Actually I think this isn’t exactly news. The university I go to, which is technically a foundation, had MS365 pulled last year IIRC and sent us all scrambling to find alternatives.
It didn’t bother me too much because I had already fully transitioned to LibreOffice, but my classmates were furious because they didn’t want to lose the “seamless online editing experience”. I told them to either use LibreOffice or move to Google Docs, but they didn’t like the idea and most (if not all) of them purchased MS365 subs. I unfortunately had to budge and get one too, because we needed to get some work done ASAP. I can’t wait until I graduate (should be soon-ish?) to stop paying for that crap.
But yeah. IIRC they started by reducing the amount of storage the university got, meaning they had to quickly delete data from past classes (fortunately I managed to back up quite a bit), and then one day they suddenly sent everyone an email saying “you don’t have access to MS365 anymore lol get fucked”
Open office, libre office.
scream in John Malkovich’s voice:
“FUCK MICROSOFT”
On the flip side, please keep digging yourself in a hole, Microsoft. More incentive to join Linux for us users.
Thankfully libreoffice
I wish I had fuck you money. I’d use it to bankroll the development of LibreOffice and all the other alternatives to MS365 and get them integrated. Then I’d start a massive training program to teach people how to use them.
The french government is kinda doing that right now
waow
Libre le France
Micropenis still thinking they can use their “monopoly” to their advantage is cute. Js giving Linux and other competitors a higher marketshare for free
LibreOffice
And perfectly working software that covers whatever else MS365 offers, e.g. Thunderbird
I’d love for more people to change to Linux, but these are all (also) Windows software.
And if you need it in a browser, there is Collabora, which exists as a paid business version with support or a free non-support version, that can easily be deployed with Nextcloud. Another alternative would be CryptPad.
If you also need your mails in your browser, there are multiple providers like mailbox.org that offer mail encryption even through the online mail interface.
Sometimes I find myself annoyed by Lemmy users. We love to tout foss alternatives, even when they don’t work as well, or aren’t nearly as polished.
Libre office is a different story, it has everything you’ll need, it’s really complete, it does everything you want and it can read any format you throw at it and save its output in any format you need. It launches faster than Microsoft office, it’s more stable, I really have absolutely no complaints, everyone should be using it.
Libre doesn’t support IDM, nor provide email, nor MFA, nor CAM, nor MDM, nor storage.
M365 Business Premium is a LOT more than Office Documents.
Yeah that’s fair, I’ve seen how Office business integrates with the OS and a bunch of network services, so I’m not surprised by that. Well, for those corporate environments I expect MS will continue to be the norm. But for small businesses and home use, Libra is really fantastic.
And honestly, for personal use I could do without all that email and calendar integration, good riddance.
Edit: Also storage? MFA? MDM? Why would you want that in an office suite? like maybe MDM is useful, but it doesn’t belong in the office suite. And the rest of the acronyms I didn’t even recognize… So I’m guessing they also don’t really belong.
thy were talking about microsoft office. that provides neither of those
But this article and post are about M365 Business Premium licenses
Those factors help drive MS office adoption. It’s a one stop shop. Many companies don’t want to bother with their own servers, they’d rather just buy a service.
Does it support macros?
Yeah it does. I’ll be honest, I don’t use spreadsheets much so I don’t have personal experience with it, but yeah it does support that.
I was curious, so I followed up on this. Here’s what a quick Google search turned up:
To open an XLSM file in LibreOffice Calc, you can generally open it directly. However, you might need to save it in a different format (like ODS) to ensure compatibility, especially if you’re dealing with macros. LibreOffice Basic is not directly compatible with Excel VBA macros, so you may need to rewrite the macros to use LibreOffice Basic.
In other words, you may need to save your Excel documents as open document files, but after that their macros should work just as they did. Either way, macros are supported and in fact there are a few different scripting languages you can use.
GNOME Evolution is also a good outlook alternative and am pretty sure it was made as a open source alternative to outlook
Has it gotten a makeover yet? Last time I used it ~3 years ago it still looked like it was built in the early 90s.
It was functional, not a complaint about that. The super old design just got on my nerves.
Depends on the GTK theme ig?
I use evolution! It has some advantages over thunderbird but afaik it’s *nix only.
yeah the only downside
And if you need a more MS Office like feel: Use Softmaker.
Bootstraps, folks! Microsoft is basically BEGGING you to try Linux, and it’s now easier than ever - even easier than installing Windows!
Unfortunately the inevitable enshitification of our lives by capitalism will continue, even if we remove it from our lives as much as we are able.
What microsoft does to its products, it also does to our governments and civil liberties, social media does to society and democracy, data brokers do to privacy, zillow does to housing security, wallstreet does to economic mobility and financial regulations, etc, etc, etc.
you know, i always wondered why of all places to attack, they chose the twin towers. starting to understand it now.
The twin towers made a ton of sense:
- lots of people in a small area
- symbol of America’s dominance of trade
- iconic buildings in the heart of perhaps the most iconic American city
Google offers workspace for free to nonprofits, Including device management. No one, I know in nonprofits even fucks with Microsoft because they’re so ridiculous. Now it’ll be even less people.
Google now has the market cornered because they aren’t as greedy.
Google offered Workspace free to individuals. I set that up and used it for my family, and then BAM! After a lomg time using it, they removed the free plan, once we were using it for logins for a bunch of sites and for our emails. Went from free to $50 per month. It took a LOT of effort to get my family off of that. Never again.
I don’t know where you’re based, but I work in a international NGO and the majority are in the MS ecosystem. Same with many midsized NGOs in Sweden.
Ah cool Google. We’re all set then. Totally different…
Hey remember when Google used to have a motto, “Don’t be evil”?
Used to.
Sure, once, but that… Was a long time ago
Google is so fuckin greedy lmao
Yes, but it’s essentially the difference between the greed of an ancient red wyrm, (Microsoft) and an adolescent white wyrm. (Alphabet)
The white guy is almost a cutie next to the red one. They’re still both chromatic dragons, and therefore evil. One is just leaning more towards lawful evil, and the other seems to have embraced chaotic evil
I’ve read horror stories of an employee doing something on their own personal account and Google locking out the whole business. Hopefully they fixed that idea because it would sink business uptake.
I made accounts for my board of directors, two of them got “permanently suspended” because of “violating the TOS” before they even logged in. Had to delete and recreate them. So it’s not perfect, but for free, I do manage.
The biggest problem with Google’s offerings is their total lack of support.
They aren’t as greedy yet. It will come.
So that’s why Gates said he would donate money once he dies
He said that he was giving away 99%+ 30 years ago, it’s just publicity stunts, or as Kyrgizon explains below they “give” things to nonprofits that they control. Why? They no longer pay taxes. So nice!
Bill gates is another billionaire mentally ill evil crap person, no different than elon or zuckenberg etc.
I don’t trust any of these “giving pledges” upon death. In name, their fortunes will pass on to nonprofits. Nonprofits controlled by their family members, which comes down to letting them keep their inheritances tax-free. This even happens in Europe.
Now now, it’s not like they get the whole inheritance. It’s more like they get cushy overpaid non-work jobs to manage or consult for the non-profit.
Yup it’s mostly bullshit. Someone, somewhere might benefit, but certainly not any of the people within two thousands miles of where the rich guy lived. Which is still better than nothing, but Bill Gates could end homelessness in America immediately if he chose to do so. (I’m not saying it would be easy or fast, just that he has the money to make it happen.) He could make ALL COLLEGE FREE for students. Musk could have too, likely for less than he spent on Twitter.
If old rich fucks had giving in their hearts, they would want to see some good shit done with the fruits of their “labor” (lol) while they are alive.
Yep. Look at Patagonia.
Yet again, I laugh, and remark ‘People still use Windows? People still use MSFT products?’
There’s really no competitor for large orgs with robust technology needs.
There are absolutely large orgs in the Google and Apple ecosystems. My org, for example, doesn’t use Microsoft except for a smattering of Excel and Word subscriptions to deal with some customer documents that aren’t handled well by Google Docs and Google Sheets.
How are you handling compliance/legal obligations like DLP policies on your email and cloud storage, legal holds and investigations, data tagging, and retention policies? I’m under the impression that only Microsoft offers those in a single product.
Yeah, anyone who uses Excel on a professional level can tell you Google sheets etc are NO substitute for Excel. Just so many things the competitors just can’t do
My brother is an accountant and uses sheets for a lot of non-work stuff, and specialized software for most business needs. He also uses Excel, sure, but there are substitutes for Excel in a lot of cases.
For financials, only the companies still in the dark ages depend on Excel rather than real ERP or accounting software.
Sheets handles pretty much all typical business needs, but we do run into issues if we’re collaborating with another company that is using macros or something in Excel.
What about libreoffice? What are the things you can only achieve with MS Excel?
Sadly. An example: I work at a small school that does not have an IT department. Staff and teachers are nearly IT-illiterate, and the students can hardly be coaxed to do stuff on a laptop instead of their phones. So installing Linux would add an additional hurdle for both. Probably much smaller than they think, but still: it heightens the threshold to even consider switching to Linux.
There’s a few people who know that Linux is just as valid as Windows, but who would they trust to make the switch safely. Me? I’m not a professional. So they’d have to pay someone, properly. And then it all comes down to money again which usually comes down to “let’s not change anything”.
So for now I’d just be happy if they used LibreOffice instead of MS365.
The same goes for Google Workspace. Making the effort to roll your own (totally possible with FOSS) would require to pay at least 1 person, and some sort of transitional period. It’s cheaper and easier to pay none and just blame it on Google when things don’t work as desired. These people just don’t see it as a priority. Don’t understand the dangers.
Yep.
MSFT will continue to enshittify, people who point out this will happen will be poo-poo’d because switching would be complicated and costly…
… But, having to panic switch sometime down the road, because an entire class of software features or pricing models drastically alter with little warning…
… Well then, in the long run, it would have been less costly to start the migration strategy earlier.
I have seen this play out at every single company or non profit I have ever worked at, and I have learned to leave about 6 months after a planned migration/mitigation strategy gets canned as too costly and unnecessary… because usually, 6 months or so after that, every one is now in panic mode, and my workload would triple.
Including literally at MSFT itself.
The managers and corporate don’t know anything other than maximize short term profits, and have astounding levels of normalcy bias; even if you can present a well resesrched, realistic scenario with detailed costs over time for different strategies… they basically always assume things will just be fine, untill its far too late.
Was gonna say this is exactly why Chromebooks and Google docs is popular.
Microsoft has no soul. I’m going to guess that Google will follow suit. There is no class solidarity quite like corporate class solidarity. Fuck all these companies.
Yesterday, I finally talked my parents into canceling MS356 and switching to LibreOffice and Thunderbird.
Now, the excessive subscription fees for MS365 goes to them instead.
If Microsoft keeps this up, I might even manage to persuade them to switch to Linux at some point.
lame. The web versions suck.
I thought from the headline that it was just a downgrade to Business Standard, no this is to Business Basic! That’s a huge yikes, it’s so much harder to be productive in those web versions.
I honestly would not be surprised if users work out installing LibreOffice et al. so they can still have a desktop app experience because of this move.
I wonder if the amount of SharePoint storage will be impacted by such a license chance too. One of my clients at work will be very unhappy with these changes especially if it means they have to buy more SharePoint storage
MS13?
