Would you use Office 2000 after support ends next month ?

[Bob]

Hello,

The bulk of my users work with office 2000 sp3, a handful have office 2002
sp3.

I know MS is ending support July 14th - upgrading is an issue due to buying
new licensing for a newer versions would cost a lot of $$, and with this bad
economy asking for money is difficult... We would not upgrade to 2007 as
users have tried it/don't like it. We would upgrade to 2003 if any....

I see there are not many patches for office, not like the Windows OS,
Internet Explorer. So with that I think, hummmm may not be as big a risk as
not patching an OS or IE.

Your opinion ---- would you continue to use office 2000 in your domain
knowing that MS is no longer releasing security patches ?

I also tried some users on Open Office - many can not use it as it lacks the
same functionality that MS office has.

Thanks,
Bob

 

[Tom Willett]

: Your opinion ---- would you continue to use office 2000 in your domain
: knowing that MS is no longer releasing security patches ?
:

My opinion: Yes, I would.

 

[JoAnn Paules]

(My employer uses Office 2003 and I use Office 2007 at home.) One problem
with not upgrading is that I suspect that Office 2000 will no longer be a
qualifying product for future releases of Office. They seem to drop off one
version each time. I'm going to be surprised if it qualifies for Office
2010. If you think it's difficult asking for money to upgrade, try asking
for money to buy full versions.

Eventually you're going to have to do something. Something won't work in a
future OS, disks will get broken/lost, etc. And you are not doing your
employees any favors by not encouraging them to use the newer programs. If
they only have a couple of years before they retire, they aren't going to
care. But what about the younger employees? Can you guarantee them
employment for the rest of their working years? How easy will it be for them
to find a job 5 years from now? No, you don't owe them training for their
next employer - but I would think that you would encourage them to develop
their skills.

You also need to consider that as more employers use the newer versions,
they will eventually use a feature that is not available in the 2000
version. How do you explain to the client that he can't do that because your
employees want to use software that is no longer supported.

Just a little rambling food for thought...

 

[Bob]

(My employer uses Office 2003 and I use Office 2007 at home.) One problem
with not upgrading is that I suspect that Office 2000 will no longer be a
qualifying product for future releases of Office. They seem to drop off one
version each time. I'm going to be surprised if it qualifies for Office
2010. If you think it's difficult asking for money to upgrade, try asking
for money to buy full versions.

Eventually you're going to have to do something. Something won't work in a
future OS, disks will get broken/lost, etc. And you are not doing your
employees any favors by not encouraging them to use the newer programs. If
they only have a couple of years before they retire, they aren't going to
care. But what about the younger employees? Can you guarantee them
employment for the rest of their working years? How easy will it be for them
to find a job 5 years from now? No, you don't owe them training for their
next employer - but I would think that you would encourage them to develop
their skills.

You also need to consider that as more employers use the newer versions,
they will eventually use a feature that is not available in the 2000
version. How do you explain to the client that he can't do that because your
employees want to use software that is no longer supported.

Just a little rambling food for thought...

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]
Tech Editor for "Microsoft Publisher 2007 For Dummies"

Hello,

The bulk of my users work with office 2000 sp3, a handful have office 2002
sp3.

I know MS is ending support July 14th - upgrading is an issue due to
buying
new licensing for a newer versions would cost a lot of $$, and with this
bad
economy asking for money is difficult... We would not upgrade to 2007 as
users have tried it/don't like it. We would upgrade to 2003 if any....

I see there are not many patches for office, not like the Windows OS,
Internet Explorer. So with that I think, hummmm may not be as big a risk
as
not patching an OS or IE.

Your opinion ---- would you continue to use office 2000 in your domain
knowing that MS is no longer releasing security patches ?

I also tried some users on Open Office - many can not use it as it lacks
the
same functionality that MS office has.

Thanks,
Bob

Hi JoAnn,

Thanks for the reply ----

What is the "full version" as you mentioned above ? I got a quote for "open
license", and that is a bit over $300.00 per user.

thanks,
Bob

 

[macropod]

Hi Bob,

Until you change to a platform that doesn't support Office 2000 (eg Vista doesn't fully support Outlook 2000), there's probably no
need to worry. As you've probably noticed, there hasn't been much happening on the patch front for Office 2000 over the last few
years - and that hasn't stopped it working.

 

[Harlan Grove]

. . . But what about the younger employees? . . .

....

Since when has it been the employer's responsibility rather than the
employee's responsibility to look out for the employee's ability to
leave and go to work for a different company, possibly a competitor?

Where is it written that these younger employees can't buy home PCs
with more recent versions of MS Office?

Employers don't owe their employees newer versions of any software.
Employers, more specifically the IT departments, owe their
stockholders a duty to operate as efficiently as possible. If the risk/
reward for the business (not for younger employees) favors older
versions, those are what should be used. Only when the risk/reward
favors newer versions should companies upgrade.

You also need to consider that as more employers use the newer versions,
they will eventually use a feature that is not available in the 2000
version. How do you explain to the client that he can't do that because your
employees want to use software that is no longer supported.

....

This gets to the risk/reward trade-off. If most of one's customers
have upgraded, then upgrading becomes a necessity. OTOH, if there's
negligible file sharing with customers or vendors, there'd be
negligible benefits from upgrading.