Office 2003 done and dusted

[Spinner]

REDMOND, Wash. — Aug. 19, 2003 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the completion of the core products in the new Microsoft® Office System and has released all products to manufacturing, marking a critical step in the delivery of the company's most powerful and valuable release of Office.

[SimGuy]

T-minus 2 hours to warez... I mean... "legally acquiring a backup copy..." :)

[Spinner]

You see, I wasn't gonna say it.;)

[Templar]

I can't see why any consumer would pay $300 for Office..

[SimGuy]

Templar said
I can't see why any consumer would pay $300 for Office..

Let alone $1000.00 CDN for the full version (non-upgrade) of Office XP. 2K3 will probably be more.

It's completely insane.

[a2jfreak]

What true alternative is there?

If you need to share text documents with someone outside your company/university/household then chances are you'll have to send it to them in a text file, an html document, or Word. For spreadsheets you'll need to use HTML or Excel. For presentations you'll need PowerPoint.

Basically, Microsoft makes a product you pretty much need if you are to share documents with other people.

Is OpenOffice sufficient? I don't know because I've never used it, but I've read that while it's good, it still can't import/export all the Microsoft Office formats, which means it cannot replace Microsoft Office.

Microsoft knows this and being the "oportunist" it is prices accordingly.

I don't agree with RMS (Richard Stallman, www.stallman.org) that all software should be free. But MS does ask a bit much for Office, and I also think they ask a bit much for Windows too. However, I feel that if you work, you should get paid. Why should a programmer work for hours to get nothing back? If he has another job and enjoys giving freely, fine, but if his only means to an income is programming, or he feels like making money off his investment, then I feel that is fine. I don't see RMS pissed about Intel/AMD/IBM charging for hardware. Hey, software takes time and time is money, so hardware/software, it's fine to pay for both.

// Edit: Actually, I don't much agree with Richard Stallman on anything!

SimGuy said
Templar said
I can't see why any consumer would pay $300 for Office..

Let alone $1000.00 CDN for the full version (non-upgrade) of Office XP. 2K3 will probably be more.

It's completely insane.

[shwaip]

keke...at school, they have XP pro for 5$, office xp for 10$ :). You can only buy one copy every year tho. ;)

(these are fully legal versions, cd-keys included)

[SimGuy]

I'd gladly pay $400.00 CDN for the full version of Office System 2003, but there's no way in hell I'll pay $1000. At least $400.00 is a little more reasonable.

As for Windows, well.... that's another story. Again, overpriced, but what can you do about it (other than DL it) :D

[LawnMM]

I'll pay 6 hours while I sleep