3 words Joe.
I Buy Microsoft.
Get the drift?

8 words evan.

A fool and his money are soon parted ...

"Shoot, if Office 2007 is doing so well, maybe these other products are no competition at all."

Note that no MSFT person was stupid enough to say that, Joe. Just you.

Not long ago, Microsoft more often than not competed against itself (due to the lack of competence). However, now it seems things have changed, and Microsoft has understood that will not be able to impose us its new products by lowering the standard of its previous issues(or simply eliminating them). Now, it will have to make the effort of improving the old ones so to try to maintain its market share, and patiently hope that we are kind enough to buy their new production because now competence has just started.

The main issues now is that its new products will not reach the extortion prices that used to charge for its old merchandise (Ballmer's tears included). One example of this:
"Microsoft will begin offering Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 for students for the amazing price of just sixty dollars " and all have acknowledge that isn't for MS's "goodness".
--------
"Thus 5000 (MS's bloggers),is it not?"
"Now you will know how MS is defending itself, now when a opinion seems to be whoring to Ms, it is simply because it is."

" Microsoft counts sales into the channel, not out. "

Ummm, Mr. Smart Aleck, sales into the channel too is a good measure of how the product is doing. It's practically impossible for Microsoft to get Point of Sale information from every retailer worldwide.

Russian Linux (ALTLinux) to be installed in every school computer in Russia by 2009

http://eng.cnews.ru/news/top/indexEn.shtml?2007/09/14/266177

Now some of you may remember the school teacher in Russia that was convicted of software piracy, for using Windows software on old computers in his school. Could this be part of the reason for Russia to change over, that and the savings in money?

Vertical Computer Systems Inc (BB: VCSY)
By: arthurarnsley
18 Sep 2007, 09:13 PM EDT
Msg. 197812 of 197812
(This msg. is a reply to 197797 by shavisirons.)

shavisirons - You mentioned, "Yo and others here, with their techno knowledge, seem to think VCSY's patents hold the key to revolutionizing IP, or whatever, as we know it."

Shav, the moment VCSY announced a computer program application in an arbitrary framework that would separate Content, Form and Function of a computer application so that each may be accessed or modified separately I knew a Software/Internet revolution was coming based on the VCSY concept. This program was patented by VCSY and is now the '744 patent. If I had never heard of Portuno or Robert or if the Raging Bull VCSY board had never existed the result for me would still be the same. I've never been a programmer but I did work In IBM Field Engineering for 22 years and must have absorbed more than I realized. At least I absorbed enough to recognize unbridled genius when I saw it.

I am not surprised that the revolution is at hand. I am only surprised that it took so long to get here. Six years ago I assumed that in two years the old techniques would be replaced by the new. I didn?t know that VCSY could not start selling the product back then as doing so would establish a very low value for the product and get it out into the public forum before VCSY had patented control of it. VCSY executives did know that they had to contain their product until the patent was approved. Only after patent approval could they start selling licenses for it. Meanwhile, the thieves did break in and steal.

The bright spot here is that the patent is approved, the product has never been sold by VCSY and the Company has apparently been watching Microsoft for years surreptitiously developing their own programs using VCSY?s product.

My own unbridled enthusiasm for the ?744 product and other VCSY products has caused me to go totally overboard in buying VCSY shares at the exclusion of all else, especially in the last three years. When Microsoft tries to steal VCSY products they are directly stealing from the value of my stock portfolio. They are stealing from me.

Microsoft stealing from other small companies is nothing new. I?ve seen several battles go to court with Microsoft eventually paying off. I?m confident Microsoft will be told by the court to pay VCSY for license and use of the ?744 patent for both past and future use of it.

Being in the Eastern Texas Federal Court does not harm VCSY?s position but it should not make any difference which district court the lawsuit is in. VCSY has an extremely strong case, strong management and one of the strongest Intellectual Property Attorneys in the world.

Best wishes

Arthur

Russian Linux (ALTLinux) to be installed in every school computer in Russia by 2009

http://eng.cnews.ru/news/top/indexEn.shtml?2007/09/14/266177

Or maybe the Russians didn't like the idea of Micro$oft having a back door into 2000, XP, and Vista, since the advent of the new hidden updates. What other tricks does MS have up its sleeves when it comes to messing with people's computers.

This little hidden upgrade from MS issue, could actually cause them to lose some governments around the world.

If you were an accountant , you will appreciate Microsoft Excel and its VBA.

You people out there are just "arm-chair critic "

May God forgives your innocent

reflections: Ummm, Mr. Smart Aleck, sales into the channel too is a good measure of how the product is doing. It's practically impossible for Microsoft to get Point of Sale information from every retailer worldwide.

It's also used to pad sales figures, making them misleading. If you can't figure that out, you've got real problems.

Hey Lee,

I'm sure if they have 'accountants', but ...

The Canadian Labour Congress Switches to OpenOffice
- Saves almost $60,000!

Indeed, many people and organizations are adopting OpenOffice.org. As a long-time MS Office user, even I switched to OpenOffice.org recently and, boy, am I glad I did! This is a fantastic office suite! It may not have *all* the features that MS Office has, but it has all the ones I need and use on a regular basis. (And even a couple that MS Office doesn't have.) And it comes for free! Absolutely and totally free.

Why should I pay Microsoft's exorbitant prices for any of their Office editions? (The only exception is for students, and I am not a student.)

With IBM's imprimatur, I expect OpenOffice.org to gain widespread acceptance. This terrific suite has reached a major turning point...

NOTHING absolutely nothing ever comes for FREE ....somewhere, somehow you WILL pay for it. It happen today or tomorrow, but you will eventually pay for it and not neccessarily in money either.
And there is one other thing that you won't get either (besides help/assistance) and that is technologically up to date software .... why should they ? There is no reason too !
And if it is not "up to date" what is the use of it after a while, other things have "moved on" and your stuck in the "slow lane" permanantly !!

n0ne_n0ne and is grammar again, sigh
I'll blame it on multi-tasking, again ; -)

correction:

I'm NOT sure if they have 'accountants', but ...
[ ... ]
The decision they took was clearly a financial one, saving approximately $60,000 in licensing fees. ...
Another aspect that influenced them was the freedom open source software offers over customization and the flexibility of OpenOffice.org.

http://tinyurl.com/35zg8c

Neil, *every* example of popular Open Source software that I am aware of is well-supported and kept up-to-date. Linux, Apache, Firefox, OpenOffice.org, PostgreSQL, etc., etc., etc. If you can cite one example that is not, please state it here.

As for help/assistance, of what value is Microsoft's technical support? In my experience, zilch. You'd get much more help from friends and colleagues who use the same software. In the Open Source world, you have a very helpful and generous community of like-minded users. Assistance is not an issue.

"There is no reason to." Understandable, coming from a person who is cynical about humankind, who doesn't appreciate altruism, and who only thinks in terms of profit and personal gain. There are many, many fine people out there who give freely of themselves to the Open Source cause.

Richard,
Try a "google search" or "Live Search" on any problem you have with Microsoft's products. There's a 95% chance that you will find the solution for free and it's 24x7.

Richard and evan: Yes, Microsoft help is rather help-less (or if there's good help it's far too expensive for most of us). And yes, Google supplies a (I would guess far more than) 95% chance of finding solutions to problems with Windows.
What really makes me chuckle is that Google is the #1 far-and-away best on-line help for Microsoft products.
Microsoft's #1 best on-line help tool runs on Linux! Imagine that!!!
Without Linux and the Google engine on top of it, where would we get help for Microsoft products???
Hmmm. Why don't I see how highly reliable Linux powers most of the world's on-line help requests for Microsoft products in the worthless drivel fishwrap, "The Highly Reliable Times"? (Or did I just answer my own question??!!??!!)

Its Microsoft Office 2007 all the way for me. I have the Home and Student Edition running on my computers at home and Enterprise Edition at work. No matter what anybody says, Microsoft gets it right every time with each release. Office 2007 in particular is a compelling release, the new Office Fluent UI makes access to common features more convenient and at the same time more relevant to the user experience.

Features like contextual tabs are a God send when working in PowerPoint or with Smart Draw objects. The file size has also been improved because of the new XML format, also its loads mighty quick on my XP and Vista machines. I have used and experimented with various Productivity Suites and nothing compares to the ease of use, feature set, compatibility of MS Office. Things like doing a vLook up in a spreadsheet or searching for trends with the new BI tools in Excel 2007 are just awesome, its just right there and its really easy.

In Office 2007, its just a better way of doing things, its very logical and straightforward, the tabs are set in a way, it just makes creating documents, editing and reviewing so much better. Other features I like include the Mini-toolbar, I don't have to move from text to the Fluent often, its so convenient. Trust me, once you experience Office '07 you see a complete difference between it and the many alternatives and why so many people continue to choose it regardless of the many free choices.

Someone said they don't have to pay the $325 upgrade price for Office any more because of Symphony, I didn't either, I got Office Home and Student for $120, with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, and got a copy of Outlook 2007 for free. Students can even get Office Ultimate 2007 with the mega load for just $60 between now and April 2008. Yes, Office can be used for simple task, but at the same time, when you are working with heavy data and lots of complex formatting, nothing beats it. The time it takes you to do things in MS Office and the ease, makes it a better choice over the competition.

Lee,

I don't doubt that there are some accountants out there who believe that they can no do without VBA macros in Excel...

...but they might want to add-up how much they have paid for M$ Office over the last 6 years - if they are on an EA, it is probably upwards of $700 per seat.

And just for your interest, there's a Global Accountancy firm who have assessed that there are 2 spreadsheets in use in their entire organization that won't run in Open Office.

The Cash Cow of Redmond may not be dead, but it is very seriously ill!

I got Office 2007 not too long ago, and I really like it for primarily one reason. The new equation is so much nicer than any I have tried before. I can do my 400-level college math homework in Word instead of writing it out in Windows Journal. It's really nice.

I have Open Office installed, but I never use it anymore. My main complaint about it is the lack of shortcuts for foreign character entry and the lack of autocorrect. If these features are in there, I have not found them. In Word, I use several autocorrects such as :alpha:, :>=:, etc. to replace to special characters. They are extremely useful, although they are less useful now that Word's equation editor support auto-replacing TeX commands. Also in Word, I can do Ctrl + ', then a to get an a with an accent mark over it. I can't figure out how to do that in OpenOffice.

Just my two cents,
Phil Deets