• panda_abyss@lemmy.ca
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    12 days ago

    Why?

    Why is every company right now making it impossible to understand what their app does?

    I swear to fucking god, I’ve been looking for SAAS products at work to fill a role, they’re all branded as AI and not what the companies actually fucking do.

    Office has like a 40 year plus reputation as THE office suite. What the fuck us copilot? That cheap knockoff OpenAI they debuted before it was really?

    • PostProcess@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Because AI on its own doesn’t actually make a return, but by conflating the AI investment with a genuine productivity tool that’s making money, you can start to hide your poor choices.

    • pdxfed@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      It’s because when so much money/power has pushed so long for people to make decisions based on money and not logic, we’ve now arrived at the point where even “the emperor’s new clothes” type moments can’t rein in the insanity; executives are bonused off this garbage and most employees who do know better–thanks to orgs’ own internal propaganda and structures–have given up caring and just publish the garbage and clock out(as they should).

    • monkeyslikebananas2@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      I think I know why. Microsoft Office was a product. Their new strategy is Services. They want you to lease their services and have vendor lock-in forever. It takes a long time for businesses to migrate.

      This has MBA written all over it. The idea that AI can just do whatever the client needs means that you can say your service does it all!

      It is a scam.

      • CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works
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        12 days ago

        I think I know why. Microsoft Office was a product. Their new strategy is Services. They want you to lease their services and have vendor lock-in forever. It takes a long time for businesses to migrate.

        They already did/do that and it’s called Office 365 and already have vendor lock-in with Windows, SSO services, Azure, etc

      • tehn00bi@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        It’s going to fall apart and the industries using the tools are going to adopt a Unix philosophy of dedicated tools that do a specific job well. May take a Butlerian Jihad, but it will happen.

        • Serinus@lemmy.world
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          11 days ago

          It’s already happening, in part because of this and in part because of the unstable, unpredictable US government.

          Several European countries are looking towards investing in open source as a way to get away from American big tech because they’re suddenly considering US sanctions against them a real possibility, or at least a real threat.

          • Taleya@aussie.zone
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            11 days ago

            Ayup. Why build your company on a service with a US company when they can - and have - fuck you on a whim?

            With standalone installs you can keep trucking. Service as subscription? That’s going to very quickly start dying off as the world destabilises.

      • moopet@sh.itjust.works
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        11 days ago

        I’ve seen people mention it elsewhere in this thread. But what is MBA? I get nothing relevant when I search for it.

    • CaptDust@sh.itjust.works
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      12 days ago

      Copilot is love, copilot is life. It’s okay friend - these are copilot times, but I still copilot you.

    • Nollij@sopuli.xyz
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      12 days ago

      FWIW, Office (or more accurately, everything that was part of Office) was renamed Microsoft 365 years ago, in 2020. That was long before the AI insanity.

      • Serinus@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        Shouldn’t it be called Microsoft 250? There are 250 working days in a year. As soon as I’m home I’m using Thunderbird or Libreoffice, certainly not the product formerly known as Microsoft Office.

    • Strider@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      It’s not about the user.

      (it’s about sounding innovative and cool with whichever trend to the brainless money people aka shareholders)

  • Euphoma@lemmy.ml
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    12 days ago

    Ok so there are 3 microsoft products called copilot now. Surely this won’t confuse anyone

  • pHr34kY@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    It’s been named “Microsoft Office” since 1990. Way to piss 35 years of brand recognition up a wall.

    How drunk are these guys?

    • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
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      12 days ago

      What’s funny is their attempts to rebrand Office have just fallen completely flat. Kind of reminds me of when Willis Group bought the naming rights to Sears Tower and all the Chicagoan’s were just collectively like, “Yeah, No. We’re still going to call it ‘Sears Tower’.” Hell, nobody that I know of calls it “Willis Tower.” Nobody calls Microsoft Office “Office 365”. Nobody is going to call it “Microsoft 365 Copilot.” This is just a huge waste of effort by a tech firm that has long since run out of ways to be innovative.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    11 days ago

    C Suite is in a cult.

    Tons of Microsoft senior engineers have been resigning over this kinda shit.

    Not getting fired or laid off, though that’s happening too… resigning.

    Bill Gates himself has expressed significant dissapointment with where the company has gone and is going, thinks AI needs to be optional, its clearly not ready.

    … Everyone hates this other than C Suite, who are either psychotically delusional, in an actual AI worshipping cult (you’d be surprised how many tech high ups are in one), or, they simply hate us and want us to die, want to be the overlords of whatever is left after they basically destroy modern civilization.

    • Dogiedog64@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Peak Business Idiot behavior. They’re too fucking stupid and caught up in the hype to notice that everything is on fire and their businesses are failing. The Line may be going up, but the companies are going DOWN.

    • suicidaleggroll@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      It’s happening at a lot of companies. Last year our C-suite cancelled some big IR&D projects (where we were designing real products that could actually be built and sold) in order to dump $300k/mo into renting a cloud AI infrastructure that none of the employees want or use.

        • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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          11 days ago

          That will be much harder. The MBA is specifically designed and controlled by the biggest financial institutions to implement management in a way that always benefits them.

          They will never allow the MBA to die.

          • Taleya@aussie.zone
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            11 days ago

            They will never allow the MBA to die.

            the concept? no. However denigration and discouragement will vastly stem the flow of sociopaths

  • damo_omad@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    Office is the last good branding Microsoft have and they’re just getting rid of it, I can’t believe it

    • Corngood@lemmy.ml
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      11 days ago

      Suicidally bad naming is the one thing we can always rely on Microsoft for

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      11 days ago

      Good?

      It’s godawful, to the point of being barely functional

      My company runs on office and I write everything in Google drive, then export it to a word document and import it into office because working on office web is just a joke.

      Seriously.

      Sometimes it just randomly and quietly deletes some text I just typed

      Sometimes it just changes layouts on other pages where I’m not even working

      Sometimes it says it saved the work and it saved didly squat

      I see Microsoft office as something that only “enterprise” level customers would be stupid enough to use and to pay actual money for.

      • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca
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        11 days ago

        yeah office used to just work (mostly, and ignoring the quirks), but this past year it’s been doing weird shit and generally been unreliable because of cloud sync behaviour for me

      • Katana314@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        I’ve been writing a long work, using Office for web editing. Every so often in proofreading, I find spots where it looks like words were just missing. Now I feel like I may have some explanation…

        • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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          10 days ago

          Apparently word online will just st random drop pieces of text during saving.

          Why?

          Microsoft. That’s why

  • Pyr@lemmy.ca
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    11 days ago

    Why couldn’t they just stick with Office… It’s 100% explanatory, short, and to the point.

    365 never made sense to me. Is it supposed to represent the year? Like available 24/7 but instead it’s there for you 365 days of the year? And if that’s the case why the fuck would I care? It’s software, of course it’s available to me whenever I want. It’s not a 7/11 hotdog rotisserie.

    • hperrin@lemmy.ca
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      11 days ago

      I think it has to do with how often you pay for it. With Office, you just buy it, then you own it. With Office 365, you have to pay for it 365 days a year. You just never stop paying for it.

  • Boiglenoight@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    We’re…never going to say any of that. It’s Microsoft 365, or 365 for short. Even that sounds stupid. Office is what people understand, 365 always requires explaining.

    MS is so exhausting.

    • imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 days ago

      I don’t talk to people about MS Office or do not know anyone particular who primarily works in it. But when talks touches writing an essay, spreadsheets or presentation - nobody says “In 365 I do this”. It is always Word, Excel, Power Point. Nobody even unifies all these programs as 365. It always is Office. Baffles me why MS haven’t figured out that literally no one calls it 365.

    • markovs_gun@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      This is the same culture that decided that X was a better name than Twitter. These people are so far removed from regular society that this idiotic shit actually makes sense to them

      • Darkness343@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        They don’t care what the peasants have to say.

        No wait, we are the farm animals, not the peasants.

        They care even less about what the animals have to make sounds about.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    The other day, my mother approached me about Office alternatives. Before she retired, she daily drove Office, but feels like it’s changed so much that learning a new program isn’t any more friction than keeping up with AI bullshit.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      For consumer use, I don’t see much difference in Office and LibreOffice. For business, Excel is the killer app, can’t do without it, but individuals can adapt pretty easy.

      Load LibreOffice on her machine and let her try it! Leave the defaults to open docs with Office so it doesn’t frustrate her.

      • Matriks404@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        Last time I used Excel extensively was in high school, and after using Google Sheets for many years, going back to Excel feels like nightmare. I don’t know how to explain it, but last time I needed it for something, it felt very frustrating to use.

  • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    Preview of tickets incoming in the next days:

    “Do I have Copilot included?” “Is it the same as Copilot in Word?” “Do I need an extra license?” “Where is the Office app?” “Can you install Microsoft Office for me?”

    • andz@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Ironically a lot of those questions will probably be asked to Copilot itself first and hilarity will inevitably ensue.

      It’s probably after that that the tickets will rain down en masse and they deserve nothing less :D

      • dermanus@lemmy.ca
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        11 days ago

        Nah, those users never opened co-pilot before. They have the two applications they use day to day and any deviation triggers a ticket

        • andz@lemmy.world
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          10 days ago

          If Microsoft can help it Copilot is integrated absolutely everywhere by the time they’re done fucking up their own OS.

          No need to open anything.

  • merc@sh.itjust.works
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    12 days ago

    Once again proving that while AI can’t do a programmer’s job, a tech writer’s job, an artist’s job, a composer’s job, a doctor’s job, or any other job involving thinking and understanding – it can easily do a CEO’s job and probably better than the CEO.

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Inspired by your comment, I polled ChatGPT 5 direct and Copilot itself, and ChatGPT was smarter than the executive by saying it was a bad idea, while Copilot itself said it might be a bad idea, but it’s aligned with Microsoft’s vision, which may be more important, but ultimately seemed to have no idea if it was a good idea or bad idea…

      So I guess ChatGPT at least is smarter than the MS CEO. Of course Copilot seemed primed to try to favor and vindicate Microsoft’s decision. I tried a more aggressive statement that it was stupid to try to get that ‘I agree with you by default’ and it still tried to soften the perspective in favor of Microsoft.

      As a bonus, I asked if it would be a good idea to rename LibreOffice to LibreSidekick. It looked more like the ChatGPT 5 answer for Office to Copilot, saying it’s a dumb idea, until the end when it said unless it has an AI assistant like Microsoft Copilot, then it would be a good idea…