4 ms·

Why the past tense in so many of these posts? Windows and especially Office are still an efficiency and $$ tax on businesses and consumers around the world. I

Why the past tense in so many of these posts? Windows and especially Office are still an efficiency and $$ tax on businesses and consumers around the world. I would guess that 1% of Office sales are for folks who "need" the functionality of (most likely) Excel over what is offered by OpenOffice, Google Docs, etc. All the rest are driven by the effective monopoly of the Office file system "standard." I am happy to pay for great products, like my MBP, but these aren't great products - even after decades, Word is still a <NSFW> to use.

OrwellianChild 13y ago
I don't understand your argument... The popular standards in all proprietary formats exert a "tax" on businesses and consumers in the context you describe. Witness Adobe with Photoshop and Flash, Apple with iOS devices, etc. Yet people pay the $240/year for the Photoshop license instead of a one-time $30 for Paint Shop Pro (or free for GIMP). It's not a conspiracy - everyone else using the same ecosystem as you has external benefits and that's why people buy in. It's not just that Excel is powerful (and it is...). It's that as a user, I have access to all the pre-made macros and VBA tools from an army of other users. I have the availability of help from a plethora of well-staffed volunteer forums. I have the ability to natively open any XLS, XLSX, XLSM, and XLSB file that a colleague or customer sends me. I think it is unwise to underestimate the power and privileges gained by working in the dominant ecosystem. People don't part with their money that blindly or lightly - it is the easy choice to go with the herd on many of these decisions rather than paving your own road with a (relatively) un-tested marginal player.
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  You are conflating two completely different properties of MS Office: (1) product functionality (e.g. macros) and ecosystem, and (2) proprietary file format lockin. I'm objecting to the latter, when it is a virtual monopoly, and I'm suggesting that the vast majority of Office sales are for the latter reason, not the former.
  - OrwellianChild 13y ago
    So, by extension, the vast majority of Photoshop sales are due to PSD lock-in? And the vast majority of Apple sales are due to iOS lock-in? I'm seeking a distinction here. If my statements about Adobe and Apple are not true, what makes Microsoft different?
    - auctiontheory 13y ago
      I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you're not trolling me; this has been widely discussed for years ... Apple and Adobe do not have the segment market share that Microsoft does with Office. More importantly (to me), people buy Apple and Adobe products because they want to. People buy Microsoft Office because they have to. And they feel they have to not because Office has functionality that is so unsurpassed to help them get work done, but for one reason alone: file-format lock in. As if, and again this is hardly original with me, a private company controlled the protocol to make phone calls and forced you to buy their (overpriced, crappy) phones to access the phone network.
      - OrwellianChild 13y ago
        Guarantee I'm not trolling. I simply disagree with your appraisal of the situation. This is the quote I have the most problem with: "People buy Apple and Adobe products because they want to. People buy Microsoft Office because they have to." By what possible criteria could you assert this? Each company exists in a free market with multiple competitors - the very ones that you wish people would use instead of the leaders (e.g. OpenOffice or Google Docs). Furthermore, in certain segments (like cloud-based office offerings), people are migrating in droves to Google Docs. They held between 33-50% user share in 2012 according to Gartner.* This is not the behavior of a locked-in market. *Cite: http://rcpmag.com/articles/2013/04/23/google-apps-vs-microsoft-office.aspx http://rcpmag.com/articles/2013/04/23/google-apps-vs-microso... Finally, an AT&T-style hardware infrastructure monopoly is not in play here. File formats don't lock you out of word processing any more than iOS apps keep you out of the smartphone business. They just offer a perk. I can't get every cool app on my Android phone. That doesn't mean that Apple is exerting a tax on me. It's just a selling point I have to consider.

OrwellianChild 13y ago

I don't understand your argument... The popular standards in all proprietary formats exert a "tax" on businesses and consumers in the context you describe. Witness Adobe with Photoshop and Flash, Apple with iOS devices, etc. Yet people pay the $240/year for the Photoshop license instead of a one-time $30 for Paint Shop Pro (or free for GIMP). It's not a conspiracy - everyone else using the same ecosystem as you has external benefits and that's why people buy in. It's not just that Excel is powerful (and it is...). It's that as a user, I have access to all the pre-made macros and VBA tools from an army of other users. I have the availability of help from a plethora of well-staffed volunteer forums. I have the ability to natively open any XLS, XLSX, XLSM, and XLSB file that a colleague or customer sends me. I think it is unwise to underestimate the power and privileges gained by working in the dominant ecosystem. People don't part with their money that blindly or lightly - it is the easy choice to go with the herd on many of these decisions rather than paving your own road with a (relatively) un-tested marginal player.

auctiontheory 13y ago
You are conflating two completely different properties of MS Office: (1) product functionality (e.g. macros) and ecosystem, and (2) proprietary file format lockin. I'm objecting to the latter, when it is a virtual monopoly, and I'm suggesting that the vast majority of Office sales are for the latter reason, not the former.
- OrwellianChild 13y ago
  So, by extension, the vast majority of Photoshop sales are due to PSD lock-in? And the vast majority of Apple sales are due to iOS lock-in? I'm seeking a distinction here. If my statements about Adobe and Apple are not true, what makes Microsoft different?
  - auctiontheory 13y ago
    I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you're not trolling me; this has been widely discussed for years ... Apple and Adobe do not have the segment market share that Microsoft does with Office. More importantly (to me), people buy Apple and Adobe products because they want to. People buy Microsoft Office because they have to. And they feel they have to not because Office has functionality that is so unsurpassed to help them get work done, but for one reason alone: file-format lock in. As if, and again this is hardly original with me, a private company controlled the protocol to make phone calls and forced you to buy their (overpriced, crappy) phones to access the phone network.
    - OrwellianChild 13y ago
      Guarantee I'm not trolling. I simply disagree with your appraisal of the situation. This is the quote I have the most problem with: "People buy Apple and Adobe products because they want to. People buy Microsoft Office because they have to." By what possible criteria could you assert this? Each company exists in a free market with multiple competitors - the very ones that you wish people would use instead of the leaders (e.g. OpenOffice or Google Docs). Furthermore, in certain segments (like cloud-based office offerings), people are migrating in droves to Google Docs. They held between 33-50% user share in 2012 according to Gartner.* This is not the behavior of a locked-in market. *Cite: http://rcpmag.com/articles/2013/04/23/google-apps-vs-microsoft-office.aspx http://rcpmag.com/articles/2013/04/23/google-apps-vs-microso... Finally, an AT&T-style hardware infrastructure monopoly is not in play here. File formats don't lock you out of word processing any more than iOS apps keep you out of the smartphone business. They just offer a perk. I can't get every cool app on my Android phone. That doesn't mean that Apple is exerting a tax on me. It's just a selling point I have to consider.