From: "Randy" 

Doesn't matter: the net effect is the same.

Insulting your customers becuase you haven't upgraded is one of many things
that IBM got their head handed to them for. As a datapoint, Office 2K is
deolpyed on over 300 seats in my facility-but yet less than 5% use it. Now
multiply that by 10-or 100. Does it make sense to be flushing that kind of
money down the rathole every 24 to 36 months?

Rolling out new versions of Office isn't cheap, and such line items usually
have to go real high up the foodchain to get approval-and if those at that
tier think the current deployment is 'good enough'....

These days, unless a project yields a significant cost takeout or it will
give you a double-digit YOY earnings growth, the odds of getting something
like an Office refresh in are slim to none-especially if you're in a low or
no-growth industry.

"Ellen K."  wrote in message
news:5ps7e1h3a14jq18580lg9vasd0ac008agf{at}4ax.com...
> The dinosaurs are the ones who haven't upgraded, I don't think anyone
> thinks MS is calling people dinosaurs for buying the software in the
> first place.
>
> On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 09:49:59 -0400, Mike '/m'  wrote in
> message :
>
>>
>>Maybe better worded as, ~A lot of people used to buy every other
>>version.~  I think that is the crux of Microsoft's problem.
>>
>>Another part of the problem being Microsoft taking out full-page ads in
>>major newspapers to call its customers dinosaurs for buying Microsoft
>>software.   I wonder what bright spark in Redmond thought of that
>>marketing angle?
>>
>>
>> /m
>>
>>
>>On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 02:35:07 -0700, Ellen K.

>>wrote:
>>
>>>A lot of people basically buy every other version.
>>>
>>>On Thu, 21 Jul 2005 17:18:12 -0400, Mike '/m'
 wrote in
>>>message :
>>>
>>>>
>>>>http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/07/21/microsoft_office_2003/
>>>>
>>>>===
>>>>Microsoft is facing an uphill battle to push copies of Office 2003 on
>>>>customers and its ISV partner ecosystem, ahead of next
year's predicted
>>>>launch of Office 12.
>>>>
>>>>Office 2003 appears to be falling behind in targeted sales for this
>>>>point in the product's lifecycle, according to Microsoft's
own internal
>>>>figures and guidelines. Just 15% of PCs are running Office 2003, two
>>>>years into its life, with Office 12 - the next edition of Microsoft's
>>>>ubiquitous suite - now on the horizon. However, Microsoft
traditionally
>>>>expects between 50% and two thirds of customers to be running the
>>>>previous version of Office when the new copy ships.
>>>>
>>>>During a recent press roundtable Chris Capossela, vice president for
>>>>Microsoft's Information Worker product management group said that
>>>>Microsoft is holding firm on these numbers, and expects two thirds of
>>>>the 400m Office installation base will be running Office 2003 at the
>>>>time when Office 12 ships.
>>>>
>>>>That means an awful lot of sales, marketing and product
development work
>>>>by partners during the next 18 months, in order for Microsoft to hit
>>>>those figures.
>>>>
>>>>News of the gap between sales and expectations explains Microsoft's
>>>>recent attempt to tempt partners developing services and add-ins for
>>>>Office 2003, and the earlier Office XP, with tall tales of a $140bn
>>>>market opportunity in getting customers to move off of old
versions of
>>>>Office onto newer editions.
>>>>
>>>>Microsoft believes customers should adopt Office 2003 now,
rather than
>>>>hold out for the anticipated release of Office 12, in-order to
>>>>capitalize on recent advances in the suite's e-mail
management, remote
>>>>networking and security.
>>>>
>>>>Capossela said: "It's a matter of how much value do
these [features]
>>>>have in 0ffice 2003 and are customers willing to wait for
18 months to
>>>>do team collaboration or 18 months before they can get
their inbox under
>>>>control. Eighteen months is along time for people to wait."
>>>>
>>>>According to analysts, and a sizeable chunk of letters to
The Register
>>>>on this subject, one hurdle Microsoft must clear is
persuading customers
>>>>to overcome the basic level of comfort and familiarity they
have using
>>>>their existing, older, copies of Office. Capossela believes Microsoft
>>>>can overcome this inertia by evangelizing people on how the workplace
>>>>has changed and later versions of Office can meet their needs.
>>>>
>>>>"For us, it's telling people about the things they can
do that add [to]
>>>>the changing workplace. It's about what are the pains of the changing
>>>>workplace... the fact e-mail has quadrupled. The Outlook we
shipped then
>>>>wasn't great as handling tons of e-mail or you don't have to VPN into
>>>>the core network from an internet caf‚," Capossela said....
>>>>===
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>To paraphrase Microsoft, ~upgrade now because we need the
revenue.  then
>>>>upgrade again in 18 months because we want you to.~
>>>>
>>>> /m
>

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