Microsoft begins their downhill here

[Gonz]

This may be the last straw. How many companies or individuals will give in to this extortion?

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) - Microsoft Corp.'s next version of its Office business suite will run only on the two latest editions of the Windows operating systems, the company said.

The new version, codenamed Office 11, will be compatible only with Windows XP and Windows 2000 for security and reliability reasons, Microsoft spokesman Jason Carson said Wednesday. Office 11, which is now in beta testing, is scheduled for release in mid-2003.

Although some people may not like being forced to upgrade their operating system, it still makes sense, said Frank Gillett, principal analyst for Forrester Research.


"There's an awful lot of companies out there who are mad at Microsoft," he said, noting some businesses' dissatisfaction with a new licensing program Microsoft has adopted.

No support for 95, almost none for 98, 2000 goes away in a couple of years. It's making openoffice look better & better.

 

[Jeslek]

I don't think I will need to upgrade anyways... What is that Office going to offer me that I can't already do?

 

[unclehobart]

Might as well bitch that Detriot doesnt support the 62 Fairlane anymore. Product lines become dinosaurs and get left in the dust all of the time across all industries.

 

[Dave]

yeah, but you can still get parts for '62 fairlanes.

 

[unclehobart]

Those arent coming from Ford anymore though. Those are being made by independent outsider indutries that saw a niche for a business and filled it. A carb probably comes from Korea, points from Bulgaria, camshaft from barneys camshafts in Akron.. bla bla.

 

[Dave]

the point was that you can still get parts. once microsoft says "no more" for a product, i doubt you'll find a small software firm in singapore that will provide support foir those products.

 

[unclehobart]

They might just sell the rights to do such a thing if a driving market presents itself. Hackers have never sought permissions for their fiddling and tweaking. Hardcore types will still twiddle and tweak. Computer coding is constanly beign written and revised with differing language kernels and depth and such. The old stuff really is old... not so much a labor of love like antiques and cars. The cyber age seems to have an obsolecense rate of less than 18 months now.

 

[Gonz]

With support for an OS becoming history, they should release it's source code & allow others to continue to improve upon it.

 

[unclehobart]

heh... no way that'l happen. Gotta keep that core coding a secret lest the money mill grind to dust.

 

[HeXp£Øi±]

A little off topic. A friend of mine is a software programmer who keeps globally up to date on these issues, he says that Microsoft has seriously backed off on the palladium issue in China and is having second thoughts on it all together in that part of the world from fear of driving away corporate giants and the like since the piracy of software is so rampent there. Anyone keeping informed on this? I've heard nothing else on the subject.

 

[Inkara1]

Ford kept producing some of the parts for the '62 Fairlane (I have one ) for quite a long time. The 221 V8 that came out with it in the start of '62 production led to the 260 (which mine has), which led to the 289, which led to the 302 that was produced from 1968 until 2000. I could take the heads off of the 302 in a 2001 Explorer and bolt them right onto a 289 out of a 1964 Fairlane, or a 302 in a 1968 Torino.

 

[Janimal]

Two points. First, car manfuacturing, and support, are vastly different than software manufacturing and support. Cars don't change a whole lot from year to year, thus they become obsolete far more slowly. Software is still changes vastly from year to year.

Second point. From my perspective, I'm kind of glad MS will limit support. It will make my job a whole lot easier since the software my company makes supports multiple versions of multiple OS's and applications (as well as multiple brands of applications). Fewer platforms supported by MS will translate into fewer platform combinations for our teams to test.

 

[Luis G]

i don't care, i'll keep using office 2000.

 

[Bubba]

fuck microsoft