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Is the Microsoft Office switch from .doc to .docx really just planned obsolescence?

Remember back in the late 70s & 80s, when Detroit made shitty cars with the intention that they'd quit working after 5-10 years and you'd have to buy a new one? They called it planned obsolescence.

I get the sinking suspicion that's what Redmond is doing with the switch from .doc, .xls, .ppt to .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, and so forth. For the low-tech user like me, is there really a difference between Office 2003 and Office 2010 that would make it worth buying the new program?

I type documents in Word. When I'm getting really ambitious, I might insert a picture. I add up budgets in Excel then sometimes (and this is really advanced) I have to subtract stuff.

My home computer has Office 2003. My work computer has Office 2010. The only substantive difference I've noticed is that I can't open 2010 files (ie, .docx) in 2003 unless I manually save it in 2003-2007 format (ie, doc).

Other than that, it seems like everything is pretty much the same, but Microsoft scrambled around all the buttons so I don't know where they are anymore. Which, as a side note, really pisses me off. I still drive a 1973 Ford pickup truck, and it runs just fine.

Ford trucks didn't start to suck until 1979, by the way. Is my Office 2003 going to be the digital equivalent of that? Or is there any reason at all that I should pony up for 2010?

In case you can't tell, yes, I do have a bad attitude about this, but if somebody from Microsoft wants to talk me down, I'm willing to listen.

 

Grumpy Office 2003 user is grumpy...

soundslikepuget asked in Geek Week 10 months ago | Report
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    Jack

    Yeah, it works far, far better with XML which opens up a lot of new stuff you can do for web publishing and other non-printed documents.

    Also, you need be grumpy no more. Microsoft has a free pack you can download that makes it so Office 2003 can read and edit .docx files, although the XML stuff doesn't transfer over: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=3

    Also, you're wrong about Detroit's planned obsolescence. The 70's were actually the end of Detroit's grand planned obsolescence tradition. Saying that cars "only" lasted 5-10 years shows how unbelievably spoiled we are by the quality of cars made in the last 20 years-- in the 50's and 60's you were doing really well if you got 5 years out of a car and getting 10 years was unheard of. "Malaise era" cars of the 70's and 80's had lots of mostly smog-related performance issues, but they were no worse than cars from the so-called "good old days" in terms of longevity.

    The real classic Detroit planned obsolescence scheme wasn't mechanical, it was aesthetic. In the 50's and 60's, most cars got restyles every year with basically no purpose but making last year's model look old. That, along with huge marketing budgets, meant that most people traded in every 2 or 3 years. Changes in society and economic woes mostly killed this practice, but the crappy-performing cars Detroit cranked out post-Clean Air Act helped, as did the simultaneous arrival of Japanese cars that ran better and actually DID last more than 5 years.

    Jack answered in Geek Week 10 months ago | Report
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    capicola

    Short version:
    Check out www.openoffice.org. If you have concerns about opening Word 2007 or 2010 documents, check out this page specifically:
    http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ/General/How_do_I_open_Microsoft_Office_2007_files%3F

    If the free open-source alternative doesn't do what you need it to do, you can always fork over to upgrade Office.

    Long version:
    I'd say that Microsoft had a proprietary but industry-leading format for word processing documents, slide presentations, and so forth, for a long time--apologies to Corel, Lotus, dBase, etc etc.

    They rode their monopoly for years, making incremental and occasionally dubious "improvements" like smart tags and persistent cartoon paperclips.

    As the Internet matured, so did standards for message formats, communication protocols, security, and so forth. And, around 2000, Sun Microsystems open-sourced the code for StarOffice, which has evolved into OpenOffice, an office productivity suite that uses the XML-based OpenDocument format (.ODF).

    In order not to be overtaken by events, i.e. a free and open productivity suite, Microsoft did what it often does: They adopted (or co-opted?) a new or nascent standard (XML-based office documents) but put their own proprietary spin on it.

    To summarize, I'd say the .docx standard was cynically developed in an attempt to trample the OpenDocument standard and control the direction of XML-based office-file formats.

    The strategy is working pretty well, as most corporations and institutional customers just automatically upgrade to the latest and greatest Office suite when ordered to do so. So do many consumers. Those consumers who are frustrated but confused are often tipped toward upgrading Office again by all the talk about extensibility and openness and stuff of Microsoft's own XML stuff.

    So that's the why IMHO. The what-to-do is up at the top.

    Good luck.

    capicola answered in Geek Week 10 months ago | Report
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