Microsoft is squishing its major biz products into a single solution called – wait for it – Microsoft 365, CEO Satya Nadella announced at Inspire, Redmond's annual event for businesses that flog its wares. Not a single chair was flung, we can report. Office 365, Windows 10, and enterprise mobility and security, will be peddled …

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Monday 10th July 2017 16:21 GMT Anonymous Coward

This is so anti-competitive. They are essentially creating one massive borg bundle. So if you need to buy three things from the bundle (Windows, AD, etc), the incremental price of adding the next product is going to be less costly than any stand alone solution.... and then after they have everyone on their giant bundle, I'm sure there is no way you can extract yourself as you will have to pay the same price for the entire borg even if you don't want one of the products.

I'm sure they are doing this purely to stop Google (in productivity) and Apple, Google, Linux in end user OSs from picking off their customers. There are many companies out there that want Google G Suite, but also want Windows... or use Macs, but also want Office. They are attempting to say "if you want Windows... you're welcome to buy G Suite, but we are going to double your Windows prices if you don't buy the bundle... so give it a think."

Come on, EU. You enjoy going after American tech companies. Here is finally a situation where they have it coming.

31 4 Reply
1. Monday 10th July 2017 18:33 GMT WolfFan
  
  I'm sure they are doing this purely to stop Google (in productivity) and Apple, Google, Linux in end user OSs from picking off their customers. There are many companies out there that want Google G Suite, but also want Windows... or use Macs, but also want Office. They are attempting to say "if you want Windows... you're welcome to buy G Suite, but we are going to double your Windows prices if you don't buy the bundle... so give it a think."
  
  I went to microsoft.com and tried to find a way to get info about Microsoft 365 Business and Enterprise. I found a lot of bumf, but no real info; I went to the 'contact me' page and, after a prolonged wait, got one of their drones up on the web chat. ("unusual volume", yada-yada-yada) The drone had no clue about MS 365, but could cough up a phone number. I haven't had time to call it. I will. This should be interesting.
  
  I have a lot of Macs. If MS 365 even looks as though it will increase my costs, and it does, I will be waving bye-bye to MS products. Every single machine will be a Mac or will run Linux, probably Ubuntu or Mint, or BSD. All of them. Any machines which need office-type things (which will not include the servers) will run iWorks from Apple or LibreOffice. I can't use LibreOffice on everything as we have some iPads, and LibreOffice is, I think, GPL3 and so ain't ever gonna be in the Apple Store. No, I'm not going to jailbreak the iPads so as to get it, either. iWorks is free, even if it simply isn't as good as MS Office in many ways (in particular Numbers stinks compared to Excel) but it's _free_.
  
  Congrats, MS. I've been a Word (and an Excel!) user since 1985. I've used it on Macs, and Windows. I've spent lots and lots of money on licenses, and on training for new users, and all kinds of other things that go with using MS Office. Kiss goodbye to all that. And I'm sure that I won't the the only one who bails.
  
  Yes, I'm pissed off.
  
  20 4 Reply
  1. Monday 10th July 2017 20:40 GMT Doctor Syntax
    
    "The drone had no clue about MS 365, but could cough up a phone number. I haven't had time to call it. I will. This should be interesting."
    
    Hope springs eternal.
    
    6 0 Reply
  2. Monday 10th July 2017 20:43 GMT Doctor Syntax
    
    " I can't use LibreOffice on everything as we have some iPads, and LibreOffice is, I think, GPL3 and so ain't ever gonna be in the Apple Store."
    
    Collabora on Nextcloud?
    
    1 1 Reply
  3. Monday 10th July 2017 21:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    If you are already have Macs and Linux, just buy Google G Suite and cut the cord on MSFT. You could do Libre too, but then you still need to do something about the email, IM, file share, etc piece. Google wraps that in a bow, at a way lower cost than MSFT.
    
    I bet the catalyst for this move is that MSFT just watched Google Chromebooks take over the education space in about a year... light speed in IT terms. They are probably trying to remove the option before large enterprises do the same... and before Google has Chrome/Android to a point where it can do everything Windows can do and more. This is a classic Computer Associates move. They give you a good price on a giant bundle of software. You think you are getting a great deal. Then someone wants to remove four of the 28 components in that software bundle... CA tells you that your price will remain the same as you didn't buy 28 products, you bought one bundle.
    
    8 1 Reply
    1. Tuesday 11th July 2017 06:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
      
      if they're really sneaky, they'll wait a year or two, then make Active Directory a separate SKU for non-Entdrprise customers, and with a per-entity fee. "Entity" meaning object listed in AD, over which if course they have control - "I don't want my printers listed in AD" 'then your clients can't print to them? pity, that.' "But the former Office apps have created these AD listings, I didn't do it?" 'did you accept the license? if you did, then you authorised the AD stuff' etc etc
      
      1 0 Reply
    2. Tuesday 11th July 2017 09:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
      
      If you are already have Macs and Linux, just buy Google G Suite and cut the cord on MSFT. You could do Libre too, but then you still need to do something about the email, IM, file share, etc piece. Google wraps that in a bow, at a way lower cost than MSFT.
      
      iWorks does Pages, Numbers and Keynote and is free. To be honest, Keynote is the only one work keeping, the rest can be done with LibreOffice, but the point is that macos comes equipped with it.
      
      More importantly, you can also use it from somewhere else via iCloud apps - live collaborative working and mass web presenting is now built in to the whole suite.
      
      - email: Apple Mail or Thunderbird, but TB suffers from a lack of attention
      
      - IM: iMessage, also supports other messaging strategies
      
      - file share: not just iDrive, but also anything running webdav.
      
      - calendaring: anything running caldav - and iCloud
      
      - contacts: carddav support out of the box - and iCloud
      
      Furthermore, macos, like Linux, supports open standards out of the box for most of its applications which makes it work exceptionally well with Linux - so we use both.
      
      2 0 Reply
      1. Thursday 13th July 2017 02:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
        
        Problem is that all of that Apple stuff lacks the enterprise features, like DLP, eDiscovery, vault/archive, etc. Not bad, but consumer focused.
        
        0 0 Reply
  4. Tuesday 11th July 2017 08:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    I have a lot of Macs. If MS 365 even looks as though it will increase my costs, and it does, I will be waving bye-bye to MS products. Every single machine will be a Mac or will run Linux, probably Ubuntu or Mint, or BSD. All of them. Any machines which need office-type things (which will not include the servers) will run iWorks from Apple or LibreOffice.
    
    We're well ahead of you there, we dropped the whole Microsoft circus years ago because we have very high security demands - losing Microsoft saved us a LOT of work.
    
    I am not sure LO on iOS would be that much of a stretch, after all, there is such a thing as NeoOffice for macos (interesting because it fixes the one really irritating deficiency of LO, the inability to use the macos method to insert accented characters).
    
    Could be an interesting project for next year's law students to sort out, must have a word with the Uni we work with :)
    
    1 0 Reply
Monday 10th July 2017 16:27 GMT eswan

"We are transforming the way we partner with you," corporate VP Ron Huddleston intoned.

"Pray we do not transform it further".

44 0 Reply
1. Monday 10th July 2017 18:31 GMT Fihart
  
  Another cynical abuse of language.
  
  "We are transforming the way we partner with you,"
  
  In other words we are not your partner but, rather, have become an abusive spouse.
  
  13 3 Reply
  1. Monday 10th July 2017 19:00 GMT bombastic bob
    
    Re: Another cynical abuse of language.
    
    cynical? More like "manipulative sales-speak"
    
    The only way they "partner" with us is that we accept their crap, and they relieve us of our money. That's not a partnership, last I checked. Unless they're equating it to something sexual, of the BDSM variety...
    
    5 4 Reply
  2. Tuesday 11th July 2017 04:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Re: Another cynical abuse of language.
    
    At Microsoft, "business partner" == "organ donor".
    
    5 1 Reply
2. Monday 10th July 2017 20:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  The new way
  
  "We are transforming the way we partner with you,"
  
  Undoubtedly from the rear.
  
  7 2 Reply
3. This post has been deleted by its author
Monday 10th July 2017 16:28 GMT lafnlab

Inspire...

me to use LibreOffice.

30 3 Reply
1. Monday 10th July 2017 17:42 GMT Fred Tourette
  
  Re: Inspire...
  
  Couple that with some flavor of Linux and you really can get out from under the Redmond Beast. And the for moment, the current version of LibreOffice can open up an Excel workbook, fondle it, close it back up, and a gen-u-ine Excel user can open it back up without finding it mangled.
  
  The years keep finding me with fewer and fewer reasons to boot into the Dark Side.
  
  13 4 Reply
  1. This post has been deleted by its author
  2. Wednesday 12th July 2017 14:03 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Re: Inspire...
    
    Couple that with some flavor of Linux and you really can get out from under the Redmond Beast.
    
    Also works with macos, btw :). I have a couple of friends who are already "living Linux" (read: Linux desktop), but when we tried that in our office it just wasn't feasible. Apart from LibreOffice and, at a stretch, Thunderbird there isn't that much quality desktop software and we do need to get work done.
    
    Sure, you can eventually get people going on things like GIMP and Scribus but we found it easier just to give them a Mac or a Macbook and be done with it - easy to manage, good overall cost profile and fairly simple to secure. As desktops go, they do the job very well and people generally take to them in days, even if they have been using Windows for years.
    
    That said, when it comes to servers I wouldn't use macos because, umm, how do I say this gently, macos utterly *sucks* there :). We use Linux there, plus the odd FreeBSD deployment to break up cascade failure risks where they would affect critical systems (the nice thing with a lot of FOSS tools is that they don't care that much what platform you run them on).
    
    1 0 Reply
2. Monday 10th July 2017 17:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: Inspire...
  
  LibreOffice is great value for money (duh), but when using Calc I often find I need to write macros to do things that Excel can do out of the box. Sliding scales on charts, for example.
  
  But really, coupling Windows and Office for home users like myself would be the one thing that would make me switch to Linux.
  
  3 2 Reply
  1. Monday 10th July 2017 19:06 GMT bombastic bob
    
    Re: Inspire...
    
    "I often find I need to write macros to do things that Excel can do out of the box. Sliding scales on charts, for example."
    
    Please submit these to the Libre Office developers. If they're on github, you can do it in the form of an 'issue' with a request like "please implement the functionality as shown in this macro" or something.
    
    Someone just might do it! Or it could end up in a macro library, and others will benefit.
    
    THIS is how you "pay for" open source. Contribute something you don't mind giving away, something that could benefit everyone. It adds up, yeah, especially bug fixes or feature enhancements.
    
    21 2 Reply
3. Monday 10th July 2017 21:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: Inspire...
  
  It is kind of crazy that LibreOffice, or G Suite, or any open standards productivity suite can do everything a business needs it to do... but no one uses it because of the formatting issues. There should just be a giant meeting of global CIOs where they all agree to switch to Libre or the open standards suite of their choice within six months. That would end Office right quick. It is just a Catch 22, no one can do it because no one has done it.
  
  5 1 Reply
  1. Tuesday 11th July 2017 00:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Re: Inspire...
    
    We switched our little company to Libre Office, but found we had to keep an old copy of Office 98 as well, as a local government department would always send us vital information in a "Newsletter" formatted with weird Excel activeX elements, that meant no other program could display it in a readable form.
    
    The same department would also only send us forms related to education grants via fax..............
    
    We sold the business 2 years ago, and they were still at it, frigging faxing documents in 2016!!!
    
    Age Concern are another, they sent me some info last week that was full of activeX scripts and formatted for Office 98. I mean, I know they have to DEAL with old people, but they dont have to ACT like them; jeezus, I know people in their 70's and 80's who manage the switch to Libre Office with no issues.
    
    4 1 Reply
    1. Tuesday 11th July 2017 03:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
      
      Re: Inspire...
      
      Google has come pretty close to nailing MSFT Office formatting. They have an Office compatibility mode in addition to the open standards. It isn't completely perfect, but pretty close. Definitely will work. If you need to send something externally, you can always just share the link in G Suite and the external party can open it with a Google account. Doc still resides in your Drive. That gets around the issue as everyone, everywhere has access to a Google account and can use their viewers and editors.
      
      2 3 Reply
      1. Tuesday 11th July 2017 04:25 GMT Charles 9
        
        Re: Inspire...
        
        Unless someone us BARRED from using Google accounts for security reasons (eg. High security airgapped area). Plus what if a critical links DEMANDS use of MS products due to scripts or whatever (and has the power to resist any push to change, could even push back and terminate conteacts)?
        
        1 6 Reply
        
        Tuesday 11th July 2017 06:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
        
        Re: Inspire...
        
        have worked at a place where the contract itself stipulated Microsoft Office to be used for all documents. Then again, have also got younger relatives whose schools mandate Microsoft for doing homework, and teach MS use rather than computee use ....
        
        2 1 Reply
        
        Tuesday 11th July 2017 14:03 GMT WolfFan
        
        Re: Inspire...
        
        have worked at a place where the contract itself stipulated Microsoft Office to be used for all documents.
        
        So have I. LibreOffice used to screw up formatting; they've got a lot better. iWorks used to have problems (Pages hated doing borders and fills in a way that worked with Word, for example) but that is also no longer the case. Work in LibreOffice or iWorks and export to MS Office formats when you're done. They won't know the difference. In particular the senior management drones who insisted on MS Office in the first place won't know the difference. The main problem is spreadsheets. Numbers stinks, and there are a lot of add-ins for Excel which may be required. That is, in fact, the main drawback to leaving MS Office: Excel is, simply, the best spreadsheet currently available. No-one else is even close.
        
        Then again, have also got younger relatives whose schools mandate Microsoft for doing homework, and teach MS use rather than computee use ....
        
        If all they want is a completed file, again LibreOffice and iWorks can do most of what's needed. If you have to actually step through MS Office, then at school get a copy of Office for Education (free! but just one license, and I think it expires after 4 years) or Office University 365 ($80, two licenses, expires after 4 years) and use that. You can stick it into a VM, which would keep your main system free of MS cruft.
        
        For everything else use LibreOffice and/or iWorks. Or, I suppose, G Suite. Never used that last one, so I don't know how well it can match MS Office output.
        
        3 0 Reply
      2. Tuesday 11th July 2017 07:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
        
        Re: but pretty close. Definitely will work
        
        New to IT? Pretty close != Definitely will work
        
        0 2 Reply
        
        Tuesday 11th July 2017 10:54 GMT Dazed and Confused
        
        Re: but pretty close. Definitely will work
        
        But then that's true of Office too. Just because it formatted your document yesterday doesn't mean it will format it today. Hell it might even go back to formatting your document correctly tomorrow, who knows. But when it comes to Office the phase "Definitely will work" does not apply, the best you can hope for is "probably will work" or even "usually works*"
        
        OK, so i'm pissed off at the moment, last week PP in O365 decided to replace all the "_" characters in my presentations with funny square boxes and changing the widths of lots of text so things didn't fit where they should have. Then after a reboot it went back to displaying things correctly.
        
        (*) for a given value of works.
        
        4 0 Reply
        
        Tuesday 11th July 2017 11:03 GMT Peter Gathercole
        
        Re: but pretty close. Definitely will work
        
        I believe that Office formatting will still change if you change the printer that you want to use.
        
        Whilst GDDM has pretty much solved the font issues that used to plague changing the print device (by rendering the page in the computer before it gets sent to the printer), differences in non-printable margins on printers can still cause pages to render differently. Quantization errors in mapping the print resolution between devices might also make a difference.
        
        1 0 Reply
        
        Tuesday 11th July 2017 14:05 GMT WolfFan
        
        Re: but pretty close. Definitely will work
        
        I believe that Office formatting will still change if you change the printer that you want to use.
        
        Word definitely will. PowerPoint and Excel don't care. Access is... Access, a.k.a. the Spawn of Satan.
        
        3 0 Reply
  2. Wednesday 12th July 2017 14:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Re: Inspire...
    
    hat would end Office right quick. It is just a Catch 22, no one can do it because no one has done it.
    
    Alas, you may be overlooking something. Microsoft's lock on the desktop isn't through Word or Excel or Powerpoint. It's Outlook, and so far there has not been a viable replacement. Fix that (especially if you can make it talk raw to an Exchange server) and THAT's when you break the hold they have.
    
    1 0 Reply
Monday 10th July 2017 16:31 GMT Anonymous South African Coward

And so the Borg have finally arrived.

Mine's the one with the Open Source powered escape interstellar lifeboat in the pockets

8 3 Reply
Monday 10th July 2017 16:38 GMT theOtherJT

Can anyone clarify...

...if this means that we have to buy Windows and Office together and won't be able to decouple the two? Does this also mean that we're onto a rolling subscription charge to even use Windows? I'm a little confused.

4 0 Reply
1. Monday 10th July 2017 17:11 GMT conscience
  
  Re: Can anyone clarify...
  
  Not sure it's the only option, yet... but all it would take is for the sale of individual copies of each to become unavailable (or unrealistically priced outside of the bundle) and that's exactly what just happened.
  
  9 0 Reply
Monday 10th July 2017 17:09 GMT Anonymous Coward

Will they try to trademark "365" now??

Just asking.

(Where's the "gets popcorn" icon)

10 1 Reply
Monday 10th July 2017 17:15 GMT DagD

why sell software...

when there are countless dumb arses out there that will pay a "subscription" (i.e. pay for the software over and over again...).

8 3 Reply
Monday 10th July 2017 17:22 GMT Ole Juul

missing link

Now all we need is 365 internet.

4 0 Reply
1. Monday 10th July 2017 20:52 GMT Simon Harris
  
  Re: missing link
  
  365 internet?
  
  That's never going to happen- not while I'm on Virgin anyway!
  
  6 0 Reply
Monday 10th July 2017 17:23 GMT whoseyourdaddy

Suddenly, I'm glad I kept my sister's ancient Macbook Pro.

Redmond/Seattle area must be approaching NYC in living costs.

I'll be sure to remember that next time a recruiter calls.

2 0 Reply
Monday 10th July 2017 18:09 GMT Dwarf

Perhaps

Perhaps when they can demonstrate that they can deliver some of their products on a 365 basis without the mandatory Russian roulette of downtime and the constant need for patching to stay on the supported version, then I might look again. Until then - I've got customer deadlines to worry about and I might go and look up the terms of the trade of descriptions act about false advertising. 365 implies always available.

A good start would be to define the "supported version" of all products as a number of years that is larger than the number of fingers a person has on one hand, not this "upgrade every 18 months to stay in support" plan that doesn't fit with the business change plan of any real company.

Microsoft. Take a look at the amount of new legislation that has to be met, the amount of testing (yes, that word again) that has to be done and look at where fiddling with the OS comes in the plan of "running the business"

10 1 Reply
Monday 10th July 2017 18:14 GMT Anonymous Coward

The awful support

First hand engagements with pro-support and Cloud support. Utterly kack experiences. The likes of Wipro et al fronting and blatantly lying when called out. The cost of premier support being stupidly high. I fear the worst is yet to come. But I’ll say this. Once you’re in the cloud there isn’t no chance in hell it’ll be easy gtfo. This is akin to outsourcing mark 3. Mark 1 being the boom, 2 the bust (think IBM) and three the boom again.

5 1 Reply
Monday 10th July 2017 18:29 GMT TVU

"We are transforming the way we partner with you"...

...correctly translates as "We are transforming the way we extract cash from you (and not to your advantage either)".

8 1 Reply
Monday 10th July 2017 18:53 GMT Joe User

"We are transforming the way we partner with you," corporate VP Ron Huddleston intoned.

"The same way that we 'partnered' with you during the development of Windows 8."

4 0 Reply
Monday 10th July 2017 18:58 GMT Chronos

Have you read the blurb on their blog?

Jesus tittyfucking¹ Christ, it's like someone was playing buzzword bingo and just spewed the winning card onto the web server. They do try their best to make mundane, soul-destroying, humdrum crap sound really exciting - usually by making up new words.

The bottom line is still "give us your cash and we'll give you a permanent headache" though.

¹ Sorry, I don't usually pepper my posts with the f-word if I can help it but I'm afraid, having tried to read that mush, I needed an expletive commensurate with the crimes against humanity committed on that blog.

9 2 Reply
1. Monday 10th July 2017 19:13 GMT Inventor of the Marmite Laser
  
  Re: Have you read the blurb on their blog?
  
  Whadya mean "Buzzword Bingo" The word "leverage" wasn't used ONCE in any context, let alone as a verb. The announcement was obviously writtem by a rank amateur.
  
  9 0 Reply
  1. Tuesday 11th July 2017 09:55 GMT Mugwump7
    
    Re: Have you read the blurb on their blog?
    
    From the 'Business Applications' Section, 3rd Paragraph.
    
    "Microsoft is uniquely incenting its sales reps to work hand-in-hand with Azure partners to drive new business together and enabling partners to leverage the Microsoft salesforce to grow their business globally."
    
    And while we're at it, what the hell is 'incenting' ???
    
    2 0 Reply
2. Monday 10th July 2017 19:14 GMT bombastic bob
  
  Re: Have you read the blurb on their blog?
  
  you need more upvotes for that
  
  [I often use 'FEEL' instead of the traditional 'F' word, because every time someone in a position of power 'feels', I end up getting FUCKED]
  
  How do you say 'F-U' in government-speak? "We FEEL..."
  
  Or, in THIS case, Micro-shaft speak. And apparently they've invented a few more synonyms, as you so eloquently pointed out: "usually by making up new words."
  
  5 5 Reply
3. Monday 10th July 2017 22:51 GMT a_yank_lurker
  
  Re: Have you read the blurb on their blog?
  
  Slurp is a crime against humanity /snark
  
  3 1 Reply
Monday 10th July 2017 22:00 GMT Lee D

Maybe if they weren't paying reps 10%+ of everything in perpetuity in order to push products that... pretty much... everyone knows what they're buying when they ask for it, they might be able to avoid such subscription nonsense.

Maybe they could reduce the prices of those ridiculous Datacenter licenses, for instance, or change the stupendous licensing for remote workers, SQL and Exchange to be something a bit more sensible. Because, to be honest, even working for a school, I do everything possible to avoid having to pay Microsoft for things like that (no, schools do not "get it free").

If the MS licensing was more free and easy, and not "per user, per year" even on your own hardware, I'd make a lot more use of it. As it is, even with some reduced licensing on user-numbers (charged per full time teaching employee), and quite lax installation restrictions for windows / office numbers on clients, I still don't think I'm getting value. Include the Azure / 365 shite and it quickly becomes ridiculous.

If MS want to make one licence, include server stuff in it too. Every 50 users you pay for, you get a free single set of Exchange/SQL/Server licences, or similar. Then I would consider it worthwhile, and licensing becomes much easier overnight.

As it is, I do everything in my power to avoid having to pay any more than I already do. Down to literally choosing processors carefully because of stupid software licensing rules.

3 0 Reply