Microsoft should "Just say no" to drugs.....

J

Jim Hubbard

I don't work at Microsoft (and after some of my posts I probably never
will), but I don't have to work there to spot obvious signs of the liberal
use of intoxicating substances.

Case in point.....Microsoft Office 2007. For reference, you may look at the
shart published by Microsoft that compares the new 2007 Office editions at
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/suites/FX101635841033.aspx .

I'd just like to point out something here....well, 2 things.

1) If you purchase Microsoft Office Home & Student 2007, it no longer comes
with Outlook. Outlook has been replaced with OneNote 2007. Now, OneNote
2007 is a fine, fine product. In fact I love it! But, just which bong were
they smoking when they decided that Home and Student users didn't need
Outlook 2007? Email is the most used application and service on the web.
Why would you drop that for Home users that (most of the ones I know anyway)
must email work associates and their workplace from home also?

2) OneNote 2007. If you have never used OneNote, you should. It is an
incredibly useful tool to keep all of your notes and epapers organized. In
fact, OneNote should be an integral part of Windows OS. We first see it in
the Microsoft Office Home & Student 2007 version. But then (POOF!) it is
NOT in Microsoft Office Standard 2007, Microsoft Office Small Business 2007
or Microsoft Office Professional 2007. You don't see OneNote again until
Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007. Then, it dissapperas again from Microsoft
Office Professional Plus 2007 and reappears in Microsoft Office Enterprise
2007.

Just what the hell are they doing? When did an upgraded version mean that I
LOSE applications. It wasn't like this with Office 2003 versions.

Why would Home & Student users need OnNote, but not Office Standard or
Office Professional users?

Really Microsoft....do the drugs at home and try (just try) to relate to
your users at work.

Jim Hubbard
 
P

Patrick Schmid [MVP]

The decision actually makes sense...
1) Email and a calendar is provided to home & student users for free as
part of Windows. In XP you have Outlook Express for email, and in Vista
you have Windows Mail & Calendar. A lot of people don't use Outlook for
more than just email and the calendar even though it can do a lot more.
2) OneNote is a fairly new product (only around since Office 2003). It
is a pretty big deal that it actually ended up in any edition at all (it
wasn't for 2003). Home & Student made sense because students are a major
target audience for OneNote. The big everything-in-them-packages
Ultimate and Enterprise make sense to have OneNote as well.
That would be the short explanation. The long explanation can be found
here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/chris_pratley...-is-now-onenote-2007-and-it-s-in-the-box.aspx
Especially read this comment:
http://blogs.msdn.com/chris_pratley...-onenote-2007-and-it-s-in-the-box.aspx#533965
where the blog author addresses the question you are asking
specifically.
The other comments by Chris Pratley on this blog post give even more
insight into the Microsoft decision making process on this.
He also talked about the decision to include OneNote in Office 2007
Ultimate:
http://blogs.msdn.com/chris_pratley/archive/2006/05/25/ultimate-onenote-2007.aspx

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
RibbonCustomizer Add-In: http://pschmid.net/office2007/ribboncustomizer
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
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