Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Microsoft stole my mother (was StarOffice)
From: Grainge, Derek <DGG@wellington-college.berks.sch.uk> To: 'Damian Counsell' <linux@counsell.com>; suse-linux-uk-schools <suse-linux-uk-schools@suse.com> Subject: RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Microsoft stole my mother (was StarOffice) Date: 12 February 2002 12:28
MS Office with all the components (I think the market-speak is "Office Pro") is at least 200UKP, more usually 250UKP, when bought with a new machine. This is, of course, a rip-off.
What do we do (legally) to avoid paying this obscene sum?
It seems that it's impossible to get Office Pro through ANY educational discount scheme at the moment. Microsoft's UK education people know about this, they know that UK schools run courses which require it (which begs another question...) and they are arguing with their bosses back in the States. Apparently this was a Redmond decision applied worldwide -
---------- plainly
American students don't need to use Access at all :-)
I have to confirm that this is so - we have a few transatlantic students, and they say that they have to use Excel with forms & modules, using vast, flat tables as relational databases. And before anyone argues, yes you can, yes it does work, yes there are serious limitations for /real/ applications, but its good enough for the course.
It's a shambles, just like XP registration is proving a shambles, and is going to drive people away from Microsoft - and therefore in the right direction.
One of our pupils has a new laptop. Win XP. After three days it locked out (because of the plugging & unplugging of PCMIA modem) - he came in and picked up a copy of Win 98 SE, and has downgrades already!
One possibility would be to import Office Pro SL from America. Probably cheaper than the UK version, and finding a retailer to sell it in the UK
is
almost impossible, even if you don't mind being ripped off.
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On Wednesday 13 February 2002 8:17 am, Edgehill e-mail service wrote: [snip]
One of our pupils has a new laptop. Win XP. After three days it locked out (because of the plugging & unplugging of PCMIA modem) - he came in and picked up a copy of Win 98 SE, and has downgrades already!
This seams to be the case with a lot of people. One lad who's not in the trade, but can handle himself on a computer upgraded(?) to XP and stayed there for about a day before going back to 98SE - he took a full day just to make sure that the problems were (a) real and (b) not his fault. One of the girls in our Admin dept is most definitely *not* computer savvy, but having used XP for about 1 hour was begging her dad to put W2K back on. I have heard people say to me "I know load of people who actually like XP" but I've not met any first hand. -- Gary Stainburn This email does not contain private or confidential material as it may be snooped on by interested government parties for unknown and undisclosed purposes - Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000
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Gary Stainburn