Office 2007 Ultimate £40 for students, worth it?

[PeterW]

Office ultimate 2007 for students

Lets here your thoughts, if only it was this price for everybody I'm sure there would be a lot less piracy

[GrumbleDook]

The restriction to FE/HE students (those with .ac.uk email addresses) is a bit of a pain.

I wonder how it affects the few schools with .ac.uk domains?

[john]

Do many schools / colleges actually have .ac.uk domains? Also it does show in the T&Cs that they wouldn't be valid anyway but I feel they should open it up to all educational establishements.

[CyberNerd]

openoffice 2.3 is released tomorrow, it has a cool mediawiki export for wikipedia, and better 3d charts along with other improvements. did I mention it uses ODF ? rather than a wannabe ISO standard that can't get accredited!

wrt ac.uk - IIRC its essentially prohibited for schools as NGL needs .sch.uk , one of our local 6th forms has ac.uk by going through LENSE in the South East

[GrumbleDook]

There are a few independent agreements between UKERNA, LAs and SSAT to allow CTCs / Academies to be linked to nearby Universities. Because they connect via JANET it was felt that the .ac.uk domain was applicable. The schools involved also have the choice of the .sch.uk if they wish it.

It's a politics thing.

[srochford]

Do many schools / colleges actually have .ac.uk domains? Also it does show in the T&Cs that they wouldn't be valid anyway but I feel they should open it up to all educational establishements.

We (London FE College) have a .ac.uk domain and I'd expect most FE colleges to be the same.

http://www.ja.net/services/connectio...ity/index.html has the details of who can have .ac.uk but the key thing is that you are principally a tertiary education provider.

[mrforgetful]

We have .ac.uk email.

I think it sounds like a good offer, as long as the process is easy enough for them to do without nagging me, and that they dont' keep coming asking what Groove and OneNote are.

As for the new Open Office, does it have a nice clean, modern, easy to use interface whereby features can be accessed quickly and not have to be searched out in a plethora of sub menus?

[webman]

Open Office? No... it has a nice clean, modern, standard, consistent interface that people are used to.

[mrforgetful]

hmmm, I'm not sure if wanting to stick with the same old tired interface is the best way to promote any product. If so surely we'd still be using a command line?

This is IT, things have to develop.

Everyone (even the biggest technophobe) I've got to try Office 2007 has hated the interface for an hour or so but after that they all agree it is a massive improvement and are using features they never did before.

[enjay]

Everyone (even the biggest technophobe) I've got to try Office 2007 has hated the interface for an hour or so but after that they all agree it is a massive improvement and are using features they never did before.

Agreed - I recently put Office 2007 on my office PC (everyone else is still 2003) and, in general, I like the new interface and certainly find it quicker to access the less used commands. There are some funny omissions from the standard ribbon icons - namely New, Open, Save and Print - but these can all be added to the custom bit.

The way that many more icons are available on the ribbon should also help those people who don't know where to find a particular command, as they can "browse" round them much more easily.

Some recent MS changes are change for change's sake (Vista Aero, for example), but Office 2007 is a definite improvement.

[Geoff]

We have a .sch.uk domain. However I could faff things using our old .lea.ac.uk domain if I cared enough.

[andy]

We are still on the lancashire ac.uk, as I suspect are a lot of lancs schools. They have been asking for a while now that schools change to the sch.uk, but they don't seem to be pushing it too much.

Andy

[webman]

hmmm, I'm not sure if wanting to stick with the same old tired interface is the best way to promote any product. If so surely we'd still be using a command line?

Erm, not exactly. There's consistency and standards; and then there's MS. And what's wrong with the CLI?

[localzuk]

hmmm, I'm not sure if wanting to stick with the same old tired interface is the best way to promote any product. If so surely we'd still be using a command line?

Erm, not exactly. There's consistency and standards; and then there's MS. And what's wrong with the CLI?

Actually, the ribbon design has been slowly becoming more popular in a variety of applications - such as Blender. To say that consistency and standards is important is one thing, but allowing GUI design to stagnate is another. As mrforgetful says, we'd all still be using the CLI otherwise - which would be a bad thing. Computers become easier and more user friendly as gui's evolve. No-one can say that the CLI is an easy to master method of using a computer when compared to a GUI.

I think you are arguing simply because you don't like the fact that change is forced upon you when you get the new software, rather than being able to choose. But, as a user of the new ribbon, I find it much faster to use and learn.

[webman]

No-one can say that the CLI is an easy to master method of using a computer when compared to a GUI.

I'd disagree with you there. It depends on the task you want to carry out. CLI has its places as does the GUI.

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