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 Software : Microsoft Office Professional 2003 [OLD VERSION] |
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Rating:  - Be sure of what you need
There are many versions of Office, so be careful to order the one you need. For example, unless you are using Access databases you can save some money by going with the Small Business Edition instead of Professional, and still have rudimentary database and list functionality with Outlook, Excel, Word, plus PowerPoint and Publisher.
As to whether the version upgrade is worthwhile, personally I think it is. We have a small office with some machines on 2000, some on XP, and some on 2003 (depending on date of pruchase). I'm looking forward to getting them all standardized on the 2003 version.
Rating: - Outlook 2003 is the big upgrade for me. Do you need the rest?
Now that outlook does not download images by default. Spammers cannot tell if you opened up their email. And, for the same reason, if you like auto preview but turned it off because of potential malicious code you can fell more comfortable using it again. Another big help for those of you who use rules but had to keep your entire folder tree open to see if you have new email. Now there is an unread email view which groups by folder. Make sure you flag emails for follow up, because if you start using your unread folder view as you used your inbox in the past, read emails will disappear and you will forget to respond. Not to worry there is a follow up view as well.
As for the other apps I have not used them to the extent that I use Outlook. I only run into new features as I need them and I just have not needed any other new features.
Rating:  - Don't even think about upgrading
You need to get out more. Just the fact that you are looking at this page and are thinking of upgrading your Microsoft Office makes it clear that you have a problem. Don't believe the Microsoft advertisement featuring dinosaurs to announce "Microsoft Office Has Evolved." It hasn't. This is a mature product. It doesn't matter if you use Office 1997, 2000 or 2003. They are all the same. The good, the bad and the ugly. It is all still here. Maybe a few bugs have been fixed. Most haven't, and there are always new bugs. If Microsoft took the time to really improve the software, that would be one thing. But they don't.
Here is an example. You are in Outlook. You call up a contact and want to send that person a letter. You need to print an envelope, but there is no command to do so. There is no button to click. You can't right click anywhere to print an envelope. I am not making this up. Outlook has been out for almost ten years and multiple upgrades, and Microsoft still hasn't gotten around to implementing functionality to print a single envelope. Your only option (the on-line support confirms this) is to perform a mail merge. This is an elaborate process that is designed for printing thousands of envelopes for a bulk mailing. It involves opening multiple windows and setting all sorts of settings. You have to go through the ENTIRE PROCESS just to print a single envelope! What is more, the mail merge feature has bugs in it. It leaves blank lines in addresses that look atrocious, and it drops country names from addresses. It gives you options as to how you want country names treated in addresses, but these all do nothing. Whatever option you select, Outlook leaves countries out of addresses when it prints envelopes.
I could go on, but I won't. If you are using Office 2000 or even Office 1997, you aren't missing out on anything. There is absolutely no reason to shell out $400 for new software that does all the same things in all the same ways with mostly the same bugs.
Rating: - Only if you're serious
I have been using Microsoft Office for at least 10 years, pretty much day in and day out at work. Some computer geek in a store convinced me that Open Office on my home computer would do everthing for me that MS did, and it was free. Well, I'm all about "free," so I gave it a shot. Maybe if all you do is type letters and balance your checkbook, Open Office will do the trick. But if you are a serious office product user, Open Office does not touch the functionality of MS. And believe me, I WANTED it to work. I had $500 riding on it! But I finally gave in. Yep, they've got me. I hated to drop the cash, but there's no real competition. So I guess it depends upon how much functionality you really need. I will probably load Open Office onto the other computers for "incidental" use, but I doubt I will ever wean off of MS.
Rating: - Simply Awful
Office 2003 is quite simply the worst pile of bloated crapware I have ever had the misfortune of installing on my computer. Its slow, costs too much, eats up way too much precious hard drive space, and is difficult and unintuitive to use. Absolutely the worst experience I personally have ever had with "productivity" software. Do yourself a favor, go to openoffice.org, download their suite and use it. You won't be disappointed. Sometimes, I truly wish there were a "zero star" option from Amazon in rating a product. If anything deserves it, this garbage does.
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