From TNPC issue #4.13...

Al's Ongoing Office eXPerience

by Al Gordon
June 28, 2001

I last wrote about Office XP back in TNPC #4.09. At that time I noted that Office 95 users would benefit the most from upgrading. Several readers then wrote in to complain that Microsoft was not extending upgrade pricing to Office 95 users.
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/413/tr.cgi?alz1

So I asked Microsoft's spokespeople for the straight scoop. The official response, "Microsoft updates its qualifying upgrade list with more recent product releases to reflect the versions of Office that most of its customers are using. Given that most of its customers have purchased Office 97 or 2000 licenses or upgraded to those versions, they've updated the Office XP qualifying upgrade list to include Office 97 and 2000 only."

OK, got that, Office 95 users? Had you been one of Redmond's favorite customers you would have kicked in some bucks for Office 97 or 2000 and to thank you for keeping the cash flowing they'd put you on the yellow brick upgrade path. But since you didn't, they are going to get it from you now with interest. Sad to say, this is going to happen more often in the future as the incremental improvements in Office become more and more marginal, and the company frantically moves to protect its Office cash cow.

I actually think Microsoft's plan to shift its sales model to annual licensing (instead of version licenses) may be a good idea--if, and I stress IF--it leads to continuous improvement and bug-fixing in its software instead of silly attempts to go with a "latest and greatest" new package every 18 months.

I, for one, am sick of this ongoing process in which the current version of Office or Windows approaches decent reliability around Service Pack 2 (Microsoft always seems to take three shots at anything before they get it right), at which point a new version comes out and the whole process starts over. NT4 went to SP6 and- -not surprisingly--was darn near bulletproof. But, given the XP upgrade situation, customers can be excused for having a really bad feeling about how the transition to annual licensing may play out.

You can reach Al Gordon at:
mailto:al@TheNakedPC.com

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