New Microsoft VP consigns the PC to irrelevance

Right Steve, this guy from Nokia is obviously an example of the Peter Principle, " people will tend to be promoted until they reach their 'position of incompetence' ".

Yea, but it seems he had that at Nokia. He's way over his head now.

Yeah, in a stream of feces without a propulsion device.

I have become adept at manipulating the END (excrement-navigation-device)

The OS alternatives are only one concern I have, although whs advocacy for Linus Mint-Mate offers new hope.

MS Office macros do not run on Libre Office, and as of March this year Libre Office is still unstable.
Critical losses like spread sheet data and cell notes disappearing
I did trial Libre Calc in our office earlier this year, in parallel with MS Excel (under Win-7 32bit)
In MS-Calc occasional row data would disappear including cell-notes (Cell comments)... while Excel 2003 is rock solid.

Also I am not willing to shell out for 6 AutoCad licences (again) I still run 2006 without a hitch.
In my 69th year work is fun and I envisage another 5 or 6 years of work in me yet.
My self authored Excel addins (developed over 10+ years) and distributed to a few "professional" friends (data bases for AutoCad) could also become extinct.
The biggest MS headache now is the Excel ribbon (my XLA files are MenuBar based)

As for cloud based MS Office, they have got to be kidding. Standalone PCs simply stay stable, for years on end. Internet connected PCs develop gremlins.

Lost synapses due to cancer treatment has taken the edge of my mental dexterity too, so the thought of changing camps is not my idea of fun.

I love my Android but it simply can't do what my PC does

Nokia phones aren't that great and if you look around you can buy a cheaper phone (Off Brand ) and it will have the same muscle only draw i saw with a Nokia phone is a 20 Mega pixel cam hardly the pitch i am looking for and the OS isn't all that either

I like the Linux Android OS very simple too

while these products are good to have you still need PC's for so many things

They compliment each other and one can't exist with out the other how are they going to update and create new programs with out PC plus people who can make their own apps and other tools tells me the PC is very much alive

jimbo45 said:

Office 20010 runs on WINE I've got it running 99% OK on OPENSUSE 13.1 -- and will try Linux Mate -- I'm holding off Linux Mate because a new release is just in the offing (end of may) - and once I use an OS as a desktop I don't want to have to make "unpredictable" changes.

My understanding is that Linux Mint 17 will be a Long Term Support version too. :)

jimbo45 said:

~~ Office 20010 runs on WINE I've got it running 99% OK on OPENSUSE 13.1
~~ I'm quite a heavy Macro user in EXCEL 2010 so all seems good so far -- but I'm sticking to the 32 bit version.
~~ Another solution is of course to run Windows as a Virtual Machine and then run Ms office on that when you need it.
~~ I've a post about creating a Portable Windows system that runs off an external device as a Virtual Machine on a Linux Host
~~ It's quite fun as well (you can keep XP / VISTA / Windows 7 or whatever systems running too for as long as you like !!

Jimbo, +5
This maybe good news for a dilemma I have.

I have dozens of Excel-2003 addins developed over 10+ years.
All my addins are MenuBar temp-menus (created on open). Some are installed addins and many are phantom-addins that are opened/closed through an installed master addin

The MS-Ribbon has created an enormous headache.

Are you suggesting I can make Office 2003 portable through Wine on a Linux (Mint) OS ?
- Presently I have a lot of portable Windows tools on a thumb-drive.
- Each tool is opened by a script on the thumb drive to save digging around in sub-folders to locate the EXE file.
- Not as flash as BAT files, but it works
If my Excel-2003 addins were on a thumb drive along with portable MS-Office 2003 ... it would greatly reduce the stress of re-writing the addins for the MS ribbon ... and the thought of learning a new app langauge in Libre Office or post VBA ... is a huge challenge

I am extremely interested in your suggestions.

Libre Calc without macros still has problems, with lost data + lost cell comments.
And to re-write all my addins is just a HUGE task, that I really don't have time for, especially to learn new app-programming languages. Libre-Office or post MS-Office 2010.

Your link to WineHQ and subsequent reading ...
WineHQ - About Wine
ImportanceOfWine - The Official Wine Wiki
... are heady stuff ... a lot to digest for this noobie.
The Wine DataBase implies to me ... just games.

If MS go exclusively down the cloud based apps path my security guarantees to clients are severely threatened.
And I have invested almost 20 years of expertise into Excel addins.

GrayGhost2 said:

jimbo45 said:

~~ Office 20010 runs on WINE I've got it running 99% OK on OPENSUSE 13.1
~~ I'm quite a heavy Macro user in EXCEL 2010 so all seems good so far -- but I'm sticking to the 32 bit version.
~~ Another solution is of course to run Windows as a Virtual Machine and then run Ms office on that when you need it.
~~ I've a post about creating a Portable Windows system that runs off an external device as a Virtual Machine on a Linux Host
~~ It's quite fun as well (you can keep XP / VISTA / Windows 7 or whatever systems running too for as long as you like !!

Jimbo, +5
This maybe good news for a dilemma I have.

I have dozens of Excel-2003 addins developed over 10+ years.
All my addins are MenuBar temp-menus (created on open). Some are installed addins and many are phantom-addins that are opened/closed through an installed master addin

The MS-Ribbon has created an enormous headache.

Are you suggesting I can make Office 2003 portable through Wine on a Linux (Mint) OS ?
- Presently I have a lot of portable Windows tools on a thumb-drive.
- Each tool is opened by a script on the thumb drive to save digging around in sub-folders to locate the EXE file.
- Not as flash as BAT files, but it works
If my Excel-2003 addins were on a thumb drive along with portable MS-Office 2003 ... it would greatly reduce the stress of re-writing the addins for the MS ribbon ... and the thought of learning a new app langauge in Libre Office or post VBA ... is a huge challenge

I am extremely interested in your suggestions.

Libre Calc without macros still has problems, with lost data + lost cell comments.
And to re-write all my addins is just a HUGE task, that I really don't have time for, especially to learn new app-programming languages. Libre-Office or post MS-Office 2010.

Your link to WineHQ and subsequent reading ...
WineHQ - About Wine
ImportanceOfWine - The Official Wine Wiki
... are heady stuff ... a lot to digest for this noobie.
The Wine DataBase implies to me ... just games.

If MS go exclusively down the cloud based apps path my security guarantees to clients are severely threatened.
And I have invested almost 20 years of expertise into Excel addins.

Yeah Im still trying to get used to it. It is a huge pain in the you know where to get used to the different locations of everything. (No offense to hardcore users of the ribbon)