Hi there

Since probably 90% or more of pirated copies of Office come from China anyway I'm sure Ms will actually be a WINNER on this

The Chinese have already cloned Ms office in any case -- used to be called Kingsoft Office

Free Office 2013 Download, Free Office Software - Kingsoft Office

seems to be as near identical with Ms office as is probably legal.

It's been released for Linux as well as android and is IMO much better than Libre Office.

You might find it under the name WPS Office now as well.

Cheers
jimbo

I think Microsoft is in for a world of hurt.

Declining phone sales, failure of Windows 8, a dismal App store, Office Tool knock-offs, high priced Surface tablets, and X-Box being out paced, not to mention an extremely upset consumer base. Virtually, in every market they are not tallying well. Government's switching to Linux for their server needs.

They can take a hit in a couple of markets, but not all of them. Some can be optimistic, but I wonder if we are witnessing the decline of a Roman Empire.

RBS7 said:

Some can be optimistic, but I wonder if we are witnessing the decline of a Roman Empire.

If we are, Microsoft certainly isn't doing a great job with the bread and circuses they are giving us.

King Arthur said:

RBS7 said:

Some can be optimistic, but I wonder if we are witnessing the decline of a Roman Empire.

If we are, Microsoft certainly isn't doing a great job with the bread and circuses they are giving us.

Be careful for what you wish for -- at the end of the Roman Empire were several centuries of Nasty Viscious relative anarchy( "The Middle Ages"), no disease control whatsoever (The Black Death), almost no progress in any Human endeavour, total starvation etc etc. It took a long while until around 1500 for Europe to start progressing again and even then a lot of the time was spent on various nasty religious wars - the Inquisition, Protestants vs Catholics etc etc etc.

It amazes me how people are so eager to snipe at successful companies --perhaps that's why the general level of population is sliding backwards into rather mindless mediocrity and we aren't progressing forwards as a species in the way we should be doing.

Linux - while great for servers (and here only TWO companies really make up the bulk -- SUSE/NOVELL and RED HAT) isn't appropriate for corpoerate desktop users - simply due to the almost infinite numbers of different distros around -- imagine maintaining that lot !!!

Destructive criticism is easy -- but Constructive criticism is much harder -- all those ms haters please suggest VIABLE alternatives that will work in large offices / corporate enterprises. As a Home user nobody cares - you are free to use whatever you want -- even if you feel so inclined just enter your commands in Machine code -- but that's no good for running any sort of business.

I think most people given the choice of the relative stability and prosperity of the Roman Empire in its heyday would rather have lived then than during most of the so called Middle ages (from about 800 - 1400).

Cheers
jimbo

I was just taking a jab at the history reference that was made, personally I am of the "if it's falling, let it fall" camp. As much as I love Windows (7 and prior), MS is a for-profit commercial company and if it doesn't produce merchandise that people feel like buying they will and should go under.

Time will tell whether MS can successfully crawl back out of the hole it has dug for itself.

So a dictatorship that censors the internet and other media, Monitors its own people with spies and technology, imprisons and kills people for speaking their mind now has the right to complain about possible security holes in Office?

How many legit copies of Windows and Office were actually sold in China over the last 10 years, maybe three?