Why I’m quitting Microsoft’s not-so-sweet Office suite forever

“Full disclosure: My Office 365 installation came courtesy of Microsoft, a one-year demo license for journalists. It expires next month, so I was already planning my Office exit, so to speak,” Rick Broida writes for CNET. “The alternative: pay Microsoft $70 or $100 annually for tools that are far beyond my needs — and that apparently crash and burn when you try to add a new one.”

“The only reason I’ve continued using Office 2013 at all is Outlook, which is actually pretty nice in this version. Plus, I have a PST file containing years’ worth of email,” Broida writes. “But just the other day it was producing oddball password-error messages for one of my Gmail accounts, even though I had no trouble signing into that account on the Web. (This has happened, sporadically, for years with Outlook.)”

“Just for once I’d like to see Microsoft deliver a truly fair and affordable solution. How about Office 365 Basic: Give me Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook for $20 annually. You keep Access, Publisher, and that incredibly generous 60 minutes of Skype calls (value: about 90 cents). Better yet, let me buy it outright for that price. I have no interest in subscribing to software,” Broida writes. “That’ll never happen, though, and Outlook isn’t nearly enough to make me pay for any iteration of Microsoft Office. So, yeah, my broken Office installation was the straw that broke this cheapskate’s back.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Ludditesoft.

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