[mso] Re: Office 2003 Launch in NYC - an OT grumble
- From: "Anne Robson" <anne.robson2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 09:53:49 -0000
<Estimated retail Pricing (is largely unchanged from XP) and upgrades will
be
less:
* Student/Teacher edition 2003: $149
* Standard edition: $399
* Professional edition: $499
* Stand alones are unchanged at $229 for Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint
and $109 for Outlook 2003.>
Dian
I hate to take issue with things on this list but this is a bit different.
Sometimes the hype really gets me down when ANY new product - Microsoft or
otherwise - comes out. Does anything ever get said at these events about
pricing differentials between different countries? Or the cost to small
companies - I mean really small, like us ... Just 3 users - of paying for
upgrades to software almost every year? The best price I've seen for an
*upgrade* to Office XP 2003 Pro in the UK is GBP £250.99 or about $426 at
today's exchange rate (Amazon,
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000BX73E/ref=sr_aps_software_1_
3/026-0380714-2219640 in case anybody is interested) which is way beyond
our resources to pay for x 3, having had 2002 only for 6 months.
Our company is in financial services, and although we are small we have to
comply with a HUGE range of financial legislation, industry compliance and
other restrictions, at great expense in terms of training and other
factors. We will soon no doubt find ourselves in the situation we hit 6
months ago that the provider of one of our products, a major life
assurance company, brought out software which initially would NOT work
with XP, but in the short space of time since we acquired new hardware
with XP pre-installed they have turned it round to the point where support
for any pre-XP OS users will cease as of December. This is forcing small
businesses into having to spend large sums of their turnover on hardware
and software to keep up with changes that they don't otherwise need.
Companies like ours can't work without computers now, for all sorts of
reasons, but I really get upset when *improvements* I have no need for are
forced on us at great cost. Bill Gates may have dropped from 1st place in
the world's richest men ranking but it must take him a nanosecond to earn
$500 so these issues are peanuts to him. My earning potential is rather
slower and $500 makes a big impact in our spending power both as a
business and as a family.
It's about time MS started thinking about loyalty bonuses for clients
who've stayed with them and increased Microsoft's profit base at the
expense of their own liquidity. And looked at why it costs so much more
to buy Microsoft in the UK than in the States.
Sorry guys - I just feel really strongly about this - please accept my
apologies everybody if I sound angry but I do think this needs to be said.
Anne
*ducking down waiting for the fur to fly*
-----Original Message-----
From: mso-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:mso-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Dian Chapman
Sent: 26 October 2003 20:40
To: mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Word_VBA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; word-ms@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
MSOffice2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [mso] Office 2003 Launch in NYC
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