@&#%$@^# Microsoft, Die, damn you!
 

Microsoft has gone too damn far! I normally wouldn't even be this outranged with their usual stupidity, but this takes the cake. The next version of M$ office, dubbed NGO, which stands for "next Generation Office",anyone besides me noticing a lack of creativity here, is going to have a surprise "feature" in it.

Are surprise feature is that it's going to be subscription based, and I'm not talking about an ISP, or OfficeXP Producta activation. I'm talking about a monthley subscriptioan to use MS Word, excel, Powerpoint, and so on. This is just plain idiotic!

Good by bill @#$%^$#ing gates, You can kiss my @$$ when you see me buy a Mac or a 'nix based system!

At least AOL can make decent crap, but Microsoft has hit a new low.

I hope the 9 states that are still fighting M$ win the lawsuit and start to break up the Company.

I'm not paying a monthly fee to typew my Spreadsheets and Schoolwork! Besides, think about the swiss-cheese-sized security holes M$ will have in this thing, what good can it do? None.

Death to Microsoft, and Death to crappy OS's and companies with Monoploys.

The day a Decent OS is released from Microsoft will be the day hell freezes over!

I hope everyone considers this before they decide to get another PC. If Any one gave me a ciopy of this crap, I'd spit on it, and break the disc's in half.

I can't wait for the day $ is forced to declare Level 4 Bankruptcy, I'll be laughing with Joy, they've gone too damn far this time!

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

While it does suck, it's not so bad. It will probably be easily hacked to allow free access, which lets me feel like I'm paying back Microsoft for their **** OS's.
:bunny:

db

Man, it's just so funny to see people go mad about something that you don't care about. :D

Not that I don't care, I just don't care much...

True, in a way it is. Try www.openoffice.org

But laughing at it doesn't make the problem go away, and that problem is this:

M$ has an effective monopoly on Office software (far more than they do on operating systems), which has made M$ office the standard.
Hence they can do what they damn well please.
Including anally rape you for your money.

They might, but corps will still have to fork out the dosh. Businesses come under far far more scrutiny than even the most conspicuous home user. Many businesses live in mortal fear of a software audit.

Because there is no real competition, M$ can do anything they want with Office, knowing that the entire business world (where the REAL money is) will have to follow cos they're being grabbed by the balls. Clever move.

To make this worse, even though under the antitrust judgement emplaced on them they are being forced to reveal their API's and source to developers so they can manafacture competing AND COMPATIBLE products, they've included several clauses which will stop open source software (Office's only REAL threat) from entering this sphere at all. Also clever. This has already thrown up furore over Samba/NFS (*nix protocols designed to make *nix machines work on M$ proprietary networks, epecially printer networks) technically now being illegal.

Unfortunately, M$'s failure to disclose their API's to open source developers and their continued insistence on changing the .doc format with every new version have managed to produce a product unassailable by all competition. The *nix office clients, such as the KDE and GNOME systems (as well as others, like OpenOffice or Sun's Star Office) are compatible by and large, but there are still many many issues where Office alternatives just won't work with M$ Office.

Hence, there is no competition, and M$ get to shaft the rest of the world for all they want.

Hey Cyrax, guess what the standard Office software for Mac's is? I'll give you three chances. In fact, I'll even give you a clue - it's an anagram of SicroMoft Fofice.

So basically, short of supporting open source and making sure the US actually do something about this illegal monopoly M$ has, there isn't going to be much of a light at the end of the tunnel.

Much info/news about computers can be found at www.theregister.co.uk, www.theregus.com and http://slashdot.org where you can see all of M$'s most recent rants about how terrible open source is, how great M$ software is, how it would be impossible for them to make Windows a modular system (like Linux, where you can install/run whatever products you want and heave the rest in the trash) and all the rest of it.

I wish more people would read up on more of Microsofts latest actions, cos then I wouldn't have to explain my hatred to them.

Open source software has the potential to provide high quality free software to all that require it, simply by people coding in their spare time as part of a large group. People who care PASSIONATELY about making a good product - they are simply trying to reward others who have contributed software which they have used. It would be rather a shame to see OSS shot in the foot by M$, for everyone's sakes.

Oh Pika, Belive me, I'm reading about M$, and I'm starting to hope Bill Gates has some M$ product literally explode in his face, and I've seen the Anti-trust suit, which I hope can go a little farther. As far as M$ Office on the MAC their are alternitives, at least their used to be, so I can just wipe the M$ part of the MAC systemm, but you're right about Buisenesses. They're forced into M$ Office, which sucks, and is the reason most companies get hacked into on a regular basis. I've found little ways around M$ Office's defects, but they definatly have a chokehold on Buisness right now, and unless somebody in the Government gets off their @$$, and starts putting sme restrictioons on Microsoft, they're going to continue their "World-Domination" of the PC, and it's making me sick. Sadly the only reason Apple was kept from going ankrupt a few ears back was because the Government forced M$ to help them without taking over. If I were Steve Jobs, AOL Time-Warner, Netscape, or any other Company I'd ban together against Microsoft, and try to put up a fight. As soon as people can disolve Microsoft I'll be hopeful that this "PC Monopoly" will end. As for using "Free" Version's of office, my dad's doing it with my Bro's Office 2k discs, since our copy of Office 95 was wiped out and the B@st@rds at M$ wouldn't replace it. I'd love for someone to design a irus that attacks Windows XP itself, and destroys it from the inside-out. It woul give me such great plerasure to watch Microsoft Crumble to their knees after what they've done to everyone. Their should be a law that once Microsoft is dissolved any people who wqere "forced" into Microsoft products they didn't want can still reive support for their systems via former microsoft employees that are kept under the watchful ee of the government.

Bill gates has pulled off what seems like a stupid move, and the day Microsoft is no more will be the greatest day in Histroy. In fact, I'd make it a Worldwide Holiday and party with a Week-long Vacation celebrating the world's independace from M$, because it would be deserved.

If M$ weren't around, we'd have less of a Need for Virus-Scans and Firewalls.

AOHell's done some pretty SH*TTY stuff, but nothingas bad as M$, and their very existance outranges me.

May Bill Gates die slowly and Painfully in a government prison cell. I thought the US protect against "Cruel and Unusal Punsishment", but it dosen't seem like it when you're forced into M$ software to use most of your applications. I'd love some PC companies to ban together and kiss M$ goodbye while going to support Mac's for OS's, and develop theri own Office Programs tha would make M$ look like the dung-heap it is.

Die M$, Die!!!!!:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

So, Cyrax; let me get this straight.

You're not a fan of this new tactic then?

"Where shall we make you bend over today?"

and wut OS are you using right now?

I told you, I was forced into Windows ME, because I wanted one last machine with at least partial MS_DOS support, and since it was free from my dad I chose a M$ machinbe, howeer the minte I put MY name on a bill for a PC, it won't be running anything M$ that isn't nessecary. I bought this PC for three things, games, movies, and Music. I can get the same results with Linux, and my aunt is probably going to build a Linux system as well, so I'll have a "technical" referance when I do decide to buy another Machine in a few years. I didn't mind Windows ME, only because their was some DOS compatibily, which is what I liked for older games. WindowsXP corssed the line,and when I was forced into using "OfficeXP" I was angry as ever, and I knew that this would be the last Windoze based system I buy. I've used mac's, and I can safely say I prefer them over PC's now, and I'll be trying Linux this summer on an old PC, so I should be able to maek a descision when the time comeson which system I want, probably linux, but M$ is over after this PC.

Welcome to Microsoft .NET. Sure you Windows XP users here a lot about it, I guess you forgot to realize what it was before you updated :D

Microsoft .NET service will be Microsoft's way to stop piracy. Did I forget to mention 99% of people in hong Kong use a pirated version of Windows? Of course, since Microsoft isn't making enough money as it is :rolleyes: they now have to make you subscribe to use the software. That way, they can make sure you only have it installed on one computer (unless you buy another license), and make sure it won't get pirated. Gotta pay to use it, and have your own serial number, which gets attached to your computer.

So now you guys are stuck subscribing to use your software. Sounds like fun, doesn't it? First things first, for the people that are bitching, if any of you have pirated software on your PC, don't cry, cause you're part of the reason these things happen. For the rest of you... say hello to the new iMac :D

For the record, Office v.X for Mac OS X is MUCH, like not even funny, better than the Windows version, Office XP or whatever. Seriously, it's hilarious how MBU (Macintosh Business Unit) can create so much better software than MS's PC guys. On Macs, MS software isn't too bad. IE works great, Office (including Entourage, greatest email client ever) works beyond perfectly, WMP is great, MSN Messenger is great. As long as you avoid Windows, you're good.

Did I mention Return to Castle Wolfenstein for Mac OS X just shipped, as did Norton SystemWorks 2 which now runs natively in OS X :) Time to convert my friends.

Wow, I declare this as 'the thread with the longest posts'. Or something like it. :D

Perhaps you don't understand the implications of the word "monopoly". Basically, if you want to use certain programs, what OS are you going to have to use? Windows, or to a far lesser extent, MacOS, which doesn't have half the "industrial" programs that windows supports. I know plenty of people who, although they'd rather not, HAVE to use windows. Thats the thing when you have a 90% monopoly of the home market - there's not alot of choice.

Even when OEM's tried to ship computers "naked" (i.e. without an operating system already installed) or with a non-Windows OS (Linux for the most part), Microsoft said "you can't do that".
Now OEM's who ship naked boxes are bribed to give the names and addresses of the people they sell them to, so M$ can keep tabs on them.
Dell (amongst others) used to ship PC's with Linux installed. M$ pulled a few strings and said "if you keep on supplying Linux computers we'll either raise the price of our licensing agreement so you can no longer remain competitive, or we'll withdraw your license completely". Result? Sod all companies ship Linux pre-installed any more.

Of course, this is all totally illegal behaviour, but as the antitrust settlements show M$ are easily capable of getting away with murder.

[paranoid rant]As for the .net bollocks, I have my own theory about this kinda thing. I envisage M$ wants a world where no-one owns a computer, just a keyboard, mouse, monitor and high speed net access to one of M$'s mainframes. All your files are stored under M$'s protection, and you rent storage space from them. Everything is delivered down your DSL line. Want a new prog installed? Easy, just hand over your credit card number to M$ and they'll give you oooh say a weeks access to a certain application, then you have to pay more rental.

Funnily enough, it was the Xbox whixh made me think of all this; a small PC sitting under your TV with a high speed cable comping out the back, USB ports on the front, PC architecture inside. Obviously, it's not big enough to store all those juicy Office apps that everyone loves so much, so why not just provide them online?

This was M$ get total control over piracy, cos there's no reason any more to ship out the CD's - no one will ever even get to see the binaries, let alone the source. Piracy will be shot dead in it's tracks. Your files will no longer be your exclusive property, but stored on some distant server and streamed to you, at your own expense.

Initially, this will all be cheaper than buying your own PC. Eventually, the home PC market will dwindle, and prices of ownership of PC's will rocket, so no-one will buy them, and everyone will go for the networked option, save for a few hardened M$ haters like myself, who will have to spend a fortune building our own computers and downloading copies of Linux (or whatever) from anonymous FTP servers out of M$'s zone of control. And the government and the people will happily accept all this, due to gushings of "but oh this will improve national security no end!" and all the other crap they like to come out with.[/paranoid rant]

But I digress. Sure, Office on the Mac is a helluva lot better than it is on the PC, and the mac version of IE even complies to some W3C standards (shock, horror!) - in case you don't know, much of IE goes against the web standards set down the the World Wide Web Consortium, because Microsoft now "make their own worldwide standards", much to everyone elses annoyance.
I'm still trying as hard as possible not to use any M$ software anymore ever, not just because I hate everything they stand for, but bacuse of all the security holes and "features" designed to make it easier to spy on me/bombard me with ads.

I have now given up Office in lieu of my Linux apps and NoteTab
MSN messenger replaced by Trillian ages ago, replaced by Jabber in Linux
Outlook Express - never used, I'm a Eudora fan (sorry gekko, it's way more powerful than Entourage) or Sylpheed in Linux.
IE went out the window months ago, I've been using Opera as my default browser for months. I especially like the buttons marked "block pop-up ads" and "disable.... ". It's also faster and easier to use, and sans a patch every fortnight cos it's not loaded down with all those crappy ActiveX controls. scripting and the like.
WMP has been replaced entirely by Quicktime and Winamp in windows, or XMMS (same thing as winamp - even uses the same skins) and Xine in Linux.

I now use Linux for about 80% of the time I spend on my computer, and this is solely due to a few niggling problems I'm having cos I'm a total n00b. Once these are sorted, other than for playing games I can't see any reason for me to ever boot my windows partition ever again.

Thank you Unix :D

Eudora? Ick man. Entourage is FAR better. I can't stand Eudora, ick, ick.

And what do you classify as industrial programs?

It's most certainly not the thread with the longest posts. Any number of religion threads had much longer ones (many of them by me, of course. sdtPikachu and BigJustinW were the other big contributers).

Well, never could stand entourage myself. Horses for courses I guess. I just find that it's filtering sucked compared to Eudora, and I didn't like the interface much at all; plus, from my experience anyway, Eudora has more functionality in the things I care about.

Quote:

Originally posted by gekko And what do you classify as industrial programs?

By industrial programs, I mean expensive applications that usually only businesses can afford/need (not counting cracked version obviously). Examples include photoshop, 3DS Max and a whole host of statistical modelling software and the like (but lower end than the supercomputer stuff). Uni is full of all sorts of obscure programs; the old apps run on our Unix machines (typically the Sun Sparc's), all the astronomy software runs on Linux (mainly cos it was written as a non-professional venture), and absolutely everything else runs on Windows. Some members of staff have to have two or three computers just so they can run all the software they need.

Truth of he matter is, if there's certain software you have to use, if you're lucky you can get away with a Mac, if not you're lumbered with a 'doze box.

Your average home user could get away with never using M$ Office, instead opting for one of the open source alternatives, cos compatibility isn't an issue, since the chances are the files will remain on that machine only. In business though, thos files will be mailed all over the world, meaning compatibility IS an issue.

Which is a shame really; Linux is the only OS that is not architecture specific; IBM PC's run Linux, Macs run Linux, Nokia mobile phones run Linux, Google runs Linux, great big industrial rendering engines run Linux. It's not at all difficult to port version all over the place if you have access to the source code.

The reason M$ won't do this is that they KNOW that by keeping Office on Windows (and to a lesser extent Macs) they keep everyone in the "buy our OS, upgrade!" loop. If Office was made available on the Linux platforms ( and to an extent it is, with things like StarOffice and all the rest, but thanks to M$'s frequent changing of the API's there are still many compatability issues) then they know an awful lot of businesses would migrate to Linux as their OS of choice - it would save them a fortune in licensing and security updates, and very little in terms of retraining and M$ would lose a bunch of business, which is why they're currently doing everything in their power to spread FUD about OSS and trying to halt it's development (Re: trying to make Samba/NFS illegal, amongst other things).

Oooh look, recent Register headline: "MS exec argues for right to break rivals' software". I love it when they do that.