Boyink! - Spring Forward on the Web

Just curious, as more information about the upcoming Windows and Office versions come out, what your mindset is about it.

At this point I’m not planning on upgrading - I just haven’t seen anything that convinces me that I need to spend the money on new versions of this software, when I don’t touch 80% of the current featureset.

I wonder about bigger corporations, and what the overall cost is when you factor in the purchase, rollout/installation, and training.

(And please, no MS-bashing….;)

Comments are closed, but you can read the comments other people left.

1. nate Klaiber on April 20, 2006

   Where I work we will not be making the jump for quite some time. It just isn’t cost effective for us to purchase the licenses, install on all machines, and then begin supporting it with all of the staff. Thats alot of time and money, especially for something that only has minor changes.

   As for me, well (without bashing) - ill stick to my mac and wait for leopard. :)

2. Michael Boyink (Author) on April 20, 2006

   I just watched a preview video for Office2007, and I have to say it has some pretty significant changes to the UI. 

   My impression wasn’t that there were more features, but rather re-thinking how you find and use those features.

   Nice on one hand, but OTOH we’ve seen the misuses that results from people relying too much on built-in wizards and templates.

3. AJP on April 20, 2006

   I can almost assuredly say that I won’t be getting either one. I’m always on my Mac now, and use Virtual PC for the few Windows programs I need to use. Even so, for new programs (COUGHgamesCOUGH) that come out, they’ll all be backwards compatible to WinXP anyways, I see little to no need to get Vista.

   And as far as Office goes, I get by fine with Pages, Keynote, and the occassional use of NeoOffice (OpenOffice) for spreadsheets. I have my old copy of Office XP Pro around if I need it for Windows.

   Plus the hassel of upgrading, and dealing with new version bugs, I’d rather take a more polished product than learning new features I don’t need to use.

4. sparky on April 21, 2006

   I’m happy with SuSE 10, 10.1 is due out later this month.  Crossover Office runs Office XP which I use mainly for the animation in PowerPoint.  No I don’t beat the audience up with it but use it to keep the audience where I want them, not reading ahead, etc. and emphasize points.  I digress.  I still have XP home on my laptop now, haven’t booted into it in who knows how long.  Only reason for it is so that I can run a few special GIS apps that I can’t run otherwise.

   So no, don’t plan to upgrade.  I’ll wait and see on Office 2007, I’ve read some very positive comments on it but until then I’m good with what I have.

5. Magneto on April 25, 2006

   Still very happily using Win2K. I just upgraded to 64bit hardware, but still installed 2k on the machine. I use a lot of CAD / CAM and mission critical business applications, video editing, layout, design, etc. Solid as a rock and no cartoons. I suspect I’ll cave and install XP64 soon here, but I’ll let the masses trudge through Vista for a while before adopting.

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