Office 2007 Ultimate £40 for students, worth it?

[Geoff]

Indeed, the web GUI on my switches sucks in comparison to what I can do via the CLI. Same issue with the Linux servers. Windows is the only situation where it's the other way round really.

I don't really use Office these days, so it doesn't affect me. However I can't really complain about Microsoft trying to make their GUI work better. It's something that needs to be invested in and constantly improved.

However, I don't think the CLI is going away any time soon. Infact I think it'll be always there in the background for the power user to explore and exploit. For example, Windows just got a massive upgrade in the CLI department with the release of PowerShell, didn't it?

[localzuk]

I'm not talking about geeks, I'm talking about normal users - who these programs are for. Obviously, a CLI is easy to use for someone who is trained to use it etc... (eg. I am perfectly at home using one) but for, say, the receptionist, having them type endless commands into a CLI in order to do work is not as simple as a nice friendly GUI with a ribbon, which can be speedily accessed via no end of shortcut keys.

I am simply feeling now that you have not used the ribbon for a prolonged period of time.

[enjay]

I just don't find the ribbon very usable. There is nothing wrong with menus and toolbars

That's exactly what the ribbon is, though; it is a collection of toolbars, you just don't have to look at or waste space with them when you don't want them. Some functions in Office used to be buried deep beneath lots of layers of menus - the ribbon means that these same functions are only two or three clicks away. Vertical cell alignment in Excel is a good example - this requires something like 8 mouse-clicks in Office 2003, and only 2 in Office 2007.

[CyberNerd]

I'm just not convinced by the ribbon yet. Competent Office users will be using keyboard shortcuts which obviate the need to go deep into layers of menus, novice users will just insist on re-training to use the ribbon rather than traditional menus.

Google apps are improving, openoffice is updating faster than ever and
today IBM released IBM Lotus Symphony office suite. for free.
(it supports odf too!)
http://symphony.lotus.com/software/l...hony/home.jspa
take a look

When there is such a wide range of free office software available I don't see why anyone would want to part with £40.

as for CLI - I'm sure you've all tried documenting a windows system setup with the plethora of screenshots, in a cli environment you just copy and paste a text file - it's much easier for complicated tasks!

[m2d2]

How about this site

Full Microsoft Office 2007 for £61 pounds!

They have a testimonial from Steve Beswick at Microsoft so the site may be legit.

[CyberNerd]

your post made it clear. MS is really worried about ODF becoming dominant in the educational and government sector. Becta already recommend ODF but not OOXML for schools (a fact that RM/Ramesys/Capita/etc seem to be ignoring because it's not making them money). Now that OOXML (which isn't properly implemented in Office 2007) won't get fastrack ISO status MS are really trying to get education hooked into their new format (which only MS can properly implement) hence the knockdown price. The ribbon is just the icing on the cake because they can use the retraining argument against Ooo/google/IBM/Sun/Novel in a few years time.