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▲ acheong08 a day ago

This feels like a dangerous game they're playing. Yes, there is some lock in, but competitors exist and are better than ever. The new "features" they're justifying this with (Copilot) isn't even something that most people want

▲Aurornis a day ago | parent | next [-]

Business basic goes from $6 to $7. Business premium is unchanged from $22 to $22.

Price increases are normal. (I’ve been on HN long enough to remember when “raise your prices” was treated as the best startup advice around in HN comments) These price increases aren’t excessive relative to inflation for other services in a business context. I don’t see this as a dangerous game.

> The new "features" they're justifying this with (Copilot) isn't even something that most people want

Most people who comment on HN, maybe. Their average customer is probably demanding it and at risk of switching products if the AI integration is not as good as a competitor’s.

The Venn diagram of their customer base and Hacker News commenters doesn’t have much overlap.

▲bachmeier a day ago | parent | next [-]

> Their average customer is probably demanding it and at risk of switching products if the AI integration is not as good as a competitor’s.

There's no substance to this comment. It's pure speculation. If you actually want to look at evidence, look at the recent news that Microsoft has cut AI sales targets in half.

> The Venn diagram of their customer base and Hacker News commenters doesn’t have much overlap.

Ironic that you posted this as a comment on HN.

▲Aurornis a day ago | parent [-]

> Ironic that you posted this as a comment on HN.

It’s not ironic at all. Posting here was deliberate to highlight the bubble that happens here for consumer products. This comment section has a lot of people evaluating these price hikes as if they were targeted at HN individual users, not for a product targeted at a different audiences and corporate subscriptions.

Hacker News commenters are frequently unaware that their use cases and customer preferences do not reflect the average customer demand in the market.

Remember when Dropbox was launched and the top comment was doubting its utility because they could replicate it with rsync and other commands duct taped together? That level of disconnectedness with the market is common in every thread about consumer products.

As for AI demand: If you don’t think AI is in demand, you haven’t been looking at the explosive adoption of AI tools from ChatGPT to Sora (consistently high on app charts) by consumers. These products are in high demand, though you’d never know if it your only perspective was through upvoted HN stories and comments.

▲tombert 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Remember when Dropbox was launched and the top comment was doubting its utility because they could replicate it with rsync and other commands duct taped together? That level of disconnectedness with the market is common in every thread about consumer products.

"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." - Carl Sagan.

I don't disagree with most of what you said, we can be out of touch a lot of the time, but I kind of hate that this has become the "smoking gun" to dismiss comments on Hacker News. Yes, one person was wrong about Dropbox and said that they could just use an FTP server. Yes, people on here agreed with that person. Yes, sometimes our ability to do things low level blinds us to the fact that the majority of people can't or simply don't want to.

That said, most of the negative feedback people get for these things is actually good feedback, and most of the time when people say a project can be accomplished by doing XYZ, that's usually a valid point. Technical people can absolutely be out of touch (and I'm probably worse than average about it), but that doesn't automatically mean that a comment on HN is invalid or useless.

While saying "no one wants" the AI features might be a bit of hyperbole, I don't think it's super out of touch, and this is evidenced by the fact that a lot of the VC money for AI ventures is drying up. AI is neat and here to stay, but I think a large chunk of society is coming to terms with the fact that it's not nearly as cool as it was promised to us, and getting a little annoyed with how much AI crap is being thrown at us. YouTube is getting filled with low-effort AI video and AI voice and AI script bullshit, the average web page is turning a tinge of yellow from all the AI generated images that seem to be all over the place, searching is getting almost as bad as it was in 2005 when "SEO" became a thing because of all the AI generated blogs designed to steal clicks. None of this stuff is relegated to the technical crowd, this is stuff even normies have to deal with.

And within the scope of HN, I'm sure all of us are getting a little tired of having to review pull requests with huge chunks of clearly-AI-generated code that the writer doesn't really and are large enough to not be realistically reviewable with a lot of shitty, low-effort code.

▲qsort a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I broadly agree with you but the AI demand part is more nuanced. Demand is very large for consumer-ish apps like ChatGPT and Sora, but even Claude, which is huge for coding and arguably the best model right now, is tiny. I've had an interaction with someone nontechnical who, after seeing the Claude logo bounce, asked me why my ChatGPT had fireworks.

Yeah, the demand is there, but I have a hard time believing nontechnical people are clamoring for Copilot, they likely don't even know such a thing exists. The market is insane right now.

▲Aurornis 21 hours ago | parent [-]

> but even Claude, which is huge for coding and arguably the best model right now, is tiny. I've had an interaction with someone nontechnical who, after seeing the Claude logo bounce, asked me why my ChatGPT had fireworks

So they had used ChatGPT enough to recognize that you were using a different tool?

I don’t see this as contradicting anything. Even the nontechnical people in your life are familiar with these tools because they’re using them.

▲expedition32 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I agree MS365 or whatever the official name is nowadays is just a tax write of for companies.

There are alternatives for consumers but enterprise isn't going to screw around with those.

▲graemep 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Their average customer is probably demanding it and at risk of switching products if the AI integration is not as good as a competitor’s.

Which customers? Some enterprise customers want AI, others restrict its use. Other want integration with something other than Copilot.

▲jjgreen a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Business basic goes from $6 to $7

So a 16% hike when current US inflation is 3-4%?

▲gruez a day ago | parent | next [-]

>So a 16% hike when current US inflation is 3-4%?

When was the last price hike? Looking at historical inflation and working backwards, you only need to start at around late 2021 to get 16% cumulative inflation. In other words if they didn't raise their prices for 4 years, they'd be at par with inflation.

edit: another commenter mentioned the last price hike was around 4 years ago, so it's indeed in line with inflation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46192356

▲redserk 21 hours ago | parent [-]

Since when does any organization factor in inflation for renewals from vendors?!

All the purchase renewal decisions I've been part of have been:

1) Will they budge on renewal rates?

2) Does an alternative vendor exist?

3) Is the increase reasonable compared to the cost of switching to an alternative?

4) Do we anticipate future price increases, and if so, how can we prepare ourselves to consider a switch in the future?

▲gruez 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>Since when does any organization factor in inflation for renewals from vendors?!

Don't ask me, ask the person who posed the question of inflation in the first place. That said...

>All the purchase renewal decisions I've been part of have been:

All but one of the reasons you listed are tied to inflation in some way. Inflation affects everything in the economy, so a company that doesn't raise prices in line with it is losing money. Even SaaS businesses with low marginal costs aren't exempt, because they still need to pay salaries for developers and support staff, both of which roughly track inflation. Therefore if business see price hikes that raise with inflation, they can assume that competitors will raise prices as well, and it's not going to be worth switching unless they're already on the fence for some other reason.

▲marcosdumay 15 hours ago | parent [-]

> All but one of the reasons you listed are tied to inflation in some way.

Only if you assert that all prices move together at the same velocity.

It's usually a reasonable thing to assert, when the economy isn't in a complete revolution. And it's a really bad premise right now.

▲simonjgreen 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Any experienced procurement or FP&A team will be doing this

▲jfindper a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Percentages are fun because they can make something with a small absolute change look like a giant change.

No business is really going to care about $1.00/user, especially when it costs hundreds of dollars per user (or thousands) to migrate entirely away from the Microsoft ecosystem.

▲Terretta 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

For an enterprise with fungible employees there is nothing cogent to migrate to.

▲jimnotgym 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And where could you migrate to?

▲tallanvor a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How much inflation has there been since the last price increase? From 2022 to 2025 it look likes like about 11%, so not all that different if you're trying to keep a round number.

▲Aurornis a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Did you notice every price was a whole number?

Or that this was for business accounts that were already cheap? $1/seat isn’t going to cause a mass migration off the platform.

Or that some of the price hikes were 0%?

Fixating on this lowest price increase is deliberately misleading.

You would also have to go back and calculate price increases over time to compare against inflation over time?

▲jjgreen a day ago | parent [-]

If they charged by the day then (rounding up for your convenience) gets $31/mo, you're missing a trick Redmond ...

▲jacquesm 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Are we treating MS like a start-up now?

▲tacticus 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Their average customer is probably demanding it

The average australian customer managed to get angry enough that the ACCC is working to force a slop free variant and a refund for everyone dark patterned into upgrading.

▲carlosjobim 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The Venn diagram of their customer base and Hacker News commenters doesn’t have much overlap.

You're completely right about this. But how does the Venn diagram look for features between different Office versions and for customer needs? Another commenter here said that Office 98 is good enough for most users, and I have to agree.

What reason is there today for somebody to upgrade from a 10 or 15 year old version of Office? Is Copilot it?

I've managed a very information-intensive career so far without using MS Office. Apple's iWork software is perfectly fine. And I'm not avoiding Office out of any principle. If I needed or wanted it, I'd be happy to pay for it.

▲jimnotgym 12 hours ago | parent [-]

> What reason is there today for somebody to upgrade from a 10 or 15 year old version of Office?

Collaborative editing

▲carlosjobim 10 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

From what I understand, this was introduced in Office 2010. But maybe it wasn't good enough?

▲actuallyalys 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

People here do seem to miss that they added this relatively big feature. The problem for Microsoft is that Google Docs also has collaborative editing, and in my experience, it actually works better.

▲traceroute66 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> This feels like a dangerous game they're playing. Yes, there is some lock in, but competitors exist and are better than ever.

Except there are not really any competitors if you look at the whole package.

A Microsoft 365 Business Standard subscription, for example, gets you bundled Teams and Exchange.

The fact you get the big-four (Word, Excel, Outlook and Powerpoint) thrown in is really just icing on the cake.

▲jacquesm 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> A Microsoft 365 Business Standard subscription, for example, gets you bundled Teams and Exchange.

That's a negative.

▲trinix912 16 hours ago | parent [-]

For end-users maybe, but for the business' IT who get a working mail server they don't have to mess with, and a whole remote work and videoconferencing package that "just works" and most people already know how to use, it's a hell of a deal.

▲trollbridge 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Kind of hard to understand what it does that Google Workspace + Zoom (or any other provider) doesn't?

I'm seeing a very common pattern of Google Workspace + Google Meet, Zoom seats for people who need to remotely control computers, and then Slack or ones of its competitors for chat.

▲traceroute66 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Because ...

     - Its one package
     - All the non-tech users already know Microsoft
     - Most IT techies will be VERY familiar with Microsoft
     - If you are migrating from on-Prem then it is highly likely you've got Exchange on-prem.
Add on top of that, you can (depending on package) get Active Directory ("Entra") and MDM ("Intune"). So you get credential management and the ability to push out Group Policies to your user's machines.

Look, I'm the last person to defend Microsoft. But if you are a Microsoft shop then it does, sadly, make a lot of sense to take a Microsoft sub.

▲wyre 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Google + Zoom + Slack is 3 separate accounts. Corporate only wants 1 account.

▲ocdtrekkie 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Teams has annoyingly some lock in value for 365. Nobody should prefer Exchange Online over Exchange though, Microsoft is too unreliable of a service provider.

▲sys_64738 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The great unwashed masses will still continue to pay it. It's not a sizeable increases that they'd be willing to move elsewhere. People rationalize it in the context of it's only a buck a month and other things increase by more. M$ are not stupid but do know what they're doing. May take is. Don't do drugs. Don't do subscriptions. Don't do MICROS~1.

▲dfxm12 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In my experience, most people, especially execs who are negotiating the licensing deals, want Copilot. Even if they are underwhelmed after using it, at that point, MS doesn't care. They already have your money.

▲noosphr a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.

▲jgerrish 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> This feels like a dangerous game they're playing.

There are different types of danger in playing the "We are the Monsters" game that Microsoft and the US Intelligence agencies seem to love.

There's the danger their allies in Europe like Germany running the Open Document Foundation aren't as powerful as they think. I'm sorry if that's the case and I wouldn't want to be making those calculations.

But there's a different danger to normal US citizens just trying to live their fucking lives and build their life spreadsheet. It's so easy nowadays to fall into the trap of identifying more with European values, including digital data protection and open source. Or wanting to leave the country.

But some people don't want to be forced out of their home when they're vulnerable. It hurts knowing we are seen as monsters ourselves and I don't blame that sentiment.

But where will the next generation be shifted to?

Launched to Europe after Canada? Then launched into Space?

It's tied into the other social situations like public support for Luigi Mangione's actions and horrible calls for the death of political actors. You know it's a convenient way to demonize a large portion of the population and legally protect institutions like the FBI. Who does important work and is just doing their fucking job.

That game isn't as dangerous for them. The cost to them is minimal, but huge for citizens stuck down here.

It sucks. I really do love the work Microsoft has done in the past decade with LSP and developer experience.

▲jgerrish 13 hours ago | parent [-]

I didn't mean to imply Germany isn't independent and at the same time we can't trust our allies. It's mostly that the monster game puts risk downstream too. And some have it really bad if you're going for citizenship. I know, it seems like it's just a fucking Office Suite.

▲notepad0x90 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I wish I could agree with this, but the ecosystem lock-in is too great. They might lose business for sure but it may not put a dent in their revenue at all.

If you replace office, you'll have to replace sharepoint, onedrive, etc.. and it isn't just the tools but the policies and critical features that go along with those. For most orgs, this is literally their lifeblood, not just some tool they can yank out. For smaller orgs it might be easier, but those don't pay Microsoft as much anyways.

From a user point of view, there are tools that have similar features, some even better features. G-suite is the only platform i know of that unifies all the office productivity products like 365 does. But neither G-suite nor any other platform can be managed/policed as well as 365. At the end of the day, will Google behave any better than Microsoft anyways (cost or otherwise)? And it isn't just policing and management but securing all that precious data in there, Microsoft might not be great but lots of tech-debt has gone into securing it within that platform. A migration would be costly, justifying it with cost savings alone might be difficult.

▲JohnFen 21 hours ago | parent [-]

> If you replace office, you'll have to replace sharepoint, onedrive, etc.

At least in my workplace, people do their best to avoid using sharepoint and onedrive anyway.

▲maxerickson 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Are there downsides to OneDrive?

I can see being resistant to change, haven't had issues with it (and have benefitted from the auto save quite a lot).

▲notepad0x90 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

in corporate america, it's everywhere, to the point where people's compromised accounts being used to send phishing content via sharepoint/onedrive is extremely common. It is (rightfully) highly encouraged as well due to their built-in data loss prevention stuff (Microsoft information protection/MIP), it's the only reasonable way I've seen to get a handle on secret documents/content/slides from leaking too much.

▲boh a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Most of their enterprise clients get bundled services so it often still retains its competitive edge. Their Power suite, Teams and the existing integrations make it cost effective even with the increases.

▲emadb a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Other than Google, what are other competitors that worth evaluating?

▲hoistbypetard a day ago | parent | next [-]

Zoho and Collabora spring immediately to mind.

▲stackskipton 15 hours ago | parent [-]

Zoho is crap. Sure, on the tin it comes with 64 different things, but many are poorly integrated and feature set is just enough to be like "Yes, we have that feature."

▲hoistbypetard 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Interesting. I know I'm not a very demanding user of word processing or presentation software. But I've been using zoho for basic business stuff for one of my businesses since 2019, and I wouldn't call it crap. It's not amazing, but I pay something like $12/user/year. And I get shared docs/sheets/decks + pretty decent email. And their transactional email service (zeptomail) is actually top notch IMO.

What missing integration makes you say "it's crap" and what do you consider a good version of that thing?

▲vee-kay 9 hours ago | parent [-]

I am a home user, but I use Zoho's paid email service as a backup and alternative to Gmail and Outlook, and it is pretty decent and extremely affordable.

▲DANmode 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

As of what date?

▲stackskipton 15 hours ago | parent [-]

Probably been about 2 years since I was forced to last use it but with amount of slop being added, their development priorities would have to massively changed.

▲DANmode 14 hours ago | parent [-]

Gotcha - way more relevant than my experiences!

Thanks

▲alternatex 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Unironically Proton. Seems like they are slowly building their own suite of office tools.

▲basch 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Canva is a go to over Microsoft and Adobe for a huge crowd of people

▲preisschild 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Collabora Online

▲croes a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For which feature?

How people in companies really need the features of Word, Excel and PowerPoint?

I often see people using space to right align a date, the pros use tabs.

▲Bombthecat a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Open source... But yeah.. ms won this game

▲sneak a day ago | parent [-]

There is no foss competitor to Excel.

▲adornKey a day ago | parent | next [-]

Libre Office Calc is pretty similar to Excel for general use. For importing csv files it has always been superior to Excel. Some niche areas in Calc are also better than Excel. Inflexible users are locked into Excel, but for general purpose use Calc is all you need.

▲trollbridge 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Libre Office is great for replicating what Excel did 10 years ago. Excel has a lot of things that power users use (like Power Query) that Libre Office simply isn't even trying to replicate.

▲jimnotgym 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

When developers tell me that I could use Calc rather than Excel, I ask them if they would be OK being forced to use Emacs or Vim, whichever is the opposite of what they spent the last decade perfecting.

▲hoistbypetard a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For legacy spreadsheets, you're 100% correct. I'll need to keep a version of Excel around forever. If they price me out of 365 by making me pay for Copilot shit I don't use or want, a perpetual license to Office 2019 runs about $20 and will do that job for me.

For new work that I might have otherwise done in Excel, there are good options. Collabora works. Libre Office works. Google sheets works. And Grist is quite good, and self-hostable.

▲tzs 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> If they price me out of 365 by making me pay for Copilot shit I don't use or want [...]

In case you aren't aware, when they try to sneak Copilot onto your plan you can get rid of it by going to your plan management page and canceling. One of the offers they should offer to try to get you to stay is your old plan without Copilot.

▲moepstar 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> a perpetual license to Office 2019 runs about $20 and will do that job for me.

Isn’t that only perpetual as long as the activation servers are up?

▲hoistbypetard 21 hours ago | parent [-]

Probably. I meant "perpetual" as opposed to "subscription" but I agree with your concern.

▲nottorp 20 hours ago | parent [-]

You just stash a cracked version downloaded off some high seas site just in case.

▲sneak a day ago | parent | prev [-]

None of the things you listed are suitable replacements for Excel. None.

It has nothing to do with existing files/compatibility. Excel is unparalleled.

▲hoistbypetard 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That depends on your workload. I've been using Excel since 1993, and I find the things I've listed help me get things done just as well as Excel does, unless I have a pile of macros and vbscript I need to interop with.

This is not theoretical; I learned it by needing to get shit done in a context where having an activated copy of Excel wasn't practical. Excel was paralleled and in one case surpassed.

▲array_key_first 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The solution is actually just not using Excel. If you're essentially using Excel as a LOB backend and database, that should probably not be in Excel.

It's fine if you have a few formulas. As soon as you're busting out macros it's time to sunset the workbook and make an application. There's a lot of God Excel workbooks sitting around on share drives with no audibility or quality control.

▲justapassenger 17 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, there's many many cases that should likely not be using Excel.

But given that Excel is the second-best tool for everything, world runs on it.

And when you try to build systems to replace Excel for a specific task, you quickly learn how extremely powerful Excel is and how hard is to replace it and add value that customers would care about.

▲array_key_first 16 hours ago | parent [-]

I've been there, the problem is that replacements are not as versatile or "floppy". But that's also a good thing, because Excel is too versatile to the point where most workbooks are filled with bugs on top of bugs and nobody cares.

▲justapassenger 11 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, bugs in sheets are worst part of excel, by far.

But many end users prefer dealing with bugs than with inflexible software that doesn’t understand all the different ways how real world is messy and hard to model.

I hate using Excel. But I 100% understand why world runs on it.

▲baranul 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Have to disagree. It depends on what you are doing. That the alternatives can be replacements, including the open source ones, is relative and should be looked at as a percentage.

If you listed out all the things that Excel can do, we might find that the alternative is at 80% or so (just a number), with some additional things that Excel can't do. That 80% could be good enough to switch. It should not be looked at as "all or nothing", especially for every person or business.

▲chris_wot 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Can it open Quattro Pro files?

▲boh a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Open Office, Libre Office, Only Office to start.

▲embedding-shape a day ago | parent | next [-]

I want to love these, mostly because they're FOSS and Office/Google Spreadsheets seems to get more and more bloated, and subsequently slower.

But the UX is just a lot worse, and it isn't easy to go from one application to another because they're slightly different enough that your productivity takes a hit from all the small papercuts.

I'm waiting for some FOSS spreadsheet solution that doesn't just try to copy Office, but comes up with something better. Then it'll feel like it's worth it to learn a whole new program and its UX, rather than just suffering through it because you wanna use FOSS.

▲baranul 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Many would say that the FOSS alternatives don't copy Office enough. Often, by going there own way with various tasks, they create a bigger jump. Case in point, the Linux distros that attract the most attention for common folk and not niche use, are the ones that are more Windows-like. Examples: Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Zorin, etc... The smaller the jump, the more you can convince people to switch over.

When there is a significant difference, it needs to be shown what the equivalent is in the alternative. The jump can be a bit mitigated by education or information, but usually by only so much, where it's still seen as attractive.

▲BizarroLand 14 hours ago | parent [-]

I think the main issue for most people is that the layout is slightly different, probably to help prevent microsoft from suing them.

But once you get used to those differences, (also, knowing that there are a handful of themes that can shorten the difference significantly) then it becomes a non-issue after less than 10 hours of use.

▲Krssst 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

LibreOffice seems to have an optional ribbon-like interface for the people that happen to like it (View -> User Interface) (but I don't use this UI mode as I personally find ribbon-like UIs hard to work with).

▲sombragris 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> But the UX is just a lot worse, and it isn't easy to go from one application to another because they're slightly different enough that your productivity takes a hit from all the small papercuts.

Speak for yourself. I see that LibreOffice's default UI is still a normal WIMP UI and this is a plus for me. I hated when MS Office switched to the ribbon in Office 2007.

"So you want to insert a row in a table? Great, just click on Table > Insert > Row... Oh well. Nevermind, just show me your screen and I'll hunt the functionality in that stupid ribbon."

We don't need less, but more, Office programs that respect GUI UI conventions.

▲hoistbypetard a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Have you tried grist[0]?

It's self-hostable (and the community version is FOSS I think), and really useful in a way I find better than just a spreadsheet.

It's no good for importing complex excel things, but I've found it very useful for new work.

[0](https://www.getgrist.com)

▲embedding-shape a day ago | parent [-]

That actually looks kind of neat, similar to Airbase unless I'm mistaken. Thanks for the recommendation, I'll definitely check it out.

▲boh a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Check out Only Office. It's an almost total copy of the 365 aesthetic.

▲embedding-shape a day ago | parent [-]

Yeah, that's the opposite of what I want, then I'll just continue using Excel... What I want is for someone to figure out a better UI and better UX, not just copy what's out there.

▲therealjumbo 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My hot take on a better excel: the two things excel sucks at: version control and syncing. On the backend, separate the data and the logic in the spreadsheet and put each into version control. Then use something like syncthing to share documents with colleagues. You might also need something like bitmessage for initial handshake. Now you have a spreadsheet you can collaborate on in real time over the Internet or LAN without screwing around with a server, a google account, a credit card etc.

There's two more things excel is horrible at: choice of extension language and being able to graduate your spreadsheet into a real program. You fix the extension language by using something like web assembly on the back end, and probably bundle one or more compilers to go from $lang to web assembly in order to be user friendly. Lastly you fix the last problem by virtue of doing all of the above. The second two features won't draw in new users much, so they're less important in the short run but make it a lot more sticky.

I'm not in a place in life to put much free time into that project, and ideas are cheap ...

▲esafak 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Try https://rows.com/ai

▲stephen_g 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, but take OpenOffice off the list, development has slowed to a glacial pace and it’s close to abandoned in favour of LibreOffice, which is actively maintained.

Looks like there was finally a OpenOffice release recently but that was after years of people complaining of security vulnerabilities not fixed in the release version.

▲ambicapter a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Google Docs works fine for most people though (not FOSS, but most Office customers don't care).

▲aerostable_slug 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My problem is the knee-jerk "Google will sell/read our data" that suggesting any of their suite seems to engender. It doesn't really matter what Google says in their contracts, too many executives trust them less than MSFT.

Agreed that their actual products seem to work fine for almost everyone.

▲mc32 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s about the same price without the AzureAD stuff or AV integration even if substandard. Also Google emasculated its Google sites.

▲richardlblair a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Or power point. I had to make some slides for the first time in a decade. I was in Google Slides for 5 minutes, then I tried to import an SVG.

That was the moment I booted into windows for the first time in 4 months. I started up Power Point and sure enough SVGs are no problem.

▲breckognize a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Shameless plug: Row Zero has real enterprise traction. AWS uses us.

2B row limit, connected, eliminates the Excel security risk because it's hosted.

▲croes a day ago | parent | prev [-]

But for many of Excels use cases

▲bangaladore 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you think there are competitors, you are clearly mistaken of what exactly O365 is.

Nobody offers what Microsoft bundles here. From editors, to storage, to communication to identity to management.

And I say this as someone who hates dealing with Microsoft and their products.

▲SideburnsOfDoom a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Can I just get the version without CoPilot for cheaper? Or at all?

Likely they'd charge more for it.

▲jsheard a day ago | parent [-]

I think the only way to get the no-Copilot version now is to already have the Copilot version and try to cancel your subscription, and only then they'll offer the "Classic" version sans Copilot as a last ditch retention effort. If users actually wanted this stuff they wouldn't need to bury the option to not pay for it.

▲mc32 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Google was increasing their pricing too. Also before last year they were charging an extra license for Gemini but then decided to throw it in.