MS was asked about this some years ago in response to the oft-quoted claim that most people only use 5% or whatever of its features. MS's reply was : "yes but they don't all use the same 5%."
It's interesting that every so often in so-called "bloated" products a vendor tries to streamline and is met with irate customers complaining that such and such features have been removed.
Wouldn't it be nice if they designed the product as a framework with plugins, so you could just install the bits you wanted?
MS was asked about this some years ago in response to the oft-quoted claim that most people only use 5% or whatever of its features. MS's reply was : "yes but they don't all use the same 5%."
In my experience, people use less than 5% of the capabilities of an app.
As said previously they all use a different 5%.
I remember using Quattro Pro for windows. You could even print non-contiguous blocks (can you even do this in excel 2010?). It cost £29.50 inc vat when excel cost 200 or 300.
Office was cheap when it first came in. Once it became dominant other commercial vendors had to become cheaper to get much of a look in.
As to features even the best product will never be better than all competitors in every respect. It's always a package deal - what you think is best overall.
They use IE because they don't know any better even though other browsers were/are superior.
That's true to an extent. It's also true that many users couldn't care less about browsers, such that they will just use the browser that happens to be already present on the OS. This applies both to technical and non-technical users.
Wouldn't it be nice if they designed the product as a framework with plugins, so you could just install the bits you wanted?
Bye, bye, bloat, and everyone's happy.
Well, the Firefox model was supposed to be "here's a streamlined browser and if you want feature richness, we have this extensions model." But now everyone moans that it's bloated (even without extensions) and that extensions slow it down. Chrome seems to be headed the same way. (Though personally neither browser seems bloated to me. I'm just reporting what people say.)
Others moan that features available through extensions should be part of the core product. You see this with applications such as Microsoft Visual Studio as well. So you can't win.
In your opinion others are superior. Believe it or not, some people actually prefer IE. I did.
:eek:
You preferred IE even when it was IE6???
Not just my opinion, but yes, overall still an opinion. Mind you I have to put up with IE7 at work and that is just shite, so that kinda colours my opinion.
In your opinion others are superior. Believe it or not, some people actually prefer IE. I did.
You can probably rank the different browsers objectively by criteria such as feature richness and various performance characteristics. But browser choice is subjective in that whether you care for, or how you rank the importance of, these features is up to the individual.
Wouldn't it be nice if they designed the product as a framework with plugins, so you could just install the bits you wanted?
Bye, bye, bloat, and everyone's happy.
It would be all modular and object oriented and slow and bitch to manage. It all looks nice on paper, but real life programme often requires to make compromises for better performance.
:eek:
You preferred IE even when it was IE6???
Not just my opinion, but yes, overall still an opinion. Mind you I have to put up with IE7 at work and that is just shite, so that kinda colours my opinion.
IE6 was fast with a clean interface. I didn't install all the crappy toolbars which slowed it down my relatives machines that we all got asked to fix. I didn't want the plugins firefox offered. When i tried FF it crashed all the time, forgetting my favourites.
My machine wasn't infested, FF was as bad at work in a corporate environment, where i also used IE6.
No, I'm not suggesting they are. It's subjective at the end of the day (as you alluded to earlier)
I was fairly stunned, when learning html, to find that scripts were needed to accommodate 'quirks' in browsers, particularly IE, so that colours my opinion too.
Actually, that was the last time I preferred IE! At the time IE 6 came out it was the best IMO. As were IE 4 and 5. Today (for me) things have moved on to such an extent that these browsers are now dreadful.
Not just my opinion, but yes, overall still an opinion. Mind you I have to put up with IE7 at work and that is just shite, so that kinda colours my opinion.
A while back at work I was in a locked down IE 8 environment. You couldn't even change the Internet options. I did badly miss my preferred browser.
No, I'm not suggesting they are. It's subjective at the end of the day (as you alluded to earlier)
I was fairly stunned, when learning html, to find that scripts were needed to accommodate 'quirks' in browsers, particularly IE, so that colours my opinion too.
Ah, now thats a different thing. Because i've never actually worked in web development i dont have that against it so much, though i am very aware of it. I have things in my industry i detest for similar reasons.
As a technIcal user though, i had no problems with IE. I still dont, though i just prefer chrome instead, and i'm not sure why. Probably its clean UI again.
Today's browsers are also fast with as clean an interface as you want (though network latency renders speed differences insignificant anyway). IE 6 was fine for its time but is now woefully under-featured for me.
I didn't install all the crappy toolbars which slowed it down
I only ever used to install the Google Toolbar. In those days its value proposition was much higher than it is today. Never noticed any perf issues. Never bothered with other toolbars.
When i tried FF it crashed all the time, forgetting my favourites.
Every browser has some users who report that it "crashes all the time." I've never experienced this with any browser (I've experienced crashes of course but not of the "all the time" variety). What am I doing wrong?
I doubt people use 5% of Office, may well be nearer 2%.
Before I retired I would sometimes have to produce handouts/slideshows/spreadsheet sometimes for maybe fifty students and rather than print out perhaps a thousand sheets of A4 I'd take it into uni and use their printers. There is just no way I could mess about and run the risk of a poor file import which you do with free open source and this DOES happen sometimes. I'm a professional and don't want to look like an idiot.
Comments
Wouldn't it be nice if they designed the product as a framework with plugins, so you could just install the bits you wanted?
Bye, bye, bloat, and everyone's happy.
Like libraries that could be dynamically linked in?
You could call them DLLs. :eek:
Pretty sure that's a quote about C++
As said previously they all use a different 5%.
Office was cheap when it first came in. Once it became dominant other commercial vendors had to become cheaper to get much of a look in.
As to features even the best product will never be better than all competitors in every respect. It's always a package deal - what you think is best overall.
That's true to an extent. It's also true that many users couldn't care less about browsers, such that they will just use the browser that happens to be already present on the OS. This applies both to technical and non-technical users.
In your opinion others are superior. Believe it or not, some people actually prefer IE. I did.
Well, the Firefox model was supposed to be "here's a streamlined browser and if you want feature richness, we have this extensions model." But now everyone moans that it's bloated (even without extensions) and that extensions slow it down. Chrome seems to be headed the same way. (Though personally neither browser seems bloated to me. I'm just reporting what people say.)
Others moan that features available through extensions should be part of the core product. You see this with applications such as Microsoft Visual Studio as well. So you can't win.
Perhaps, but, if so, it was said of Office as well.
You preferred IE even when it was IE6???
Not just my opinion, but yes, overall still an opinion. Mind you I have to put up with IE7 at work and that is just shite, so that kinda colours my opinion.
You can probably rank the different browsers objectively by criteria such as feature richness and various performance characteristics. But browser choice is subjective in that whether you care for, or how you rank the importance of, these features is up to the individual.
It would be all modular and object oriented and slow and bitch to manage. It all looks nice on paper, but real life programme often requires to make compromises for better performance.
I use IE because I like it. I don't use FF or Chrome because I do not like them.
IE6 was fast with a clean interface. I didn't install all the crappy toolbars which slowed it down my relatives machines that we all got asked to fix. I didn't want the plugins firefox offered. When i tried FF it crashed all the time, forgetting my favourites.
My machine wasn't infested, FF was as bad at work in a corporate environment, where i also used IE6.
See things aren't that black and white.
I was fairly stunned, when learning html, to find that scripts were needed to accommodate 'quirks' in browsers, particularly IE, so that colours my opinion too.
Actually, that was the last time I preferred IE! At the time IE 6 came out it was the best IMO. As were IE 4 and 5. Today (for me) things have moved on to such an extent that these browsers are now dreadful.
A while back at work I was in a locked down IE 8 environment. You couldn't even change the Internet options. I did badly miss my preferred browser.
Ah, now thats a different thing. Because i've never actually worked in web development i dont have that against it so much, though i am very aware of it. I have things in my industry i detest for similar reasons.
As a technIcal user though, i had no problems with IE. I still dont, though i just prefer chrome instead, and i'm not sure why. Probably its clean UI again.
Today's browsers are also fast with as clean an interface as you want (though network latency renders speed differences insignificant anyway). IE 6 was fine for its time but is now woefully under-featured for me.
I only ever used to install the Google Toolbar. In those days its value proposition was much higher than it is today. Never noticed any perf issues. Never bothered with other toolbars.
Every browser has some users who report that it "crashes all the time." I've never experienced this with any browser (I've experienced crashes of course but not of the "all the time" variety). What am I doing wrong?
Just go to your back up file - you do have one right?
i dont use it now!
It's something you can't emphasise enough - to some folk.
http://www.trickyways.com/2010/04/save-documents-docx-as-doc-automatically-in-word-2010-2007/
I doubt people use 5% of Office, may well be nearer 2%.
Before I retired I would sometimes have to produce handouts/slideshows/spreadsheet sometimes for maybe fifty students and rather than print out perhaps a thousand sheets of A4 I'd take it into uni and use their printers. There is just no way I could mess about and run the risk of a poor file import which you do with free open source and this DOES happen sometimes. I'm a professional and don't want to look like an idiot.
Best maybe, maybe not, but definitely not the best value for money for nearly everyone.
Libre Office is mostly compatible with MS Office and is ... libre!