R.I.P. Microsoft Office.

[swarfega]

There are always alternative office suites. I for one will be keeping an eye on how far this cloud thing goes. For instance if they start charging a regular fee instead of your one time purchase then I wont be using it any more.

 

[sygnus21]

No. no... this is a no no to me... I WILL NEVER use the cloud... who can guarantee me that my data will never get lost, corrupted or hacked by some liveless nerd who likes to stole information... who will ever guarantee that my data will be more secure than in my desktop or laptop? I had never an attack on any of my systems until now, and I will never have (simply because 3rd world countries are not for hackers interest...)...

I don't trust on the cloud, just because I cannot mannage my data localy as I actually do, our data can be seen by anyone that managges the cloud, and even used against us, remember that there are many **cough** governments that are interested on know what we got on our PC's, what we do and store...

No to the cloud, yes to free computing

See ya!!!!

Ironically I heard the same thing about on-line banking and shopping

As times change and technology marches on, so will these attitudes, and then will see the same thing that we see in on-line banking and shopping today.... that is everybody does it, and no one worries about.

The thing that scares me is how Google seems to plugged into/providing a lot of information gathering tools. Do we really want one corporation to have that much info on us? And who controls it?

Just something to think about

 

[jimbo45]

I agree with OWA being pretty good.
Problem is, Archive Support. This may not sound like a big deal.
Companies would then need to invest in HUGE data stores to accommodate OWA Archives.
So, double or even triple plus on multiple mailbox sizes is going to be a huge killer.

Or, you will be telling some clients they are crap out of luck and have to save individual emails (HUGE PAIN IN THE A$$).

This would be a big step backwards in my opinion.

The whole point is to utilize the huge local hard drive free space for archiving on individual machines and train them in data back up. If the inforamtion is that sensitive, they shouldn't be archiving locally anyway.

These days you can get consumer 1 TB drives for as little as 85 USD / 60 GBP / EUR so why on earth would people be hassled into using expensive online archive systems when these devices are IDEAL for archiving and backing up data.

Just also consider the HUGE bandwidth increase that was doing nothing productive but just backing up data.

Also all these scenarios ignore the fact that you have to be connected to the Internet the whole time as well with all the security and other attendant risks that entails.

Believe it our not some people are quite happy to use computers for long periods without having to logon to the internet.


Finally Online Banking and Internet shopping as I have posted previously are TRANSACTIONAL types of tasks -- people don't have that problem with this type of activity -- like using an ATM or an automated Train ticket machine.

But doing Productive work like editing large documents, preparing presentations, composing Music, Video , etc etc are totally different types of work and can't easily be done on the cloud with any sort of efficiency at all.

Even with Youtube I think any decent quality video is developed locally before being uploaded unless you deliberately WANT people to see hideous rehearsals.

Cheers

jimbo

 

[wds7]

Maybe in 2020 ....
For now ...office still a good software for building data base ...which most businesses rely on ..

 

[sygnus21]

No. no... this is a no no to me... I WILL NEVER use the cloud...

Ironically I heard the same thing about on-line banking and shopping

As times change and technology marches on, so will these attitudes, and then will see the same thing that we see in on-line banking and shopping today.... that is everybody does it, and no one worries about.

Finally Online Banking and Internet shopping as I have posted previously are TRANSACTIONAL types of tasks -- people don't have that problem with this type of activity -- like using an ATM or an automated Train ticket machine.

But doing Productive work like editing large documents, preparing presentations, composing Music, Video , etc etc are totally different types of work and can't easily be done on the cloud with any sort of efficiency at all.

Again, my point was there were hordes of people saying they would never use those types of on-line services because of privacy/security concerns and in the end those concerns diminished. The same will happen with cloud computing.

BTW I too wouldn't want a lot of my documents in a cloud computing system either, but the rapid progress of computing technology will change these attitudes.

That's my point.

 

[abuttino]

I for one (the only one it seems) embrace the cloud. I think it makes sense for small businesses like pparks1 said and consumers.

Privacy - Your email is already stored on services like GMail, Yahoo Mail or Hotmail. Your pictures are already stored on services like Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket or Facebook. Your documents are already stored on services like SkyDrive or Google Docs. All your financial information is stored on PayPal/EBay and any e-commerce site. Your music/videos can be stored on services like Grooveshark and YouTube. Most people use these services because it makes life easier if all you need is a web browser and can sync for different machines at home, work, or on the go. I generally trust large corporations like Microsoft, or Google with my data. I believe their servers (i.e. power supplies, disk arrays, memory... I will explain this at the bottom) and networks are more redundant, reliable, and secure. If you have confidential information such as copyrights or patents, then yes it probably is better to locally store that, but nothing is 100% private/secure and if a hacker wanted to get at that information he/she will. It is up to you if you wish to disclose your information on the net, but it is in my philosophy to have a more open and transparent community.

That's a pretty vast assumption. For instance, I have no facebook, picasa, twitter, or photobucket accounts, hence no pictures of my family or friends are shared in that manner. My documents are stored on my hard drive, wouldn't let them get out ANYWHERE. My Financial data is stored by paypal in which they are two prepaid cards almost always carrying NO balance. My Music is stored locally. Why get on the RIAA's ass and make it public? I also have an off-site data redundancy backup of these files and information.

Never in the world would I trust a SINGLE company on the web to handle my information.

Also, I run an email server, web server and others, just so that my information isn't inspected by robots like google.

 

[abuttino]

Humm, I guess I don't see the issue with this, I have one account that has 2000 users on 1 Exchange Server with 10 years of email on it and complete archives. Nothing expensive about it $10,000 server including all the disk space and $8000 server for archives. Total is $18,000 for one company that is a drop in the bucket for most, especially when you look at payroll being 45.5 million a month.

Not every company has a 45.5M monthly payroll and some of these smaller companies have in-house Exchange solutions.

If a version of office goes "only online" then fine, but you cannot expect the smaller companies to take up that expense of these archives.

OWA has taken some great strides to become an "Outlook look-a-like" but as far as I know, you cannot use the Sharepoint features in OWA. I don't doubt this is planned, but it's not going to happen until Exchange 17 at my BEST guess. Still don't see companies with in-house solutions branch out for the cloud to use a copy of Office. ESPECIALLY, when they have a sales force that flies half the year and needs to get work done on the plane.

 

[pparks1]

While some are not enamored with being "in the cloud"...for small environments who do from time to time, experience problems with their in-house servers (exchange, SQL, et)....it often takes a lot of time and effort to get fixed and back online.

Compared to an internet outage, which is often pretty quick and doesn't require you to lift a finger to fix, it's not the most awful thing in the world. This could be pretty appealing for many small companies.

 

[Zen00]

If the cloud were as fast and easy to access as my local hard drive, I wouldn't mind. As it isn't, I do.

 

[GerryR]

Data on the cloud

Cloud based software may reduce the level of piracy but, as I posted over at The Eight Forums I'm still unsure how I feel about having all my data available on line.

I'm 100% with you. There are too many hackers-in-training, not to mention all out hackers looking to practice or steal. I might sound paranoid, but some hackers got into a company with whom I had done business, got my credit card, and had themselves a ball. I eventually, wasting a lot of time, was totally reimbursed, but why store anything in the cloud. If they can get through truecrypt more power to them.

 

[xarden]

If I want to use my office docs somewhere other than work or home, I have a USB key on my keyring.

 

[Tepid]

It is up to you if you wish to disclose your information on the net, but it is in my philosophy to have a more open and transparent community.

Ummmmm,,, huh?????

 

[windrider]

I personally don't like the way things are going to rely on online presence. I think that part of technology is taking things too far.
I like my Office on my own computer. I own more than one license so have it on my laptop's as well, and I just copy files on my USB if I want them on another computer.

Kind of like in games, like Silent Hunter V, where you have to have an internet connection to play..I think its stupid. There are still lots of places that have internet down for periods of time etc. When too many things rely on it, it makes things bad

And with personal stuff, I really don't trust having my things on a server somewhere. Would rather have them on my own computer
Its bad enough with banks etc. and the security they have to keep in order to keep peoples files secure. There will always be hackers out there, no matter what.

I hope they don't just force people into this. That would really suck.

 

[WindowsStar]

Humm, I guess I don't see the issue with this, I have one account that has 2000 users on 1 Exchange Server with 10 years of email on it and complete archives. Nothing expensive about it $10,000 server including all the disk space and $8000 server for archives. Total is $18,000 for one company that is a drop in the bucket for most, especially when you look at payroll being 45.5 million a month.

Not every company has a 45.5M monthly payroll and some of these smaller companies have in-house Exchange solutions.

If a version of office goes "only online" then fine, but you cannot expect the smaller companies to take up that expense of these archives.

OWA has taken some great strides to become an "Outlook look-a-like" but as far as I know, you cannot use the Sharepoint features in OWA. I don't doubt this is planned, but it's not going to happen until Exchange 17 at my BEST guess. Still don't see companies with in-house solutions branch out for the cloud to use a copy of Office. ESPECIALLY, when they have a sales force that flies half the year and needs to get work done on the plane.

Ok, I work with some very small companies as well. 1 Exchange server, 250 users, $85,000 a month payroll. Still a small price at $18,000.