Getting brainwashed

[Gremlin]

As plenty of people know, Windows 7 will be launching next month (well, its already been released to manufacturers), and as a result, us IT people start getting hit by Microsoft about the new latest wave <_<

Having a spot of free time, I decided to look into this "Expert Zone" thing, that we're supposed to do before the actual launch event next month (and hence get our own copy of the new head smashing software).

I'm only on chapter 2 of the sample course (Selling Office 2007), trying to figure out exactly what they're after...

First I see... courses... training, quizzes at end... eh? :confused: Where's the free software link :laugh:... perhaps this is going to take a bit longer than I thought (there are 4 real modules to be done). :mellow:

But then the entertainment starts (well, brainwashing if you take it seriously):

"After completing this course, you will know why it’s important to recommend a copy of Office 2007 to every customer who purchases a PC without a DVD/CD drive (including netbook PCs)*"


Ask every customer, “Do you want to get the most out of your netbook PC?” Microsoft Office 2007 gives your customers the real life tools that they need.
Tools? Better hand out a few business cards... its gonna break

I really don't feel like swallowing... but a real copy might be handy (even the RTM will expire without a key)

edit: The damn website doesn't even run on Firefox... who would have thought :crazy:

[Hitcher]

On the subject of brainwashing, why don't more IT people take time to explore the intricacies of applications and what's possible, rather then retiring to the safe comfort zone provided by the so-called "suite" of Microsoft products and what they're told isn't possible?

Why should the role of IT innovation be left to users?

[Grasshopperus]

Why should the role of IT innovation be left to users?

I'll bite :laugh:

I'd say that users never innovate. If they did they'd be called programmers or software designers :) But yeah, IT shops push MS software because there's margin in it and users are comfortable with it. To be fair to MS, the entire Office suite is awesome, Outlook in particular is the best mail client for an organisation.

Gremlin - Funny post, I like the way that MS words the statement


Microsoft Office 2007 gives your customers the real life tools that they need.

God you'd think they had a monopoly on oxygen.

[mister.koz]

I'm totally over windows... all my computers (except the 3 of them at work) are linux or mac, i've never been so stress free!!!

Also, the newest installment of openoffice is actually very cool, the older ones seemed to be trying to me MS office and thus quite inferior but openoffice does a nice job :)

And its free.... somehow.....

[Hitcher]

MS software because there's margin in it and users are comfortable with it. To be fair to MS, the entire Office suite is awesome

No it's not. PowerPoint is a memory hog and an arse of a thing to work with. Like all MS products, deep down it only thinks that there's a US of A. Any serious formatting or cutting and pasteing sees it revert the newly added bigs to the US defaults (paper size, language, units of measure) -- irrespective of how those bits may have been created initially.

Graphics in Excel suck. The formats of graphs particularly created in Excel never print how they look on screen. What's that about? The only way to get an Excel chart to print "true" is to copy it to PowerPoint. What's that all about?

As for Word, an application I have been using for many hours a day for too many years (anybody else remember WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS? The best ever word processor) only "succeeds" through critical mass. The styles feature is problematic, mail merge is way too complex, and the comments made about US of A-ing also apply to this application. Revealing codes only reveals some, not all, which is a real pain when reformatting a document that some twat has built (why do people align text with the spacebar, FFS?).

As for Visio, goodness me, most freeware applications work better than this. It barks like a dog.

And then, just as the world's users were coming to terms with all of this, Microsoft changes it all with the Office suite that comes with Vista. File open? Save? A third of the toolbar devoted to mail merge, an application that almost nobody users. What's that all about?

[McJim]

I use the pc seldom. I no longer experience the problems I did when I was a heavy user.

[mister.koz]

I had a very weird feeling while getting used to osx, and i have figured it out.

There's actually very little things going on at once.. only what you need (+ a little bling) but the weirdest thing happened the other day... the mac crashed.

3 months in...

So i can conclude that the difference between osx and windows is that windows is cluttered, slow and buggy and tends to try and do everything for you (incorrectly and always irreversibly) and it crashes all the time.

jeez how did i survive the last 7 years of software development on windows....

[rainman]

Ask every customer, “Do you want to get the most out of your netbook PC?” Microsoft Office 2007 gives your customers the real life tools that they need.

My netbook's running Jaunty and OpenOffice, thanks, and working well. No need for any of that awful MS software.

Went to help my elderly neighbour activate their copy of Vista on their new PC yesterday. No Internet access, so had to do the 48 number challenge and response thing. They had great difficulty understanding why they even needed to do this, and were convinced they would not have been able to do it without my help. (And when they were first looking for a PC, I told them to use Linux. Shoulda listened.). :doh:

[hospitalfood]

a good brainwashing is not that bad. it is a shame that MS does not make us all feel happy, sexy, rich etc

[Grasshopperus]

PowerPoint is a memory hog and an arse of a thing to work with.
Graphics in Excel suck.
mail merge is way too complex, and the comments made about US of A-ing also apply to this application.
Revealing codes only reveals some, not all

Yeah, it sounds like you've used all these applications heaps and have found some annoyances with certain features under certain conditions but the simple fact is that it makes a lot of sense for businesses to roll out MS Office as the standard PC application suite. Kids these days are being trained in NZ schools to use MS software. When they go into the workplace and get a job, the employer is far more likely to get employees working productively if they can sit down at their Windows PC and use MS Office. Most people aren't that interested in learning how to use computers, they have trouble adjusting to something that looks or acts differently to what they are used to.
Many of the things you've listed are just peeves and don't really affect getting the job done. Memory hog? G'et $50 of extra memory. Graphics suck in a spreadsheet? Who really cares that much. Mail merge too complex? Write down the steps for the secretary to follow.

I'm not denying that Office has its problems and I hate what they're doing with Word and it's OOXML 'standard' and their corruption of the ISO standards committee and process.



As for Visio, goodness me, most freeware applications work better than this. It barks like a dog.
I'd like to see a decent replacement for visio. The open source solutions are incomplete, ugly and far more difficult to use

Disclaimer: I'm a Linux developer but I enjoy playing devil's advocate :)

[McJim]

Bah, it only takes a quick rinse to brainwash me.

[SMOKEU]

I bet MS will charge an arm and a leg for Windows 7 just like every other product they sell. Software piracy rules.

[Gremlin]

On the subject of brainwashing, why don't more IT people take time to explore the intricacies of applications and what's possible, rather then retiring to the safe comfort zone provided by the so-called "suite" of Microsoft products and what they're told isn't possible?
We use opensource for some stuff, generally quite reliable, but usually takes a lot of "learning" (take 1, fail, rip hair out, rinse and repeat 10 times) to get it right. Once properly configured, it borders on bulletproof.

However... just think, when we encounter a problem (please note, not if :laugh:) millions of other people have amazingly had the same problem. Imagine that! How useful! (assuming you're not the first...)

Also, we don't talk about opensource etc much, because there isn't much brainwashing, glamourous events - well, they have to be paid for somehow - and large proclamations of it being the best yet :eek:

Another fact however... I taught one person where to find the underscore a few days ago (they wanted to write underscore instead), so do you really think I'm going to willingly rock the boat and destroy the relative happiness of my users?

Lastly... all those bashing M$ ... you haven't attended the required courses have you? Microsoft will help you and your clients to be more productive than ever!

gawd... I feel all weird and stuff... like I want to throw up

[CookMySock]

all my computers (except the 3 of them at work) are linux or mac, i've never been so stress free!!!Linux is boring.

I select all the apps I need and click install. Hrm, thats it. Done. :confused:

Nothing breaks = nothing to fiddle with, er, I mean fix. Grumble. <_<

No ms finger in ass = nothing to moan about.. have to find something elsewhere.. <_<

So I use it every day for years and years, aaaand, thats it. Nothing blows up. Nothing needs a new key. Uptime for Africa. Hardware never becomes obsolete.

The only thing I get to look forward to is a new mouse and keyboard every two years. BORING! :doh:

Steve

[marty]

i've just bought a new HP tablet with Vista installed. I have never had so much trouble setting up a computer! Express mail is refusing to play ball, don't want to use windows live, can't load Outlook Express as Vista refuses to recognise it. Came with a 60 day Office 2007 trial - what a fucking waste of time that is!

[RantyDave]

On the subject of brainwashing, why don't more IT people take time to explore the intricacies of applications and what's possible, rather then retiring to the safe comfort zone provided by the so-called "suite" of Microsoft products and what they're told isn't possible?
Because most IT people come to work to have a job and get paid - the actual quality of the outcome is a secondary concern at best. A generic admin/fixer type will always be able to get work supporting big MS rigs because there's loads of them, they always shit themselves, and MS replace the whole thing every three years (almost) regular as clockwork. They have no incentive to do anything else.

This is why "cloud computing" can and probably will work - because MS and internal IT have worked together to prevent an organisation's IT infrastructure from doing what it's users actually want .... hence "google groups" being used at work because you don't need to ask anyone's fucking permission, don't get told that people from outside the organisation aren't in the 'secure group' or whatever, can have the damn thing up and going in two minutes flat and don't need to fill out any TPS reports. The value proposition for "don't even use our hugely expensive but ultimately shit internal IT department" is that strong that ultimately, over time (and lots of it) corporate IT will morph into a bunch of off the shelf boxes (iPhones, netbooks, whatever), some extremely generic net access and administration in the hands of the users themselves.

It's not the IT bods fault, we just set up the incentives such that "continue to have a job" was a better incentive than "do something amazing for your users".

Dave

[p.dath]

On the subject of brainwashing, why don't more IT people take time to explore the intricacies of applications and what's possible, rather then retiring to the safe comfort zone provided by the so-called "suite" of Microsoft products and what they're told isn't possible?

Why should the role of IT innovation be left to users?

To be fair, there are a lot of products. You can be average in a lot of them, or really good in a few.

[p.dath]

I'm totally over windows... all my computers (except the 3 of them at work) are linux or mac, i've never been so stress free!!!

Also, the newest installment of openoffice is actually very cool, the older ones seemed to be trying to me MS office and thus quite inferior but openoffice does a nice job :)

And its free.... somehow.....

I gave Ubuntu+Open Office a try earlier this year. I find OO frustrating to use. Obviously I don't have much training with it, but I did not find it intuitive.

And the other big kicker is that I couldn't save Office 2007 documents, which is what all of my colleagues use.

[CookMySock]

This is why "cloud computing" can and probably will work - because MS and internal IT have worked together to prevent an organisation's IT infrastructure from doing what it's users actually want .... hence "google groups" I have no idea how MS thinks it's going to survive over the next 25 years.

But then it amazes me that even with all the advocacy, just how many have absolutely no inkling that there is an alternative.

Steve

[mister.koz]

I have no idea how MS thinks it's going to survive over the next 25 years.

But then it amazes me that even with all the advocacy, just how many have absolutely no inkling that there is an alternative.

Steve

I really wish they would put the time and development into making their software better rather than splattering gradients and overlaying complicated shit onto their software.

Lack of knowledge is why microsoft have succeeded this far.

Mac is giving them a run for their money, it used to be 5% of computers sold in the US were mac, now its up around the 15-20% market. I just bought one and i really can see why :)

[Delerium]

Used vista, it was a bit slow to start up but didnt have any problems. Got windows 7 free from uni and its the schniz. starts up waaaaay faster. just waiting for more drivers to be put out.

[mister.koz]

I hear that vista is to ME as windows 7 is to 2000..

Regardless, i am over it, i have been waiting for a good version since 95 and they almost had it with xp...

Jeez they can't even get DRI right.

[Hitcher]

To be fair, there are a lot of products. You can be average in a lot of them, or really good in a few.

Indeed, but I expect more from IT "professionals". Their role shouldn't be locking down user functionality so that it makes their life easier. Users are the ones who should be playing Halo, not the geeks.


And the other big kicker is that I couldn't save Office 2007 documents, which is what all of my colleagues use.

Erm, try the settings "save file as" command.

Functionally there's not a huge amount of difference between OO and Office. OO is faster (once it loads up) and understands language and page set-up settings way better than Office. It does everything Office does, it just does it differently at times. Indeed the OO version of PowerPoint is, IMO, a superior product. The flowcharter/drawing tool works well too.

The OO user community is fantastic (as indeed are most open source user communities) and there is a huge bunch of plug ins and widgets for the various applications.

[Insanity_rules]

I had the same fun today with the expert zone. Did more teaching me to sell it rather than explaining the guts and where is my free copy?

My company ethos is to make technology more accessable, friendlier and smarter without the geek speak. I pride myself in being able to teach my users how to make the smarts of what they have work for them. It does mean that I've had to specialise a bit more than I'd like to but I think I've chosen the right products to do that in.

[Gremlin]

I had the same fun today with the expert zone. Did more teaching me to sell it rather than explaining the guts and where is my free copy?

My company ethos is to make technology more accessable, friendlier and smarter without the geek speak. I pride myself in being able to teach my users how to make the smarts of what they have work for them.
You get the copy when you attend the event and have done all 4 modules.

Yep, being contract network managers, we try to act on the clients behalf in matters with 3rd party providers (and as translators), so the client gets what they want. Easy to rattle off lots of words they don't follow, which only wastes time. Actually much harder to put it into an accurate analogy, as you have to know it back to front :eek:

[Insanity_rules]

You get the copy when you attend the event and have done all 4 modules.

Yep, being contract network managers, we try to act on the clients behalf in matters with 3rd party providers (and as translators), so the client gets what they want. Easy to rattle off lots of words they don't follow, which only wastes time. Actually much harder to put it into an accurate analogy, as you have to know it back to front :eek:


Thanks and I hear ya about 3rd party providers.


Indeed, but I expect more from IT "professionals". Their role shouldn't be locking down user functionality so that it makes their life easier. Users are the ones who should be playing Halo, not the geeks.

Amen! Pop in sometime Hitch, I"ll show ya what the coal face should look like. You remember where I am eh?

[Gremlin]

Indeed, but I expect more from IT "professionals". Their role shouldn't be locking down user functionality so that it makes their life easier.
1 counterpoint here Hitch... while the users are paying for the support etc (the bosses especially), they are biased.

I see my primary role as keeping the network (servers, computers, data within etc) safe. If that is to the detriment of the users, then so be it. It doesn't often clash, but the integrity of the network, and the priceless data is number one.

After all, without it... they're fucked.

[retro asian]

On Monday our whole office is switching from Windows 98 to Windows 7.

[retro asian]

Sorry for the generalisation, but in my short experiences as a customer of different IT services, I'd say you have to keep talking to IT people and make sure you know what they are doing at all times and why they are doing it.

If you leave them to their own devices, and do everything they recommend without questioning it can get really really expensive.

e.g.1 Last month after checking an invoice I found out $2600 of website development had been done that I had not asked for, and that did not benefit us in anyway. The developers thought what they did it was a great idea, so they just did it and charged us.

e.g.2 Asked for a quote 7 months ago on a CS4 package, they came back with $5000. Asked again last week for a better price considering a better exchange rate. They said you don't get discounts for exchange rate in software and price wouldn't go down. After pointing out that I could download the software a lot cheaper from adobe.com they came to the party with a quote of $3000 based on current exchange rate.


My relationship with IT people is getting better now that I know how they operate, and know how to deal with them. But in the beginning I was definitely tearing my hair out on a weekly basis...

[Gremlin]

Sorry for the generalisation, but in my short experiences as a customer of different IT services, I'd say you have to keep talking to IT people and make sure you know what they are doing at all times and why they are doing it.
Fair enough... it all depends how the support structure is set up etc. For our network support (end to end, excluding special 3rd party apps) we calculate a flat fee charged monthly, that covers everything other than capital expenditure. It also means that we really benefit when everything is smooth and stable, as the work is reduced to normal maintenance etc. I know others work differently.

Re the software, the exchange rate would only be a factor if more product was purchased... software isn't that affected either, and if anything, prices have been all over the place in the last year. Re the online buying, I'm not surprised. Certain laptops we configure for clients can be bought cheaper via the manufacturer website, than the main distributors in NZ... :eek:

[TerminalAddict]

I've been on 7 since the release of the RTM.
Love it!

[Swoop]

Regardless, i am over it, i have been waiting for a good version since 95 and they almost had it with xp...
A workmate has only recently moved off of Win 95. (yes, 95). Reason was that it is no longer supported!:laugh: