8 ms·

I used to be a big fan of Open Office and Libretto Office but with Microsoft’s support of more open data formats, and their best deal ever of $99/year for a fam

I used to be a big fan of Open Office and Libretto Office but with Microsoft’s support of more open data formats, and their best deal ever of $99/year for a family plan for Office 365, I have switched sides. I write my books using markdown and LeanPub but everything else is Office 365.

linuxftw 7y ago
Hmm.... $99/yr for proprietary spyware or free forever and respects you as a user?
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  And if you're already going to pay for proprietary spyware for your home, a basic G Suite subscription is about half that price.
  - linuxftw 7y ago
    You can even use google docs for free if you want, at least they have the decency of working in Firefox on Linux.
tenebrisalietum 7y ago
You used to be able to buy Office for a one-time purchase and not have to pay yearly. So how is this their best deal ever? Tbf, if this includes OneDrive you are getting more than just an office suite. Also would be interested in more details on why you like Microsoft Office better than the other two.
- signal11 7y ago
  Indeed the offering is more than an Office Suite. You + 5 family members each get * Office Apps -- install wherever you want, including on web, iOS, Android and Android-capable Chromebooks to get native apps on Chromebook. You can install on as many devices as you want, around 5 per-person can be in use at the same time * 1TB OneDrive storage (clients on Mac/Win/Web only sadly, no Linux client yet) * 50GB Outlook ad-free email storage * Bring your own custom domain to get @my-family.tld email for your family * Priority phone support All in all, for families it's a good offering that competes really well with Google One (one.google.com) -- quite irritating that Google One still doesn't offer that custom domain thing. The 50GB ad-free email per family member is a great offer for instance. All of this for about $100/yr, less with the revamped Home Use Program.
  - mark_l_watson 7y ago
    When did they add custom domain names for email? Do you get that in the $99/year family plan?
    - signal11 7y ago
      Not sure when they added it, but you do get it with[1] the $99/year plan. It's a more restricted version of a feature they used to support with Outlook Premium in the past, in that the domain has to be hosted with GoDaddy for now. [1] https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/get-a-personalized-email-address-in-office-365-75416a58-b225-4c02-8c07-8979403b427b https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/get-a-personalized-...
- vb6sp6 7y ago
  the "personal" edition lets you share with up to 6 people and those 6 people can install it up to 5 devices. Each person also gets 1tb of onedrive space and windows now has options to backup files. And you can still buy a one time license if that suites your needs better.
  - stevenicr 7y ago
    I want a one time license for excel that works with windows 8.1 and does not install one drive spyware. I have 100 bucks. I am using libre office, calc in the meantime.
    - vb6sp6 7y ago
      contact microsoft
- annoyingnoob 7y ago
  You can still buy a permanent/stand-alone license - and that product can optionally the 'cloud' apps if you want. From my perspective its a huge cognitive burden for an organization to change Office apps that they use everyday. For a technical group like easydns its probably easier and most of the staff might even support it. In my organization we have some manufacturing folks that don't like computers and don't want to learn anything about them. Its hard to make this kind of change, there is a cost to retraining and effects on productivity and happiness.
  - stevenicr 7y ago
    Two weeks ago I searched to buy excel on premises install / own - and could only find it for Windows 10 and Mac (not compatible with windows 8, 8.1, 7. Last time I bought the on prem off pack (few years ago) it auto installed spyware (one drive) - I did enjoy the multiple layers of phone support though, within an hour it was determined I needed to uninstall and return for refund, no way to run it without the spydrive addition. open office and libre office have been installed on all systems since. I understand some orgs can't new software, I think most just need to very basic formatting tools to be highlighted, open and save - which it does great now. I have to search 3-4 times a year on how to do something with calc.. I see many devs search 4 or more times a day on how to do basic stuff with their daily tools. Sounds like a couple UX templates would benefit the average company workers out there - one that is super basic, very few icons, and one that mimics word. I was going to take classes on excel but can't run it.
- outside1234 7y ago
  Software is not free - you maintain it with security patches etc. forever and a one time price is no longer viable.
- dleslie 7y ago
  I wouldn't undervalue it: you're getting 1tb/user of OneDrive, for the year. That makes it easily the best deal in cloud storage for personal use, if you have multiple members in your family and want to use Office.
- mark_l_watson 7y ago
  Good question. I pay the $99/year for a terabyte of cloud storage for everyone in my family, I use the web app versions of Office 365 on Linux, and everyone gets up to date Office apps for iOS, Android, and macOS. For me, that is a great deal. I especially like the Word app on my iPad Pro.
KIFulgore 7y ago
I think the $99/year is well worth 5 Office installs, 1TB of storage each, and apps that sync photos and OneNote across devices.
bad_user 7y ago
Not sure what open formats you're talking about, but their support for OpenDocument (.odf and .ods) has been and continues to be quite shitty. To their credit Google's Docs doesn't even have shitty support for OpenDocument, but that doesn't make MS Office better, not when LibreOffice exists. $99 / year seems like a good deal, until you realize that it might as well be $0 / year if you don't use Office 365 and you're not missing much. Office 365 sucks for collaborative editing, where Google Docs shines, or for note taking. It also sucks if you want to write highly technical documentation, for which I prefer Markdown, Org or Latex — I know it's not for everybody, but nothing beats pushing text files in Git. Microsoft Excel is king for big spreadsheets filled with fancy formulas, but for my own purposes Google Sheets has been much more user friendly and I'm the kind of guy that creates sheets for monthly expenses, tracking my weight, etc. And I've seen this going on in our team too, where Google Sheets is much more convenient. So you're paying $99 / year which is only useful when other people share MS Office formats with you. And I know this depends on the field you're in, but I can literally count the number of times that happened this year on the fingers of one hand. And sure they give you OneDrive storage too. But you only use OneDrive when you don't care about your data, because their client is a piece of shit. I tried to use it repeatedly and I witnessed serious data conflicts and sync issues within hours of installing their client and this happened several times. Dropbox is more expensive, but Dropbox actually works for the intended purpose. I did pay for Office 365 for about 2 years, until I realized that I'm not actually using it, wasted money.
- mark_l_watson 7y ago
  I recommend using the open source Pandoc utility for converting file formats. I agree, for collaborative editing, I also use Google docs. Anyway, we have several good choices.
thenewnewguy 7y ago
I'd seriously consider the $99/year if I could install Office on linux. I get that I'm not exactly the average user, but my options as a linux user are rather limited.
- annoyingnoob 7y ago
  I tend to agree. For all of the MS 'love' of linux they ignore the desktop. Most folks I know that run linux on the desktop run a Windows VM to use Office.
  - jenscow 7y ago
    Crossover is used on my kid's computers for Office.
- mark_l_watson 7y ago
  I have two Linux laptops and I use the web versions, which are surprisingly good.
Qahlel 7y ago
which markdown editor (do) you use?
- mark_l_watson 7y ago
  I used to use Emacs, now I use VSCode.

linuxftw 7y ago

Hmm.... $99/yr for proprietary spyware or free forever and respects you as a user?

ilikehurdles 7y ago
And if you're already going to pay for proprietary spyware for your home, a basic G Suite subscription is about half that price.
- linuxftw 7y ago
  You can even use google docs for free if you want, at least they have the decency of working in Firefox on Linux.

tenebrisalietum 7y ago

You used to be able to buy Office for a one-time purchase and not have to pay yearly. So how is this their best deal ever? Tbf, if this includes OneDrive you are getting more than just an office suite. Also would be interested in more details on why you like Microsoft Office better than the other two.

signal11 7y ago
Indeed the offering is more than an Office Suite. You + 5 family members each get * Office Apps -- install wherever you want, including on web, iOS, Android and Android-capable Chromebooks to get native apps on Chromebook. You can install on as many devices as you want, around 5 per-person can be in use at the same time * 1TB OneDrive storage (clients on Mac/Win/Web only sadly, no Linux client yet) * 50GB Outlook ad-free email storage * Bring your own custom domain to get @my-family.tld email for your family * Priority phone support All in all, for families it's a good offering that competes really well with Google One (one.google.com) -- quite irritating that Google One still doesn't offer that custom domain thing. The 50GB ad-free email per family member is a great offer for instance. All of this for about $100/yr, less with the revamped Home Use Program.
- mark_l_watson 7y ago
  When did they add custom domain names for email? Do you get that in the $99/year family plan?
  - signal11 7y ago
    Not sure when they added it, but you do get it with[1] the $99/year plan. It's a more restricted version of a feature they used to support with Outlook Premium in the past, in that the domain has to be hosted with GoDaddy for now. [1] https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/get-a-personalized-email-address-in-office-365-75416a58-b225-4c02-8c07-8979403b427b https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/get-a-personalized-...
vb6sp6 7y ago
the "personal" edition lets you share with up to 6 people and those 6 people can install it up to 5 devices. Each person also gets 1tb of onedrive space and windows now has options to backup files. And you can still buy a one time license if that suites your needs better.
- stevenicr 7y ago
  I want a one time license for excel that works with windows 8.1 and does not install one drive spyware. I have 100 bucks. I am using libre office, calc in the meantime.
  - vb6sp6 7y ago
    contact microsoft
annoyingnoob 7y ago
You can still buy a permanent/stand-alone license - and that product can optionally the 'cloud' apps if you want. From my perspective its a huge cognitive burden for an organization to change Office apps that they use everyday. For a technical group like easydns its probably easier and most of the staff might even support it. In my organization we have some manufacturing folks that don't like computers and don't want to learn anything about them. Its hard to make this kind of change, there is a cost to retraining and effects on productivity and happiness.
- stevenicr 7y ago
  Two weeks ago I searched to buy excel on premises install / own - and could only find it for Windows 10 and Mac (not compatible with windows 8, 8.1, 7. Last time I bought the on prem off pack (few years ago) it auto installed spyware (one drive) - I did enjoy the multiple layers of phone support though, within an hour it was determined I needed to uninstall and return for refund, no way to run it without the spydrive addition. open office and libre office have been installed on all systems since. I understand some orgs can't new software, I think most just need to very basic formatting tools to be highlighted, open and save - which it does great now. I have to search 3-4 times a year on how to do something with calc.. I see many devs search 4 or more times a day on how to do basic stuff with their daily tools. Sounds like a couple UX templates would benefit the average company workers out there - one that is super basic, very few icons, and one that mimics word. I was going to take classes on excel but can't run it.
outside1234 7y ago
Software is not free - you maintain it with security patches etc. forever and a one time price is no longer viable.
dleslie 7y ago
I wouldn't undervalue it: you're getting 1tb/user of OneDrive, for the year. That makes it easily the best deal in cloud storage for personal use, if you have multiple members in your family and want to use Office.
mark_l_watson 7y ago
Good question. I pay the $99/year for a terabyte of cloud storage for everyone in my family, I use the web app versions of Office 365 on Linux, and everyone gets up to date Office apps for iOS, Android, and macOS. For me, that is a great deal. I especially like the Word app on my iPad Pro.

KIFulgore 7y ago

I think the $99/year is well worth 5 Office installs, 1TB of storage each, and apps that sync photos and OneNote across devices.

bad_user 7y ago

Not sure what open formats you're talking about, but their support for OpenDocument (.odf and .ods) has been and continues to be quite shitty. To their credit Google's Docs doesn't even have shitty support for OpenDocument, but that doesn't make MS Office better, not when LibreOffice exists. $99 / year seems like a good deal, until you realize that it might as well be $0 / year if you don't use Office 365 and you're not missing much. Office 365 sucks for collaborative editing, where Google Docs shines, or for note taking. It also sucks if you want to write highly technical documentation, for which I prefer Markdown, Org or Latex — I know it's not for everybody, but nothing beats pushing text files in Git. Microsoft Excel is king for big spreadsheets filled with fancy formulas, but for my own purposes Google Sheets has been much more user friendly and I'm the kind of guy that creates sheets for monthly expenses, tracking my weight, etc. And I've seen this going on in our team too, where Google Sheets is much more convenient. So you're paying $99 / year which is only useful when other people share MS Office formats with you. And I know this depends on the field you're in, but I can literally count the number of times that happened this year on the fingers of one hand. And sure they give you OneDrive storage too. But you only use OneDrive when you don't care about your data, because their client is a piece of shit. I tried to use it repeatedly and I witnessed serious data conflicts and sync issues within hours of installing their client and this happened several times. Dropbox is more expensive, but Dropbox actually works for the intended purpose. I did pay for Office 365 for about 2 years, until I realized that I'm not actually using it, wasted money.

mark_l_watson 7y ago
I recommend using the open source Pandoc utility for converting file formats. I agree, for collaborative editing, I also use Google docs. Anyway, we have several good choices.

thenewnewguy 7y ago

I'd seriously consider the $99/year if I could install Office on linux. I get that I'm not exactly the average user, but my options as a linux user are rather limited.

annoyingnoob 7y ago
I tend to agree. For all of the MS 'love' of linux they ignore the desktop. Most folks I know that run linux on the desktop run a Windows VM to use Office.
- jenscow 7y ago
  Crossover is used on my kid's computers for Office.
mark_l_watson 7y ago
I have two Linux laptops and I use the web versions, which are surprisingly good.

Qahlel 7y ago

which markdown editor (do) you use?

mark_l_watson 7y ago
I used to use Emacs, now I use VSCode.