scott wrote:
>> I would be far more sympathetic if it weren't for the fact that Open 
>> Office was put together in (comparatively speaking) five minutes yet 
>> works far better than the thing it's copying.
> 
> I guess it's really easy (comparatively speaking) if you have another 
> program to copy exactly.

Depends what it does.

For something like a word processor, which is basically 95% UI, you're 
probably right about that...

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> Depends what it does.
>
> For something like a word processor, which is basically 95% UI, you're 
> probably right about that...

Also note that OO have released a pretty much continuous stream of updates 
and patches since it was released to fix bugs and security holes, even 
though they probably have fewer users than MS has beta testing new products. 
Maybe it's just really hard and time-consuming to write bug-free software, 
and not just that MS can't be bothered after all?

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Invisible wrote:
>> Amazon has Office 2007 Home/Student version for 67 pounds. That gets 
>> you Word, Excel and PowerPoint which can be installed on up to 3 
>> machines. Doesn't sound bad to me!
> 
> Sure, but only if you're a student. That's no help to anybody else.
> 

Well, that and.. Its been more than 10 years since MS put out a 
"student" version of anything that didn't basically leave out a mess of 
features, on the grounds that you "don't really need them". Their 
versions of Visual Studio being a good example. The student additions 
where usually made so that you couldn't compile to a full executable, 
which would run separate from the design environment. Other companies 
did similar things with their products. Don't know if they changed that, 
but I don't trust "anything" that has the words "student edition" in 
them any more. lol

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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scott wrote:
> 
> It does come with a lot of computers though, again I suspect they get a
> bulk discount on Office as well as Windows.
> 

All Office 2007's I've seen coming with a computer, have been 30day
trial versions.

-Aero

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Invisible wrote:
> I would be far more sympathetic if it weren't for the fact that Open 
> Office was put together in (comparatively speaking) five minutes yet 
> works far better than the thing it's copying.

I wouldn't know, I stopped using it a few years ago.  It was buggy as 
he**, and slow as molasses at the time.

Office 2007, on the other hand, works great.  With the exception of 
Outlook (which I love, but don't use due to its crippling speed issues). 
  And it sounds like Office 2010 is going to be even better.

-- 
Chambers

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> I wouldn't know, I stopped using it a few years ago.  It was buggy as 
> he**, and slow as molasses at the time.

It doesn't seem to have got any faster:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=480

> Office 2007, on the other hand, works great.  With the exception of 
> Outlook (which I love, but don't use due to its crippling speed issues).

What's slow in 2007?  I have Outlook 2003 at the moment and would be 
interested to know before our IT people force us to upgrade.  So far I have 
no speed issues in 2003, even with almost 10GB of emails now!

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>> I wouldn't know, I stopped using it a few years ago.  It was buggy as 
>> he**, and slow as molasses at the time.
> 
> It doesn't seem to have got any faster:

Interesting...

I find OO slightly annoying at times because it lacks various features 
(or they're just well hidden), but I hadn't experienced any difficulty 
with either slowness or bugginess. (Indeed, IME it's been significantly 
*less* buggy than M$ Office...)

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scott wrote:
> What's slow in 2007?  I have Outlook 2003 at the moment and would be 
> interested to know before our IT people force us to upgrade.  So far I 
> have no speed issues in 2003, even with almost 10GB of emails now!

Checking emails.  For me, it took around 3-5 seconds per email to 
download from the server, which is crippling when you have a couple 
hundred emails per day.

Thunderbird managed to download all my emails in about 10 seconds total.

There were other issues as well, but that was the big one for me.  If 
you search for "slow outlook 2007" on the web, you'll get lots of 
examples - it seems that everyone has a different problem with it.

-- 
Chambers

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Invisible wrote:
> Oh, I see. It's actually called "Home and Student Edition". Interesting. 
> When my mum tried to buy this, it was "Student Edition" and you actually 
> had to provide proof of enrolement, etc. Apparently they've changed 
> their policy...

The Student versions that require proof of enrollment tend to be even 
more heavily discounted.

-- 
Chambers

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>> What's slow in 2007?  I have Outlook 2003 at the moment and would be 
>> interested to know before our IT people force us to upgrade.  So far I 
>> have no speed issues in 2003, even with almost 10GB of emails now!
>
> Checking emails.  For me, it took around 3-5 seconds per email to download 
> from the server, which is crippling when you have a couple hundred emails 
> per day.

That would be really annoying, I don't think our IT guys could get away with 
that here - everyone would demand they fix it, as like you most people have 
hundreds of emails per day.

> Thunderbird managed to download all my emails in about 10 seconds total.

Does Thunderbird work with Exchange?

> There were other issues as well, but that was the big one for me.  If you 
> search for "slow outlook 2007" on the web, you'll get lots of examples - 
> it seems that everyone has a different problem with it.

I guess that's why our IT people are still testing Office 2007 then :-)

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