Microsoft has no soul. I'm going to guess that Google will follow suit. There is no class solidarity quite like corporate class solidarity. Fuck all these companies.
Google offers workspace for free to nonprofits, Including device management. No one, I know in nonprofits even fucks with Microsoft because they’re so ridiculous. Now it’ll be even less people.
Google now has the market cornered because they aren’t as greedy.
Google offered Workspace free to individuals. I set that up and used it for my family, and then BAM! After a lomg time using it, they removed the free plan, once we were using it for logins for a bunch of sites and for our emails. Went from free to $50 per month. It took a LOT of effort to get my family off of that. Never again.
Hey remember when Google used to have a motto, "Don't be evil"?
Used to.
lame. The web versions suck.
I thought from the headline that it was just a downgrade to Business Standard, no this is to Business Basic! That's a huge yikes, it's so much harder to be productive in those web versions.
I honestly would not be surprised if users work out installing LibreOffice et al. so they can still have a desktop app experience because of this move.
I wonder if the amount of SharePoint storage will be impacted by such a license chance too. One of my clients at work will be very unhappy with these changes especially if it means they have to buy more SharePoint storage
But can you also get all the enterprise features they have with Linux? Like, backups, mobile device management, identity and access management, MFA? All integrated tightly and easily deployable from a portal?
Yet again, I laugh, and remark 'People still use Windows? People still use MSFT products?'
There's really no competitor for large orgs with robust technology needs.
There are absolutely large orgs in the Google and Apple ecosystems. My org, for example, doesn't use Microsoft except for a smattering of Excel and Word subscriptions to deal with some customer documents that aren't handled well by Google Docs and Google Sheets.
Yeah, anyone who uses Excel on a professional level can tell you Google sheets etc are NO substitute for Excel. Just so many things the competitors just can't do
What about libreoffice? What are the things you can only achieve with MS Excel?
For financials, only the companies still in the dark ages depend on Excel rather than real ERP or accounting software.
Sheets handles pretty much all typical business needs, but we do run into issues if we're collaborating with another company that is using macros or something in Excel.
My brother is an accountant and uses sheets for a lot of non-work stuff, and specialized software for most business needs. He also uses Excel, sure, but there are substitutes for Excel in a lot of cases.
How are you handling compliance/legal obligations like DLP policies on your email and cloud storage, legal holds and investigations, data tagging, and retention policies? I'm under the impression that only Microsoft offers those in a single product.
Legal Hold is easy in the Google Workspace using Google Vault and DLP is a native feature-set for Enterprise plans. Audit and investigation features are very thorough and we've used them extensively.
We do use an additional third-party endpoint DLP software with TLS inspection as well.
Sadly. An example: I work at a small school that does not have an IT department. Staff and teachers are nearly IT-illiterate, and the students can hardly be coaxed to do stuff on a laptop instead of their phones. So installing Linux would add an additional hurdle for both. Probably much smaller than they think, but still: it heightens the threshold to even consider switching to Linux.
There's a few people who know that Linux is just as valid as Windows, but who would they trust to make the switch safely. Me? I'm not a professional. So they'd have to pay someone, properly. And then it all comes down to money again which usually comes down to "let's not change anything".
So for now I'd just be happy if they used LibreOffice instead of MS365.
The same goes for Google Workspace. Making the effort to roll your own (totally possible with FOSS) would require to pay at least 1 person, and some sort of transitional period. It's cheaper and easier to pay none and just blame it on Google when things don't work as desired. These people just don't see it as a priority. Don't understand the dangers.
LibreOffice is not a replacement for M365 though, it’s a replacement for Office. M365 is not just office.
LibreOffice doesn’t give every user 1TB of cloud storage space. It doesn’t give you a company email address and management tools for users. It doesn’t give you 95% of what M365 does.
Making the effort to roll your own (totally possible with FOSS)
You said this too:
So for now I’d just be happy if they used LibreOffice instead of MS365
As I said, LibreOffice can’t be used instead of MS365 unless you want to lose 95% of the features of 365.
Yep.
MSFT will continue to enshittify, people who point out this will happen will be poo-poo'd because switching would be complicated and costly...
... But, having to panic switch sometime down the road, because an entire class of software features or pricing models drastically alter with little warning...
... Well then, in the long run, it would have been less costly to start the migration strategy earlier.
I have seen this play out at every single company or non profit I have ever worked at, and I have learned to leave about 6 months after a planned migration/mitigation strategy gets canned as too costly and unnecessary... because usually, 6 months or so after that, every one is now in panic mode, and my workload would triple.
Including literally at MSFT itself.
The managers and corporate don't know anything other than maximize short term profits, and have astounding levels of normalcy bias; even if you can present a well resesrched, realistic scenario with detailed costs over time for different strategies... they basically always assume things will just be fine, untill its far too late.
Yeah. They honestly get what they deserve at this point.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
