Microsoft Plans "Office Genuine Advantage" Tool
Will they ever learn?
Friday, July 28, 2006 by Zoomba | Discussion: WinCustomize News
Despite the issues encountered with WGA, Microsoft remains committed to the Genuine Advantage program and plans to go forward with a tool targeted at the Office suite of applications. And already, users testing out the new tool are reporting cases of false-positives. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, the writer behind "The PC Doctor" blog, says OGA flagged his valid copy of Office as pirated, though he has no idea why.
Read the article at ComputerWorld for more details on OGA.
Reply #2 Friday, July 28, 2006 5:19 PM
Several of my friends have had to toss out their pirated software and look for legal alternatives, because they couldn't get important updates, tools, templates, etc.
Adamness, in our company most of the employees use 5% of what MS word is capable of.. they also use 5% of what their pentium 4's are capable of. But the type of business we do, and the need to have complex tables, calculations, etc, shared between different companies neccesitates using Office as opposed to, say, the very capable MS Works. WIth the pentiums, we need floating point. Same sorta deal.. lions locked in cages but you gotta have it.
Reply #3 Saturday, July 29, 2006 5:02 PM
Reply #4 Saturday, July 29, 2006 5:32 PM
Reply #5 Saturday, July 29, 2006 7:01 PM
| MS is going to stop supporting or improving it soon |
Office2000 is good on support till 7.14.2009
Reply #6 Saturday, July 29, 2006 7:21 PM
| Since my stuff is legit, I don't really mind WGA or even OGA |
I mind. I remember when the government wiretapping deal came out, people said they had nothing to hide, so they don't mind being listened in on. This isn't the point at all. WGA and government wiretapping basically means that Microsoft and the government assume we're guilty, and then invade our privacy to prove innocence (or not).
Microsoft has a right to prevent piracy, but I don't think they need to keep checking in on us as if we were little children.
And DesignCaddy, unless I'm mistaken (which I very well might be), OpenOffice can save files that are not only compatible with MS Office, but can save in the MS Office formats as well. Of course, for large companies it might suit them better to keep MS Office, but the average consumer could certainly switch to OpenOffice with no troubles. (Except a few hundred dollars in their wallets they'll have to figure out what to do with.)
Reply #7 Monday, July 31, 2006 8:49 AM
I've tried OpenOffice, and unfortunately it just doesn't measure up to MS Office yet. There are many places where Write doesn't do as well as Word, where Calc isn't as feature-rich as Excel, and their presentation app is lightyears away from PowerPoint (and I *HATE* PowerPoint). The project also suffers from the whole "We DON'T do things like MS Office" attitude, where they intentionally in places work opposite of how MS does things because they consider their way the better one. And despite claims, saving and opening MS Office docs in OO is still flaky, and porting the docs into MS gets weird too
In order for OpenOffice to really take off, they need to match every major functionality feature of MS Office at the very least. There needs to be as little of a learning curve as possible. And to overtake MS, they need to have all the features PLUS something that just blows MS out of the water.
Reply #8 Monday, July 31, 2006 10:32 AM
You also have a choice to enroll. If the software is important enough to you that you must have it, you must accept the terms of the maker. In wire tapping and so on, you have no choice.
Early on, the verification process was extremely annoying. To download a list of powertoys, for example, you would have to keep downloading verification files and punching in codes every time. It seems to be streamlined a bit, but i would still prefer that it verified you ONCE and then remembered who you are for future verifications of the same product.
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I tried using open office the other day on a test machine.. it took so long to load, i ended up just walking away from it and forgetting about it
it also doesn't help you with secure forms and the office review process - a feature i love in Word.Please login to comment and/or vote for this skin.
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Reply #1 Friday, July 28, 2006 12:11 PM