from the sometimes-they-do-nice-things dept.
Microsoft and the Speaker of the New York City Council announced Office 2016, Office for Mac 2016, and Office 365 are being made available to New York City's 1.1 million students at no cost:
Today, Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña announced an innovative collaboration with Microsoft Corp. to provide New York City students and families with access to Microsoft software.
Students and families will be able to download Office 2016, Office for Mac 2016 and the Office 365 mobile apps available for Windows 10 tablets, iPhone, iPad and Android devices. All of these are part of Microsoft's Office 365 Education offering and available to download from the website studentoffice.net. There is no cost for up to five (5) downloads on their personal computers, Windows or Mac, up to five (5) tablets and up to five (5) phones.
"This initiative is about providing students with the tools they need to succeed," said Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. "Technology like Microsoft software enhances the educational experience and infuses learning with crucial hands-on computer skills – skills that will be an asset as students prepare for college and the workforce. Learning doesn't stop at the end of the school day – we want to ensure children and their parents have the resources at home to get curious, organized, and ready to learn together. I thank Microsoft and the Department of Education for partnering with the New York City Council to make this exciting initiative a reality."
"We are committed to using technology as a tool to facilitate better instruction and engage students and families," said Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña. "This exciting new initiative is going to help us do just that – I thank Speaker Mark-Viverito, the New York City Council, and Microsoft for their partnership."
"Ensuring students have access to technology that can support their unique learning styles and will prepare them for the workforce is a top priority for Microsoft," said Margo Day, Vice President, U.S. Education at Microsoft. "We are proud to join with the New York City Department of Education to support educators in preparing students for college and careers."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2016, @10:13PM
First one's free kids, see you again real soon...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Sunday February 07 2016, @12:18AM
Actually I'm betting its more like Windows 10 where Windows 10 isn't the product the users data is and the "free" product is merely a carrot to use to extract that product from those foolish enough to fall for it. After all the 18-29 demographic? Highly coveted by advertisers, lots of yummy info they can snatch and sell, nom nom nom.
BTW and slightly OT but did you ever think that you would actually MISS having the Ballmernator? At least the big old sweaty monkey was just trying to rip off Apple and doing a piss poor job at it, you could almost admire his ability to charge straight into failure with zero clue that he was fucking up. Plus you could always strip off the bad UI and make it into Win 7 with better boot times which was nice. Now MSFT is being run by a guy that makes Google look like the fricking EFF, a guy that had so much fucking spyware baked into Windows 10 that it takes 25 pages [microsoft.com] according to my printer just to list all the nasty shit baked into the OS! Oh and please note that the majority of the shit can only be turned off in Enterprise, AKA the one version they will not sell you, you filthy peasant, and Home and Pro are just fucked...well unless you airgap the fucking thing like a box filled with porn bugs.
So just the simple fact that its coming from Nadella's MSFT? Yeah its probably got a shit load of spyware...err I mean "telemetry designed to enhance and improve our product"...and their bottom line, and they are "giving it away" because that demographic is pure gold to Madison Avenue.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 4, Informative) by number6 on Sunday February 07 2016, @01:06AM
according to the research published by this guy here: `Windows 10 telemetry network traffic analysis, part 1' , by CheesusCrust , 2016-02-04 [voat.co]
You may also like to read the discussion here: `Even With Telemetry Disabled, Windows 10 [Enterprise] Talks To Dozens of Microsoft Servers' , 2016-02-06 [slashdot.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 07 2016, @04:43AM
Congrats on making the 300,000th comment.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Sunday February 07 2016, @05:11AM
Congratz on making the 300,001st comment.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday February 07 2016, @08:31AM
To me the most revealing note of that article is he used enterprise and selected OFF to every telemetry and privacy invading option and it STILL sent thousands of calls to MSFT IP addresses!
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday February 11 2016, @11:44PM
Uhhh did someone, say MSFT, pay the guy off? Because suddenly all his articles and posts are deleted so poof, its gone, ignore that douchebag behind the curtain.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Tork on Sunday February 07 2016, @04:20AM
First one's free kids, see you again real soon...
I always get a kick out of the drug metaphors use with Microsoft. You're unintentionally saying that Office is doing something desirable.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday February 06 2016, @10:25PM
Won't someone please follow the money?
Melissa Mark-Viverito = Usefull Idiot.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2016, @11:17PM
It probably does help the schools some, that's a significant expense they don't have to pay and don't have to ask their students to pay, many of whom aren't in a position to afford it. Open Office can be a pain in the butt; MS Office pretty much just works.
Is it altruistic on Microsoft's part? Of course not, just smart business. There's nothing wrong with that as long as no deception is involved.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Saturday February 06 2016, @11:41PM
Seriously? what is your example of open/libre office being a pain? Let's go with what a NY city school-kid might need to do, something like to turn in a five page paper with footnoted citations. What about Libre Office makes it a pain to do that?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2016, @11:52PM
In my experience with Impress, I usually get so frustrated that I revert to my purchased version of PowerPoint 2010 on Windows. It sucks. The developers seem to have the attitude, it works pretty well and you're getting it for free! Maybe instead of complaining you can contribute some patches! Sorry, I don't have infinite amounts of time.
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Sunday February 07 2016, @03:30AM
Lets get one thing straight:
There is more to office work than Powerpoint.
But Impress works just fine. And it will export a self contained presentation (not that the world needs more of those) which will play anywhere, (not that the world is waiting with baited breath for yet another of these).
I've converted massive word documents to LO, without a hitch. In my day job we've moved totally to LO, both on Windows and Linux, We use spread sheets and large text documents, and go direct to print with pamphlets.
No frikkin ribbons, it just all works.
Anyone still making excuses for MS Office is another useful idiot.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @09:35AM
You're delusional.
LO Impress and Writer have too many incompatibilities to use in practice. I've been waiting for it to mature for at least 5 years... Still can't escape from MS. One particularly egregious one is how Impress auto-sizes text inside a text box but fails to save that property in .ppt/pptx format. Result = all your text boxes overflow when you do the presentation in Powerpoint.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @11:01AM
No, you are. And you are stupid. Insults add a lot to the conversation don't they... LO works fine for me. File a bug report...
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Tuesday February 09 2016, @04:49PM
...Sounds like you're saying that a non-standards-compliant, proprietary format is not rendering a standards-compliant document correctly?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @08:08PM
The vast majority will have the same results you did.
With this company's closed proprietary specification, there will always be edge cases.
Even folks who -do- use the proprietary product will be incompatible unless they stay on the M$ treadmill and IMMEDIATELY pay AGAIN in order to always have the latest version of Redmond's suite.
That's the core of M$'s business model.
tonyPick caught that one below.
What he omitted is that sometimes the incompatible files completely refuse to open with the proprietary app.
He did mention that the solution is to open the "broken" file with the FOSS app.
As mentioned in this (meta)thread, it will be interesting to see in what way this freeware version will be crippled wrt Save-as formats.
baited breath
That would describe a guy who is too impatient to wait for the fish to bite and just eats the worms himself.
s/baited/bated [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeVilla on Saturday February 06 2016, @11:52PM
I've found using libreoffice to be a pain in the butt ... when sharing documents with people using MS office. I don't tend to blame libreoffice for that. The school could save everyone a lot of money and make life easier by just switching over.
But creating dependencies on an expensive product at a young age is cool too I guess. Plus you'll get them used to "telemetric" spying at a young age. Win-Win.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Saturday February 06 2016, @11:55PM
The only advantage I can think of is that LibreOffice doesn't run well on Windows tablets and, AFAIK, doesn't run at all on Android or Apple tablets.
I suspect that many of these kids will be using tablets provided by the school.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Touché) by hemocyanin on Sunday February 07 2016, @08:27AM
Typing up a paper on a tablet should fall under the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Sunday February 07 2016, @12:07AM
It probably does help the schools some, that's a significant expense they don't have to pay and don't have to ask their students to pay, many of whom aren't in a position to afford it.
Libre Office is free as well as free.
Open Office can be a pain in the butt...
Only when sharing files with microsoft office users because of the way ms office mangles formatting.
...MS Office pretty much just works.
Only if you only share files with othe ms office users.
Is it altruistic on the dealer's part? Of course not, just smart business. There's nothing wrong with that as long as no deception is involved.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Sunday February 07 2016, @11:56AM
Minor clarification:
Should also add "Who are on the same version of Microsoft Office"
In my experience (a few years ago, to be fair) sharing documents between people using different versions of MSO introduced pretty much the same set of problems as interoperation with Libreoffice users. The details differ, but I saw the same sort of formatting/linking/layout glitches in both cases, particularly after multiple document generations.
In at least a couple of cases I wound up having to import and export through LO to get a usable document back for the "older" MSO...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @12:14AM
There's nothing wrong with that as long as no deception is involved.
This is NYC and Microsoft. They've both got something up their sleeves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @03:58AM
It probably does help the schools some, that's a significant expense they don't have to pay
Confirming that the principal's secretary absolutely must have Office 2016 to put that memo out.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @04:11AM
However, schools are supposed to promote education, not subservience and ignorance. Proprietary software does not allow for education to take place, and teaches people to be dependent on the ones who develop it. It's wrong for schools to use such a thing.
It's also foolish for a student to use it, for similar reasons. Above all, people must demand that software respects their freedoms.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday February 06 2016, @11:56PM
Won't someone please follow the money?
Melissa Mark-Viverito = Usefull Idiot.
Useful to whom? For what?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday February 07 2016, @07:03AM
Useful to Microsoft.
Why is it you are the only one not understanding what's going on here?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday February 07 2016, @09:26AM
Useful to Microsoft.
Why is it you are the only one not understanding what's going on here?
Because I'm clearly a pygmy among mental giants like yourself,
Thank you for showing me the light and the way. I'm ever so grateful.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday February 07 2016, @04:16AM
Won't someone please follow the money?
As requested [nyccfb.info]
Note that $2750.00 is the maximum campaign contribution donation allowed.
In case you're concerned that the books are cooked, you can download the raw data [nyccfb.info].
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday February 07 2016, @07:09AM
No one is that delusional as to believe that any "gift" Microsoft provided would be found on any public web site.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Troll) by NotSanguine on Sunday February 07 2016, @09:31AM
Oh please Mr. Frojack You're ever so smart!
Please help me to "follow the money."
I'm just so uninformed about such things.
And since you clearly know exactly how this all went down, please do tell.
I just get all aflutter when you tell me how things *really* are.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @09:46AM
What good would it do? Your standard of education is so absurd that you believe you must mindlessly accept the words of authority figures or you learn everything first-hand from scratch; believing such false dichotomies is a sign of poor critical thinking skills.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday February 07 2016, @11:02AM
Excuse me? The ever so smart Mr. Frojack said that we should follow the money.
Which has the clear implication that there's some kind of financial quid pro quo or other shenanigans going on.
While that might be the case, Frojack provided no evidence to back up that implication.
I merely asked him to do so and provided one avenue (campaign contributions) where one might find such a quid pro quo.
He has yet to provide even a scenario where money would need to change hands, let alone any evidence. So I mock him for his hubris and magical thinking.
It seems unlikely that Microsoft would need convincing. In fact, since Microsoft already makes this available to pretty much any student that wants it [office.com]:
Given that the City Council President and the Chancellor of the Board of Education can hold this up as an historic accomplishment and put out a pretty press release [nyc.gov] saying they've created an "...innovative collaboration with Microsoft Corp. to provide New York City students and families with access to Microsoft software," Why wouldn't they go for it?
What's more, Ms. Mark-Viverito can't run for her city council seat again (term limits). As such, she needs to raise her profile if she wants to run for some other office in 2017.
No money need change hands. Microsoft gets the publicity (and potential for lock-in) for "giving free software" to hundreds of thousands of kids and NYC political hacks win political points without really doing anything special. It's a win-win, with no back-room dealing, bribes, kickbacks or secret deals required.
And while folks who would prefer that FOSS be used may bash Microsoft and the NYC officials for this, the vast majority of the electorate doesn't know or care. All they hear is that their kids get to use, for free, the software that their employers have to pay for.
The vast majority don't even know about the extant Microsoft program for this, so they think their elected officials are going to bat for them to get something special for their kids, and have no idea that Microsoft will be spying on their children.
They only know it's software they've been told will help their kids and they won't have to pay the $99/year themselves.
But don't pay any attention to me. Apply Occam's Razor yourself. I wish I knew what that was but sadly, my "standard of education is so absurd that [I] believe [I] must mindlessly accept the words of authority figures or [I] learn everything first-hand from scratch."
In point of fact, I don't mindlessly accept the words of *anyone*. Including Frojack. Or you for that matter.
In fact, I'm kind of surprised at you. You're usually a bit more thoughtful than this.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2016, @10:29PM
MS thinks it's turning Google - assume all they give out/sell are spyware.
Pathetic, the all mighty MS has gone down into just another full-on weasel outfit.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2016, @11:48PM
When was it ever different?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @12:27AM
They always had been more/less up-front assholes - they weren't weasels.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @09:47AM
First time ever a shark's evolved into a weasel.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Gravis on Saturday February 06 2016, @10:44PM
Office 2016, Office for Mac 2016, and Office 365 are being made available to New York City's 1.1 million students at no cost:
there is considerable cost when using microsoft products! the difference in this case is there is no monetary cost.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday February 06 2016, @11:26PM
This special free version of Office 360 will only save documents to MS Cloud servers in docx, or likely some encrypted copyrighted format, and will not have "export" or "save as" functionality that allows for local copies of the documents created. Possibly even copy/paste out of it will be blocked.
Or there will be some other BS hat trick like that to lock in anyone who uses this.
Advice to anyone thinking of using this for their dissertation, Masters thesis, or grocery list : Don't.
Remember, whoever controls your data can control you.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2016, @11:45PM
From FUD to "free".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoZv6Gb_mYo [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @03:05AM
Microsoft posts video of customers criticizing OpenOffice (October 2010) [arstechnica.com]
...and, as mentioned up the (meta)thread, if they had simply gone with LibreOffice, the cost would be $0 and interoperability would be 100.00 percent.
We should note once again that in many places in Europe, notably France, Netherlands, and Italy--and, of course, Munich--the momentum is increasingly away from proprietary file formats and proprietary software.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2016, @11:35PM
When you allow government to control anything.
They completely fuck it up and cost the taxpayers (that's us, by the way) our hard-earned money.
That's why we need to throw these ridiculous people out of office and replace them with smart people who won't be so stupid as to waste taxpayer money on yet another government boondoggle!
Those fucking democrats need to get a clue, because we're sick of buying clues for them and their waste of life supporters who think everything should just be handed to them by the decent hard-working people who built this country.
Here they go, stealing our money again just to give it to the waste of life children of whores and druggies (if they weren't, they wouldn't be poor now would they?), and for what? To "educate" them? More likely just to line their own corrupt pockets.
If any of these people were worth a god damn, they could buy their own software -- or compile the free stuff from source. But they're not. They're stupid. That's why they're poor now, and that's why they'll never be anything more than thugs, junkies and hookers.
I'll even put up with a greasy wetback like Cruz, at least until we can put them all up against a wall, sterilize them or just throw them out of our country.
Even that's better than having a nigger as president. WTF is wrong with people? Amirite?
Cruz 2016! TrusTed.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2016, @11:42PM
The liberals are to blame, they're the reason why absolutely nobody except illegal immigrants can get a good job! I get so mad and add another exclamation point every time I think about it!!! That's why we need Trump in there!!!!!
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Sunday February 07 2016, @12:25AM
You sound just like my father.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @02:53AM
TRUS Ted? Seriously, Google it! It is like that line from one of th Space Odysseys: "My god, it's full of Santorum!"
Then get your white ass off the disability and social security and medicare. Don't you know that it is against the law for a Cuban to become President of the United States of Americans?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @03:51AM
This does sound about right [towleroad.com]:
Well then. All together now "TRUS [cancer.ca] Ted in 2016!"
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday February 06 2016, @11:38PM
Yeah yeah yeah -- MS Office has more features or whatever for certain obscure specialized tasks. The thing is, I see more and more people who have it installed -- non-geeks -- the type of people who 10 years ago wouldn't ever had heard about it in its previous incarnations. For most people, Libre Office does more things than they'll ever even learn how to do, and certainly does those things most people need to do with a word processor or spreadsheet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @03:08AM
...with "more" being determined by an individual's (or organization's) use patterns.
This makes it a bit easier to decide for yourself. [documentfoundation.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by TheReaperD on Saturday February 06 2016, @11:51PM
Microsoft has to keep that vendor lock-in going somehow. Though Google Aps for Education are not as feature rich as Office, it has the right price tag for schools: free. Microsoft doesn't want to compete with free but, they're slowly being backed into a corner. Free products such as Google Apps and LibreOffice have reached the "good enough" stage for a lot of users.
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
(Score: 1) by oregonjohn on Saturday February 06 2016, @11:59PM
Microsoft is dying, knows it, and is extracting everything it can for it's chief officers. The stock holders will suffer in the long term.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Sunday February 07 2016, @02:55AM
"Technology like Microsoft software enhances the educational experience and infuses learning with crucial hands-on computer skills – skills that will be an asset as students prepare for college and the workforce."
Notice it is technology "like", but not exactly the same as, Micro$oft.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @04:00AM
--Dave Barry