Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft's Biggest Cash Cow Meets Vegan Society

Cash cow



Summary: Why Microsoft Office is having an ongoing crisis where people's tools of choice undergo transition

MICROSOFT'S biggest cash cow (by far the biggest) is Microsoft Office, but Office figures were down in the last financial report [1, 2, 3] (Microsoft used Vista 7 as a red herring to distract from that).



The matter of fact is that there is something going for stripped-down, simple, Web-oriented (portable), highly interactive, and/or ODF-complaint tools that achieve the same goals as Office, usually without clutter and notorious "Ribbon" interfaces. They are also less expensive and can be more uniform across platforms and parts of the world.

Microsoft Office is essentially a carriage in an age when more people start discovering automobiles. According to this report, Microsoft's plan of offering a cost-free (gratis) version of Office is becoming true, as expected.

When Microsoft launches its latest business and personal software suite Office 2010 on Wednesday in New York, it will introduce a free version, Office Web Apps, to compete with Google.


Google is not Microsoft's only competition, so this is misguided. Both options are proprietary by the way (we can recommend neither), but only Google supports ODF. OpenOffice.org is best known as the Free/libre solution and Microsoft is trying to derail it too.

The important point to make here is that Microsoft is cannibalising its own products in the whole process, all because of fierce competition. The Office business is down and, barring events-driven fluctuations, Windows revenue declines too (Microsoft is dumping and lowering prices to fight against and stave off GNU/Linux).

According to Mercury News, Microsoft Word is becoming increasingly passé too.

The reason: Orbit Baby needs someone who is confident, outgoing and, perhaps most important, technology-savvy. Hei says a traditional Microsoft Word document wouldn't necessarily show him the skills he's looking for. The person hired will have to be comfortable leading demonstrations in groups and using video communication programs like Skype to talk with clients.


What about PowerPoint? How about the following from the news:



It is a paradigm issue. GNU/Linux does not necessarily encourage use of office suites because historically it's a platform for many scientists. Many users just use LaTeX (maybe with a front ends like LyX or Kile) to actually compose letters and write documents that mean something and convey meaningful information. As for mail, programs like Outlook are being replaced by Web-based mail (an increasingly richer experience with decent filtering and portability), aided further by ECMs, CMSs, and microblogging/IM.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 01/06/2025: "Vibe Coding" Turns Out to be a Fraud and Amazon Merits Boycott, Argue Bloggers
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/06/2025: "Stardust" and Ideal PC Setup
Links for the day
Links 01/06/2025: Windows TCO, Openwashing, "It's FOSS" Still Promoting Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/06/2025: Simplification and Networks Everywhere
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 31, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, May 31, 2025
Google Bribes EFF. EFF Promotes LLM Slop as 'Fair Use'. To GAFAM It's a Low-Cost Lobby Hedge.
So the bribes pay off ("slush fund") and the word spreads
Slopwatch: Fake Text and Images, Financial Bubbles, and Scams in "Intelligent" Clothing
Sometimes what they mean by "AI" is just cheap labour somewhere else, as we discussed in IRC a few hours ago
Why Microsoft is Collapsing (Similar to What's Happening at IBM), As Insiders See It
IBM seems like one heck of a mess
Reliable Computing Means Free (Libre) Computing
Sites that want to promote security ought to deal with the biggest issues
Links 31/05/2025: US Court Orders Sides With RFE/RL, War Updates From Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/05/2025: ARM Server and power_supply Subsystem
Links for the day
Links 31/05/2025: Slop Stigmatised as Disinformation, Catalyst/Driver of "Death of Communication"
Links for the day
Common Sense 101: Do Not Write Blog Posts Saying You Want to Murder Colleagues (or Yourself)
Only crazy people would think stabbings are a joke
Microsoft Bankruptcy
"Microsoft unit in Russia to file for bankruptcy, database shows"
Techrights Does Not Compete With LLM Slop, It Exposes the Bastards, Plagiarists and Scammers Who Do That
People like Scam Altman, still facing a lawsuit from his own sister for sexual abuse against her
Links 31/05/2025: Microsoft-Connected Builder.ai is a Fraud and US is Purging Students Based on Race/Nationality
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Limmat, Doomscrollers, and Arguments Parsing
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 30, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 30, 2025
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble Already Popped, But It's Not an Overnight Collapse
where Microsoft put its money
No More Steven Astorino at IBM, Chatter About Weekly/Nonstop Layoffs at IBM
What happened? Good luck guessing.
Looking at Corruption in Europe, Going Beyond the EPO
Expect a new series to kick off very soon
Slopwatch: Security SPAM and LLM Slop for SEO and FUD Purposes, Perpetually Tarnishing the Perception of Linux and (Open)SSH Security
A lot of this Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) comes from Microsoft and its LLMs
Links 30/05/2025: Google's LLM Slop Pushers Are Killing Journalism and Shira Perlmutter Fails to Stop Bribed Regime From Legalising Plagiarism (in "AI" Clothing)
Links for the day
Links 30/05/2025: Offline Arts and "Threshold of Patience"
Links for the day
Signing Off Serious Lies With a Statement of Truth is No Joking Matter
It's not hard to see what's happening here
Links 30/05/2025: LLM Slop Already Ingests and Vomits Its Own Garbage, Facebook Exec Admits Copyrights a Concern Too
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Result in More Whistleblowers From Microsoft
Microsoft's predatory pricing is further
Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu Became LLM Slop and Some People Fail to See the Immorality of Plagiarism
it lessens the incentive for people to publish real articles
EPO Poll: 68% Dissatisfied With Quality of Slop (Wrongly Framed as "AI") for Patent Classification
Slop does not work, it's just falsely advertised with extra hype (funded by slop pushers that sponsor the major media)
Big Crowds Gather to Learn About Software Freedom From the Man Who Started GNU/Linux in 1983
"It was a great success"
Microsoft Layoffs Again in Bay Area
Microsoft relies on people's false belief that being "in LinkedIn" will get you a job; well, seems like even working inside LinkedIn really sucks and you lose the job
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Fighting Against the Bad News, and Slop is Dehumanisation Disguised as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 29, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 29, 2025