yes, but all said and done
a quick check of my favourite retail supplier in a few weeks time will save me approximately 100% of the price anyway. Not to name names, but uTorrent is a very handy little torrent client indeed.
MS botches Office 2010 prices, hikes Professional by £30
Microsoft got its sums wrong on the price tag for the boxed version of Office Professional 2010, forcing it to hike the product by £30. The company revealed UK prices for its Office 2010 editions yesterday, but mistakenly priced the off-the-shelf Professional version to retail at £399.99. "Following the announcement on UK …
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£399?
Still £399 more than I'd be willing to consider paying for it.
I'll stick with oO.
Prices?
Is that right then? $499 for the US version and £429 for the UK version?
"Rip off Britain" - we need an icon for that surely?
Little difference
Someone willing to waste 400 Pounds on a product that can easily be replaced by OpenOffice for free, should also be ok to pay a little bit more.
But but but
Following the perceived wisdom on this board, that would surely make them a fanboi, wouldn't it?
Coat, gotten, exiting.
Sorry but how much?
That is outrageous.
I know that is off the shelf but come on that is just silly. How can you justify that now? iWork (admittedly not as good) is just $80.
I think you have just lost yourself 130 licences, the only thing is Outlook, if I had a good alternative to that and could save in .DOC then I will be moving. I will actually be actively looking into it now.
2+2 does equal 5...
... for sufficiently large values of 2.
£429 sodding pounds 99 pence
WTF?
If it cost them a bazillion pounds to develop, with projected sales of something like 5 or 600 million, to recover their development costs & make a small profit, sales prices of 3 to 4 pounds a unit would be about right. If I'm a zero out, then 30 to 40 pounds.
Obscene.
Yes but.
It doesn't just have to recover it's development costs. It has to cover the entire cost of running the worlds largest software company because they are making fuck all elsewhere. All those loss leading xboxes. All those xbox returns. All that Vista and Win7 crap that only get a few dollars from OEM prices 'cause nobody was stupid enough to buy it off the shelf. All that 'We will buy company 'x' and make ourselves king of business opportunity 'y'". Zune FFS. Big business and government using the threat of Linux to negotiate huge discounts.
They have been spending money like water and only really have one shaky product that they can load the price on because it still has a sort of monopoly.
ye Gods!
coo.......so what does it do that's different for '07 or '03........is OpenOffice looking better by the minute?
if its anyting like the difference between 03 and 07
then all they will do is make it even less stable and move the icons to a stupid bar so you cant find anything. and they wonder why people bootleg their stuff eh?
we certainly will be dropping it if we ever upgrade. greedy bastards.
Let me be the first to point out....
...the US preinstall of Pro is $399 you say - not too bad.
Our boxed version (assuming we can't have the preinstall for some strange anti-competitive reason) is £430.
Current exchange rate is 1 USD = 0.6363 GBP so...
that's the eqivalent of $683..
which means our economic recovery must be in full swing because how else could we afford this price?
Pointing out the point-outer
Well John 29,
comparing apples to apples is what we scientists do...
The comparison then runs between $499 and $683. Which is far less bad than your peaches and apples comparison there.
Just my $0.02,
Guus
Mine's the one with Office 2010 for Partners in the pocket :-)
What??
Who the hell would pay that for Ofice? I stopped using office years ago due to its ever increasing bloat of uneeded crap.
openoffice anyone?
Stupidly expensive
I never realised that it was that expensive -- I'll just stick with OpenOffice if I need a word processor
Bloody hell over £400 for an office package
Bloody hell!! Over £400 for some office software, and M$ wonder why businesses haven't upgraded since office 2003 (some places still even use earlier versons) and private individuals (such as me) just download a torrent! 2003 does everything I need it to do, not to mention that I hate the ribbon interface in 2007.
As the 1980-es joke about a job ad for "romanian minister of economics" says
2+2?
That depends. If it is to give it is 3... if it is to take it is 5... If it is for the audited books it is 2...
And only if it is for our _OWN_ books it is 4.
lol 400 pounds haha
i've seen it all now ... 400 + pounds for an office suite???
lets see 400 + pounds or open office which does everything 2010 does but for free?
real tough choice....
£429.99? Geebus!
That is a freaking HUGE price for what is going to be, in essence, a software clusterfuck. All you anti-OOo folks might want to take another look. And maybe at a few other OS options.
Because you know you want it!
That's OK, I'll get my coat now.
60 MHz waffle irons
"Let's just hope the company didn't use Excel when compiling its price list. ®"
Perhaps they still using an original Pentium.
OpenOffice or StarOffice
I bought StarOffice (the commerical version of OpenOffice) 9 this time last year for about £60.
I purchased a Mac in September and bought iWork for about £60.
Even the student version of 2007 was only £80 - now it's gone up by another £30.
I've never ever bought MS Office and with prices nearly 7 times more expensive than its competition, I never will.
Stunned. But in all seriousness, I wonder how many companies will stump up the license fee because they either believe there's nothing else better, or they don't believe something does the job unless you pay for it.
Why would anyone...
... pay for an office package these days? Private or commercial use there's no need.
OpenOffice.org, OxygenOffice (OpenOffice with added extras), Lotus Symphony (OpenOffice with IBM's added features), Novell's edition of OpenOffice. Take your pick, they are all free!
Note to Microsoft:
Free, definition of:
Adjective describing something given or supplied without payment, adjective describing freedom from restrictive licenses, DRM, proprietory formats.
Note to El Reg:
Can't we have an icon showing that very British two-digit salute?? Please??
Really?
Standard edition with Publisher for the mass market at £50 would remove any arguement. Instead, people with either stick with older editions of BT the nuts out of this one.
does anyone actually pay that kind of money ?
If you've any connection with the NHS it's about a tenner for a legit download. Schools and other government places get huge "discounts". There's the Home & Student version at somewhere between £50 and £100 depending who you buy it from, all legit. Or the student download at £30something.
And between £100 and £200 for an OEM on a new computer.
So who are the eejits buy at £400++ ?
A pricing policy similar to Ryanair's then : as much as can be screwed from the customer.
it's certainly an interesting illustration of how MS have captured the value in the chain
You want a computer to do some work on and are Joe Average, hence MS is the way for you.
Office Suite - £400
Laptop to run it on £400
Laptop price includes, what, £40-£50 for Windows OEM?
So all those multi-billion dollar fabs making TFTs, chips & HDDs, all the sweatshops to put the bits together, the distribution chain to move the parts all over Asia and then on to your front door, and the service and support infrastructure for the actual computer, plus the R&D to improve things - all of that has to exist on £350 or less, while MS scoop up ~£450 for pushing out some recycled code with a few extra layers of lipstick on. Impressive.
Home and student edition 2007 is GBP 99 - plus corporate programs let you get it cheaper
(I'm using office 2007 as an example as I expect 2010 will be similar in terms of home and student and corporate programs)
I think office is a decent tool and does what I need - however, I would not spend 449 on it - even the upgrade price of seems excessive.
BUT
most home users should be happy for the home and student edition - at 99.99 this appears to be an okay price for software that I need, know how to use, can expect other users to be able to open/read etc (this is an example for Office 2007 - but I'm sure 2010 will be similar)
Most home users will not want outlook/publisher/access
The professional/small business editions are aimed at business - so for a start they reclaim the vat from (bringing the cost to GBP382 / 254 for upgrade). And if it is a profitable company the rest will be tax dedutible - so won't cbe as big a cost to a business as you think).
There are ways to get it cheaper - Microsoft run a home use program with my company - so I get the latest version for GBP15 (ish)
Students with a .ac.uk address in the pas have been able to get it much cheaper - so no we're not all being ripped off.
So you can get it for a reasonable price and not have to resort to piracy!!!!!
I don't think MOST home users to need outlook / publisher / access - but if you do then does open office have replacement tools for something like access??????
YES IT IS EXPENSIVE BUT THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE OF MISSING THE WHOLE PICTURE AND THEN PEOPLE REPLYING WITHOUT CHECKING THE FULL STORY
Let's end pointless "upgrading"
Most folk already have an office package.
Why do they need a new one?
correct me if I'm wrong
but open office doesn't have an outlook equivalent?
I'm thinking that's the main reason a lot of businesses will just give up and pay M$.
Anyone tried mozilla thunderbird? Is that good enough to replace outlook?
Re : Anyone tried mozilla thunderbird?
I've never used anything else ( for home use - I used Exchange in a corporate life) so I can't give you pro/con. I only use it as an e-mail client (occ. on Windows -although no more, always on Linux) I've got no complaints or niggles.
WTF?!?
£430 quid for something that barely does more than Office 97 did (13 years ago!)
They can go and ram their Office up their arses - then they can pull it out with the bloody stupid ribbon befoer ramming it up there again.
Not the amount but the exchange...
It isn't that it is priced too high, it is just YET ANOTHER case where we in Blighty get completely SHAFTED by a software company. How can they justify that exchange rate? If it was that they spent a lot of money making it 'British' I'd be a bit more sympathetic, but the ONLY thing they do is sort out the spelling dictionary (Which they still get wrong anyhoo) - they rest of the software is as US oriented as any other.
Gits.
Flex
MS flexing it's monopolistic muscles I see.
I've just tested the new Open Office, it's good, and getting better, but the killer app remains Outlook. Once there is a worth Outlook alternative MS will revise prices, until then, bend over and take it.
On another note.....
As the mystics have been saying for years and as quantum physics is proving, 2+2 *does* equal 5.
Why? Because some(one) has to be doing the counting.
Bloody heck, I must be amanfrommars's lost twin brother!
MS Office >> openoffice
you simpletons may think that oo is good enough to replace MS Office but it's not for real users. It may be good enough for you low-end users who need to put =2+2 in a cell but for the rest of us who have to do serious work, oo doesn't even come close.
Mercifully on the partner programme I'm going to get Office 2010 in my bundles as, as much as I need MS Office, I'd never part with that sort of cash for it.
Re : MS Office >> openoffice
Bol??cks !
I've used huge, complex Excel spreadsheets in a scientific environment - many so large, that Excel couldn't cope and I had to shift to JMP. Of course OO isn't as fast or quite as capable BUT for most users it's good enough given that it's FREE and runs on Linux as well. If you really need it ( or think you do) spend the money - but don't patronize - OO will run really complex sheets within its limits which are considerable. You will not build a cogent argument by exaggerating !
Now that OO supports 2007 Word files...
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/gates_horns_32.png
M$ will do there god-dammest to make another proprietary file format, thereby forcing you to buy a $40 program for $800. Or, you just use Open Document format for free. Geezus, how stupid is that marketing over there at M$?
Piratebay
And i wonder why people download from torrent site!!!!
With prices like that i could buy the new i-pad plus i-works!!!
Where have you all been?
Has everyone on this site been living in a cave the last few years and really had no clue on how much the full Office suite really costs?
And as to those who are saying "who the hell will buy Office?" I think you'll find the answer is "majority of large corporates and most of the public sector"
You don't think Microsoft makes a large percentage of it's overall revenue by giving away Office for next to now't now surely?
How much?!
Bloody hell - £430? I'm not getting into any "x is better than y" arguments here, I'm just astonished at the size of the wad they expect punters to hand over. My flabber is well and truly gasted.
Still using Office 2003 Professional...
...still does the job. Still don't see the need to replace it. :)
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