From: Ellen K. 

Hmm, you think people feel insulted by those ads?   Didn't occur to me
but I guess you could be right.  Personally I see the ads and think,
"Yeah, maybe feature x would be nice, but it's not a must-have." 
But I don't feel insulted.

We have Office 2K on every desktop where the people need a productivity
suite and they definitely use it.  But I think that's a minority of the
total users.

On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 17:04:11 -0500, "Randy" 
wrote in message :

>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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