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/connections/domain/registering-ac/eligibility/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.

[ConTheITGuy]

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

[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/lotus/symphony/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.