[WS:] I agree that Excel is a pretty good product, but my issue with it is of a "moral" or rather "political" nature i.e. that of the control over the tools of trade (which has been a centerpiece of the 20th century labor-management struggle.) Microsoft uses planned obsolescence in their products, and depends on its monopolistic market dominance to force that obsolescence down the throats of everyone, whether one likes it or not. That creates problems for people like me, who use their products for a living. The only way to fight back is to use alternatives, but that becomes problematic when such alternatives are of inferior quality.
Case in point. My employer, a solidly Microsoft shop, recently forced an "upgrade" to Office 2007 on their systems. That created multiple problems for me to the point that I refused to use their machines and I bring my own laptop to work. Of course, I can invest my time in learning how to use Office 2007, which has been totally changed from the previous version. However, I do not think it is the best use of my time, since in all likelihood, Microsoft will use planned obsolescence in two or so years, and will rearrange Office 2007 to something new. A better use of my time is to find an alternative that is not likely to be subject to planned obsolescence to the degree that MS products are. Hence my interest in open source software.
PS. I wonder why the business community acquiesces to Microsoft planned obsolescence scam. It must cost them a bundle in lost productivity and extra training, not to mention the cost of the software itself that offers pretty pictures but not necessarily greater functionality.
Wojtek
--- On Fri, 3/27/09, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] software question
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Friday, March 27, 2009, 1:49 PM
>
> On Mar 27, 2009, at 1:28 PM, ravi wrote:
>
> > I am lucky enough to never have to touch
> Word/Excel/PowerPoint etc (for my work).
>
> Why? Word & Excel are pretty good. Is it some - Carrol
> alert! - moral issue? Functionality issue? What?
>
> Doug
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>