup for Google Docs.. most people try them right out.
While O365 Personal/Home isn't free, it's a pretty damned good value for the price.
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@JaredBusch I think that we had switched to discussing home users in that instance, so not charging them here. But the same basic stance - I make sure that they understand that they are being emotional, irrational and generally ridiculous. I don't empower them by making them feel like I respect their decision. If they have good reasons, fine. If they are just being biased, emotional or nuts I don't let people get away with that and I make sure that they realize that I know they are doing it and have called them out on it. It's their decision, but I'm not going to empower them to make emotional decisions by acting like their cognitive failures are socially acceptable.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch I think that we had switched to discussing home users in that instance, so not charging them here. But the same basic stance - I make sure that they understand that they are being emotional, irrational and generally ridiculous. I don't empower them by making them feel like I respect their decision. If they have good reasons, fine. If they are just being biased, emotional or nuts I don't let people get away with that and I make sure that they realize that I know they are doing it and have called them out on it. It's their decision, but I'm not going to empower them to make emotional decisions by acting like their cognitive failures are socially acceptable.
I kind of feel that way, but if they really want to use O365, I don't have a problem with it.
I have found if you are doing a lot of work, the non-Office programs mess up formatting when going between programs. At least it used to. Shoot, we even have issues between Office versions, but they are usually pretty good.
When they do something in Word at work, and then want to edit it at home, or vice cersa, and the pages are all messed up, the SO gets a call, then I get a call.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch I think that we had switched to discussing home users in that instance, so not charging them here. But the same basic stance - I make sure that they understand that they are being emotional, irrational and generally ridiculous. I don't empower them by making them feel like I respect their decision. If they have good reasons, fine. If they are just being biased, emotional or nuts I don't let people get away with that and I make sure that they realize that I know they are doing it and have called them out on it. It's their decision, but I'm not going to empower them to make emotional decisions by acting like their cognitive failures are socially acceptable.
I kind of feel that way, but if they really want to use O365, I don't have a problem with it.
O365 offers an online cloud hosted version too.
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@BRRABill said:
I have found if you are doing a lot of work, the non-Office programs mess up formatting when going between programs. At least it used to. Shoot, we even have issues between Office versions, but they are usually pretty good.
In this case, and I'm sure that this is worth of its own thread, while I am fully aware that there are use cases for this and reasons that you need compatibility...
How often are users sharing files for editing with outside entities and why?
I've asked this in a lot of companies and the answer, while not always, has nearly always been that people were using the programs and file formats inappropriately, did not understand how to use the tools correctly and were doing weird things causing high cost and unnecessary problems.
What's creating this issue?
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@BRRABill said:
When they do something in Word at work, and then want to edit it at home, or vice cersa, and the pages are all messed up, the SO gets a call, then I get a call.
This is where LibreOffice can be an awesome solution. It not only saves the company on software licensing and licensing management and allows for constant, fluid updates but it also allowed every user and every SO and every kid and every one everywhere to have LibreOffice so that issues with compatibility or access never become an issue.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Don't take this as a personal thing, but I only find that when they are not fully or properly explained.
If I took every conversation/argument I've had here at ML personally, I would have been gone weeks ago.
These are all opinions. We all have them.
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@BRRABill I just meant that it is a matter of fully explaining it, making a full sales pitch and sticking to your guns and not just letting people pull the "it's social acceptable to be foolish and not smart" that is so often seen as a social acceptable excuse - especially in the US. A culture of glorifying stupidity is pervasive and while I don't mean to make social commentary, it trickles down to simple things like people not wanting to make a hard decision or just "wanting" something without a reason or just being generally illogical. And if we let people do that, they will, over and over again to their own detriment. We have to hold them accountable because we care about them - treat them like we would want to be treat, show some tough love and make sure that they understand that while it is their decisions, we don't just "respect" any foolhardy decision that they make.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
I have found if you are doing a lot of work, the non-Office programs mess up formatting when going between programs. At least it used to. Shoot, we even have issues between Office versions, but they are usually pretty good.
In this case, and I'm sure that this is worth of its own thread, while I am fully aware that there are use cases for this and reasons that you need compatibility...
How often are users sharing files for editing with outside entities and why?
I've asked this in a lot of companies and the answer, while not always, has nearly always been that people were using the programs and file formats inappropriately, did not understand how to use the tools correctly and were doing weird things causing high cost and unnecessary problems.
What's creating this issue?
Well, when did Office add in the Save AS PDF option? Only after that timeframe did it start not mattering, assuming that both sides weren't editing the file.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
When they do something in Word at work, and then want to edit it at home, or vice cersa, and the pages are all messed up, the SO gets a call, then I get a call.
This is where LibreOffice can be an awesome solution. It not only saves the company on software licensing and licensing management and allows for constant, fluid updates but it also allowed every user and every SO and every kid and every one everywhere to have LibreOffice so that issues with compatibility or access never become an issue.
Sure, But I'd like to hear that conversation - you're dealing with Walmart, let's assume they use Office. You need to send editable files to them, you only have LibreOffice and the formatting doesn't work. What, you're going to suggest that Walmart install LibreOffice on anyone's machine who might deal with you? Not likely.
The same could be said with the local hospital that we deal with. There's almost no chance they are going to roll out LibreOffice just because we choose to use it.
