4 ms·

Genuinely, what's the sell of Microsoft 365? I get MS Word, Excel whatever lock in but what is their cloud actually adding that can't be substituted? Email, ch

by Spivak 9mo ago

Genuinely, what's the sell of Microsoft 365? I get MS Word, Excel whatever lock in but what is their cloud actually adding that can't be substituted? Email, chat, video calling, and file storage? All products that have plenty of competitors. We went with 365 only because it was dirt cheap. I would think weening off Windows and the AD "Entra" stack would be a lot harder than commodity office software but at least they can self host that.

Yoric 9mo ago
And frankly, MS Word is really bad. So are pretty much of all their services. Not sure whether Excel is still good.
- hmry 9mo ago
  Being good is one thing, being compatible with existing files full of VBA macros is another. Although MS themselves apparently don't realize that, considering how they push the web version which doesn't support them?
  - Yoric 9mo ago
    Oh, the web version doesn't support them? I hadn't realized that.
    - wolvoleo 9mo ago
      It doesn't even support many basic functions of the office apps. MS was working hard on creating feature parity but at some point they just dropped everything and gave up.
- Telaneo 9mo ago
  Excel is really good for the wizards and for that one spreadsheet full of macros written by a wizard, which thus can't be ported over to Libreoffice or anything else. Many of those probably should Just™ be made into actual databases, but Excel is a lot more approachable than those, so you end up with giant spreadsheets instead. For everybody else, Libreoffice is fine as far as functionality is concerned. UI might be another story, but that's worth getting over anyway, especially since a lot of people for whom this is a problem, would also have problems with getting away from Windows as a whole, just from buttons moving and things being different in general.
  - astrospective 9mo ago
    Porting involved Excel sheets into web apps has been a decent chunk of my dev career.
    - mmooss 9mo ago
      What works best in those situations, in your experience? Do you recreate a spreadsheet, use an existing online service, and/or create a database with proper logic, etc.? If the latter, how do users handle the UI change, and can they have an ease of creation similar to what Excel provides?
      - midoBB 9mo ago
        In my experience it's mostly about understanding business requirements of people using said excel sheets and then replicating it to CRUD WebApps while keeping capabilities of importing said sheets and exporting them so user flows are unharmed till a wholesale transition is mandated. Good source of money for contractors as OP said.
  - wolvoleo 9mo ago
    > Excel is really good for the wizards and for that one spreadsheet full of macros written by a wizard, which thus can't be ported over to Libreoffice or anything else. Many of those probably should Just™ be made into actual databases, but Excel is a lot more approachable than those, so you end up with giant spreadsheets instead. Yes!! Misusing Excel as a database is really part of the problem. It also causes so many issues. Having multiple data elements within one cell. Someone overtyping a formula in a column of 200.000 values leading to one cell no longer being updated. Needing 32GB of RAM just to edit a spreadsheet with a measly 500.000 rows. All stuff that never would happen with a real database. Microsoft never really put much effort into making Access approachable.
    - iberator 9mo ago
      You could do this in Pandas with Python under like 400mb of ram
- terminalshort 9mo ago
  Bad how? Works just fine for everything I have ever needed to do with it. I'm not a power user, though, but my point is neither are 95% of users and the basic functionality is just fine.
  - Yoric 9mo ago
    I find the UI clunky and a clear regression from older versions. A family member has recently written a book on the latest version of MS Word. It's not their first book written with MS Word. It's also not the first time I give a hand to make sure that typography matches publisher requirements. I find that using style sheets has become more complicated, more limited and better hidden with successive versions of MS Word. Contrast with Apple Pages, in which style sheets are so well integrated in the UI that you barely need to think when you create a new rule. In fact, I find that even LibreOffice is much better at style sheets these days. I remember the (not necessarily good) old days when I used MS Word to create character sheets for my tabletop RPGs, or in-game newspapers, etc. These days, I would hate doing this with MS Word – and not just because I'm an open-source aficionado.
Sharlin 9mo ago
It's adding the property that it's an all-in-one turnkey solution. Which is an extremely attractive proposition compared to having a dozen separate tools. And to paraphrase the old adage, nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft.
- kaveh_h 9mo ago
  Well maybe the old adage need to change
  - EgregiousCube 9mo ago
    He did change it when paraphrasing, just now :-) I'm sure it'll be paraphrased to another company in another 30 years.
esperent 9mo ago
> what's the sell of Microsoft 365 > We went with 365 only because it was dirt cheap You answered your own question.
- Spivak 9mo ago
  Look I get that, but the parent was talking about there being just no alternative to 365 when it seems like nearly every product in the suite has plenty of competitors. It does seem like you can put your money where your mouth is in this case. You can now put a literal dollar value on how much you actually care about being tied to US tech. And it's like $20-40/user/month. Which isn't nothing but it's not untenable amounts of money.
skocznymroczny 9mo ago
The sell is that my manager can send an Excel spreadsheet to everyone and everyone can open the spreadsheet and edit it at the same times while seeing everyone else do their edits. What's the non-MS non-Google solution to this?
- mjhay 9mo ago
  Anyone can edit it and it also might get randomly corrupted. It’s crap, especially if some people are on Macs.
- Telaneo 9mo ago
  Open-Xchange supports collaborative editing of spreadsheets. Mailbox.org uses that for their email service, and you get access to their online office suite when you subscribe. I can't speak to the quality of the shared editing, but their online office suite is fine for basic stuff.
- Hikikomori 9mo ago
  Zoho.
- saguntum 9mo ago
  I haven't used any but there are several it seems: https://european-alternatives.eu/alternative-to/google-docs https://european-alternatives.eu/alternative-to/google-docs NextCloud looks ok. For some reason I thought it was open to the public, but France also maintains a full sovereign cloud office suite for use by civil servants: https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/en https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/en Maybe one day they'll open it up publicly.
briHass 9mo ago
M365 (the business plans) are an insane value, with zero competition. Remote management of devices, zero-touch provisioning of new hardware, full security suite, etc. There's nothing OSS or commercial that even comes close, especially for the price. I'm sure the average small business doesn't even use half of the functionality, but it's all there when they want to get serious about security/administration, or it can be outsourced to turnkey MSPs.
- fragmede 9mo ago
  > with zero competition Google Workspace with Chromebooks. No windows endpoints getting a virus or ransomware or some other malware. It's all about the bubble you're in. Mine, windows isn't even needed anymore for games because SteamOS is sufficiently there for the games we play.
  - jemmyw 9mo ago
    Not helping with your US/big tech dependence though
    - mjevans 9mo ago
      It's roughly the same price (or even more expensive) and doesn't include Outlook... which is THE crack application for all those windows addicts. You could absolutely nail the document compatibility aspect and it still wouldn't be enough because of freaking Outlook.
      - ccakes 9mo ago
        10 years ago I would have agreed with you but these days.. Outlook has been crapped on so much that Google Workspaces are competitive imo
        wolvoleo 9mo ago
        Agreed, the 'new' outlook destroyed everything that was good about outlook. Which wasn't even all that good by the way, it was just the best but that says more about the competition than about outlook itself.

by Spivak 9mo ago

Yoric 9mo ago

And frankly, MS Word is really bad. So are pretty much of all their services. Not sure whether Excel is still good.

hmry 9mo ago
Being good is one thing, being compatible with existing files full of VBA macros is another. Although MS themselves apparently don't realize that, considering how they push the web version which doesn't support them?
- Yoric 9mo ago
  Oh, the web version doesn't support them? I hadn't realized that.
  - wolvoleo 9mo ago
    It doesn't even support many basic functions of the office apps. MS was working hard on creating feature parity but at some point they just dropped everything and gave up.
Telaneo 9mo ago
Excel is really good for the wizards and for that one spreadsheet full of macros written by a wizard, which thus can't be ported over to Libreoffice or anything else. Many of those probably should Just™ be made into actual databases, but Excel is a lot more approachable than those, so you end up with giant spreadsheets instead. For everybody else, Libreoffice is fine as far as functionality is concerned. UI might be another story, but that's worth getting over anyway, especially since a lot of people for whom this is a problem, would also have problems with getting away from Windows as a whole, just from buttons moving and things being different in general.
- astrospective 9mo ago
  Porting involved Excel sheets into web apps has been a decent chunk of my dev career.
  - mmooss 9mo ago
    What works best in those situations, in your experience? Do you recreate a spreadsheet, use an existing online service, and/or create a database with proper logic, etc.? If the latter, how do users handle the UI change, and can they have an ease of creation similar to what Excel provides?
    - midoBB 9mo ago
      In my experience it's mostly about understanding business requirements of people using said excel sheets and then replicating it to CRUD WebApps while keeping capabilities of importing said sheets and exporting them so user flows are unharmed till a wholesale transition is mandated. Good source of money for contractors as OP said.
- wolvoleo 9mo ago
  > Excel is really good for the wizards and for that one spreadsheet full of macros written by a wizard, which thus can't be ported over to Libreoffice or anything else. Many of those probably should Just™ be made into actual databases, but Excel is a lot more approachable than those, so you end up with giant spreadsheets instead. Yes!! Misusing Excel as a database is really part of the problem. It also causes so many issues. Having multiple data elements within one cell. Someone overtyping a formula in a column of 200.000 values leading to one cell no longer being updated. Needing 32GB of RAM just to edit a spreadsheet with a measly 500.000 rows. All stuff that never would happen with a real database. Microsoft never really put much effort into making Access approachable.
  - iberator 9mo ago
    You could do this in Pandas with Python under like 400mb of ram
terminalshort 9mo ago
Bad how? Works just fine for everything I have ever needed to do with it. I'm not a power user, though, but my point is neither are 95% of users and the basic functionality is just fine.
- Yoric 9mo ago
  I find the UI clunky and a clear regression from older versions. A family member has recently written a book on the latest version of MS Word. It's not their first book written with MS Word. It's also not the first time I give a hand to make sure that typography matches publisher requirements. I find that using style sheets has become more complicated, more limited and better hidden with successive versions of MS Word. Contrast with Apple Pages, in which style sheets are so well integrated in the UI that you barely need to think when you create a new rule. In fact, I find that even LibreOffice is much better at style sheets these days. I remember the (not necessarily good) old days when I used MS Word to create character sheets for my tabletop RPGs, or in-game newspapers, etc. These days, I would hate doing this with MS Word – and not just because I'm an open-source aficionado.

Sharlin 9mo ago

It's adding the property that it's an all-in-one turnkey solution. Which is an extremely attractive proposition compared to having a dozen separate tools. And to paraphrase the old adage, nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft.

kaveh_h 9mo ago
Well maybe the old adage need to change
- EgregiousCube 9mo ago
  He did change it when paraphrasing, just now :-) I'm sure it'll be paraphrased to another company in another 30 years.

esperent 9mo ago

> what's the sell of Microsoft 365 > We went with 365 only because it was dirt cheap You answered your own question.

Spivak 9mo ago
Look I get that, but the parent was talking about there being just no alternative to 365 when it seems like nearly every product in the suite has plenty of competitors. It does seem like you can put your money where your mouth is in this case. You can now put a literal dollar value on how much you actually care about being tied to US tech. And it's like $20-40/user/month. Which isn't nothing but it's not untenable amounts of money.

skocznymroczny 9mo ago

The sell is that my manager can send an Excel spreadsheet to everyone and everyone can open the spreadsheet and edit it at the same times while seeing everyone else do their edits. What's the non-MS non-Google solution to this?

mjhay 9mo ago
Anyone can edit it and it also might get randomly corrupted. It’s crap, especially if some people are on Macs.
Telaneo 9mo ago
Open-Xchange supports collaborative editing of spreadsheets. Mailbox.org uses that for their email service, and you get access to their online office suite when you subscribe. I can't speak to the quality of the shared editing, but their online office suite is fine for basic stuff.
Hikikomori 9mo ago
Zoho.
saguntum 9mo ago
I haven't used any but there are several it seems: https://european-alternatives.eu/alternative-to/google-docs https://european-alternatives.eu/alternative-to/google-docs NextCloud looks ok. For some reason I thought it was open to the public, but France also maintains a full sovereign cloud office suite for use by civil servants: https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/en https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/en Maybe one day they'll open it up publicly.

briHass 9mo ago

M365 (the business plans) are an insane value, with zero competition. Remote management of devices, zero-touch provisioning of new hardware, full security suite, etc. There's nothing OSS or commercial that even comes close, especially for the price. I'm sure the average small business doesn't even use half of the functionality, but it's all there when they want to get serious about security/administration, or it can be outsourced to turnkey MSPs.

fragmede 9mo ago
> with zero competition Google Workspace with Chromebooks. No windows endpoints getting a virus or ransomware or some other malware. It's all about the bubble you're in. Mine, windows isn't even needed anymore for games because SteamOS is sufficiently there for the games we play.
- jemmyw 9mo ago
  Not helping with your US/big tech dependence though
  - mjevans 9mo ago
    It's roughly the same price (or even more expensive) and doesn't include Outlook... which is THE crack application for all those windows addicts. You could absolutely nail the document compatibility aspect and it still wouldn't be enough because of freaking Outlook.
    - ccakes 9mo ago
      10 years ago I would have agreed with you but these days.. Outlook has been crapped on so much that Google Workspaces are competitive imo
      - wolvoleo 9mo ago
        Agreed, the 'new' outlook destroyed everything that was good about outlook. Which wasn't even all that good by the way, it was just the best but that says more about the competition than about outlook itself.