[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
The screenshots definitely look very different to my not very current version of MS Office. If anything, they are busy and complicated. I can understand why people may try an alternative product when the "same" newer version of the product is so radically different. It certainly puts into perspective the feedback of the noted differences between OOo 1.1.x and 2.0 Beta.
Remember, the one thing even the most staunch MS hater agrees that MS is good at is *Marketing*. Those screenshots were carefully hand crafted. If they looked busy, MS wanted them to look busy.
I think the screens they had were "busy" as you put it to display as many functions per screenshot as possible. In a corporate office, a "busy" worker is a productive worker - and a "busy" office suite is a productive one - at least in apperances (which can also be said of the worker). If I have 15 windows open in my office program, it appears (and that's what we're talking about in screenshots), that the program is doing 15 things. I think those screenshots were designed for that purpose.
Certainly, MSFT are targetting enterprise customers with a lot of related and tentacled products. But you do need fairly recent hardware and the MS Windows OS to run the new office offering.
Of course - but that all plays into MS's plan anyway. From the site that Gavin said orginially had the story posted, the next generation Windows OS ("longhorn") is going to need like 3.0 GHz 512MB *MINIMUM*. Bigger, better, faster, newer.... That's how Bill Gates got rich.
Why would Microsoft want you to have to buy a new computer? Because that's the only way that they can be 95% certain that you will actually *PAY* for their operating system. Since they know none of the big dog computer makers would *DARE* sell pirated Windows, if you have to buy a new system to get Longhorn, then you *will* pay for Longhorn. The answer is don't run Longhorn. But if that's the plan, then buying a new system really isn't needed anyway. (Assuming the one you have is working, and if you're reading this email, it most likely is.)
That all being said, you don't have to have a new system to run MS Office. Office 2003 runs fine on 500 Mhz with 128 MB. I can't speak from experience any lower than that - but it works as well as OOo at that level. I mean, they are both slower than they are on a faster box - but neither is unusable. I've have Office XP on a 233 Mhz with 64 MB of RAM - same system ran StarOffice 7 just fine - ungodly load times, but once it got going.... I never put 2003 on anything lower than 500 MHz, but I never saw a need to.
I don't know the system requirements for this latest breed of MSO - but I doubt they'll be higher than 1 Ghz. MS can get people to buy new PCs for Windows - but not so much for Office.
-Chad Smith
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