Which Is The Better Product?

[Guest Reimar]

Microsoft claims that it has sold more than 60 million Vista but 80% of this was going to the OEM-Channel!!

At the same time Microsoft was selling 70 million Office 2007 but the percentage sold to the OEM-Channel will much lower than for Vista!

Read at http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=716 :

Since early this year, Microsoft has been issuing periodic sales updates on Windows Vista. The most recent Vista sales pronouncement (released by the company at the end of July) was that Microsoft had sold 60 million copies of Vista.

The Office team hasn’t been talking sales figures — at least not until now. But according to information shared during a recent briefing with certain members of the French tech press, Microsoft allegedly has sold 70 million copies of Office 2007 to date. (Thanks to LiveSide.Net for the link.)

I’ve asked Microsoft to verify whether the 70 million number is real and was provided by its officials this week. No word back yet.

The official comment, via a Microsoft spokesperson: “It’s not our policy to confirm the license figures.” Since Microsoft is not denying the validity of the info., my take is someone with Microsoft France spilled the beans.

I’m betting the same caveat applies to Office as Vista: These are copies sold to the channel, not necessarily to customers. But still… If these numbers are right, means Office 2007 may be outselling Vista. At the very least, it’s keeping up, neck and neck, with it.

Just this week, market researchers wtih NPD noted that Office 2007 was selling like crazy through the shrink-wrapped/retail channel. Microsoft officials have said that 80 percent of Vista sales are coming through OEM preloads. That percentage for Office is substantially lower, but Microsoft has been working on programs to try to convince more PC makers to preload its Office 2007 suite.

[JetsetBkk]

I tried Office 2007 once. I hated it - couldn't find the usual buttons anywhere and the way the menus were grouped seemed crazy to me - far too much detail using up a huge amount of screen at the top, and still not able to find what I wanted.

I uninstalled it and went back to Office 2003.

[cdnvic]

Open Office runs great on Vista so I think I'll stick with it and save a few hundred dollars

[Florin]

I think Office 2007 is a fantastic product, with infinitely fewer flaws then Vista and it also offers many more new features than the preceding version, which again, is not the case with Vista.

Many people are resisting Vista and even downgrading their preloaded OS to XP, but I have yet to find a person that went back to previous versions of Office after giving 2007 a go for at least a few days.

The new interface is extremely useful and gave me access to features I never even knew existed, the graphical quality of PowerPoint and Word creations has also been significantly improved, this makes it a must-have for me.

[sierra01]

Agree with jetsetbkk, tried it but went back to 2003. For my needs 2003 is fine, I know where everything is, 2007 is too cluttered up with buttons at the top.

[ashacat]

I run Vista and Office 2007 on my laptop and I am very happy with both. However I had to upgrade my RAM to 2GB for vista to run smoothly.

[Crushdepth]

Office 2007 is great but takes a bit of getting used to. Students who want a copy should have a look for a student deal through their uni or microsoft - I got my copy for AUD$75.

If I had to pay full price, I'd be using Open Office - which is functionally just as good. Just not quite as pretty.

[Guest Reimar]

It's true: it need some time to get use with Office 2007!

The main difference for me is that I'm able to customize Office 2007 exactly to my needs which is in Office 2003 much more difficult. All things I use I placed in the quick launch and I don't need to go to all of the different menus and/or toolbars/buttoms. The mainsetup to my need was take one week but after that: exellent!

Even the exchanging from all of the docs within the office applications works fine and much better as in Office 2003!

But as ashcat wrote: if you run Vista and Office 2007 at same system you'll need 2 GB memory!

[Phil Conners]

I just bought a new Acer Notebook which came with (yuk) a fully legal copy of Vista. I gave it the benefit of doubt and tried it out but it was so SLOW so I reformatted the disk and installed XP instead. What a breeze. The vendor was not amused. Seems Acer force them to provide Vista with notebooks now. I wonder how Microslush managed to get their abomination installed on new hardware, they must either be breaking balls or offering huge discounts. Either way they can take Vista and stick it where the sun don't shine.

[JetsetBkk]

Agree with jetsetbkk, tried it but went back to 2003. For my needs 2003 is fine, I know where everything is, 2007 is too cluttered up with buttons at the top.

have yet to find a person that went back to previous versions of Office after giving 2007 a go for at least a few days.

Ah well, now you know 2.