[brilliantcode]

Microsoft of 2017 makes me forget about Microsoft of 1997. It's insane how a shakeup of CEO and new cultural shift can seemingly add another major boost to it's brand.

I welcome open source, eventually, I believe that it will eat commercial software, if the right economic incentives are in place. Microsoft may be signaling this to the market.

[ukyrgf]

I started to get this warm fuzzy feeling as well. Then, I experienced a bug in OneDrive and decided to report it. A week later they responded by referring me to a site where users get 7 votes to pick which bugs you want their team to investigate. The warm fuzzies disappeared...

[mememachine]

Not sure whats wrong with that

[joshrivers]

Still a better love story than Radar.

[webmaven]

> Microsoft of 2017 makes me forget about Microsoft of 1997.

Never Forget.

[scott_karana]

If I may paraphrase: "Never forget that large monopolies can wield disgusting influence, but don't let hate for past monopolies blind you to modern monopolies either" :-)

[webmaven]

> don't let hate for past monopolies blind you to modern monopolies either

Just because Microsoft is no longer the monopoly-du-jour, doesn't mean they aren't still a monopoly...

Just because they have been making (successful) forays into open-source, does not mean they won't still fiercely protect (with whatever means at their disposal) their monopoly cash cows (Windows and Office).

The "standartization" of Office Open XML wasn't all that long ago, after all (ECMA in 2006, ISO in 2008).

[greggyb]

Windows is a legitimate cash cow, but because of server installs. Office makes a lot of money; SQL Server and other datacenter products make much more.

[webmaven]

> Windows is a legitimate cash cow, but because of server installs. Office makes a lot of money; SQL Server and other datacenter products make much more.

And yet on the server Microsoft does not have a monopoly.

Consider that the main reason Microsoft has a profitable business selling server software is because of their desktop monopolies through many diverse paths.

[orionblastar]

Trust but verify.

Microsoft has changed over the years and is not the same company in 1997. It used to hate FOSS projects and now they contribute to them. MSFT used to hate Linux and now they embrace it adding Ubuntu support to Windows 10.

Sure never forget, but if you see changes for the better, learn how to forgive. If they go back to the way they were in 1997, just speak up about it.

Microsoft adapted to tablets with Surface and they seem to do well for artists using pressure sensitive pens.

[webmaven]

> if you see changes for the better, learn how to forgive

Sure, I'll consider doing so when an Office user can set OpenOffice as the default format, or at least when they open an OpenOffice file, that Office will save that file as OpenOffice by default.

I guess this comes down to Microsoft failing basic verification.

[orionblastar]

I remember there was a setting in 2007 or 2010 to change the default document standard but I forgot how it worked.

You can set OpenOffice or LibreOffice for document default types in Windows.

I like Libreoffice because it does more file standards than MS Office. Someone emailed a Word Perfect document to a group my wife was in and MS Office could not open it. So I used LibreOffice to open it and convert it to Doc format for my wife so her group can use it.

[webmaven]

> there was a setting in 2007 or 2010 to change the default document standard but I forgot how it worked.

TL/DR: Badly.

OK, it looks like it has been possible to set the default file types to Open Document Formats for several years, I just hadn't noticed.

But I naively thought that with that capability would come support for more MS Office features when saving in ODF, or at least that features not supported by MS Office in ODF would be disabled or hidden if ODF is set as the default to keep users from shooting themselves in the foot.

How silly of me:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Differences-between...

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Differences-between...

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Supported-features-...

Basically, even if you set ODF as the default, if you use a feature that is not supported (such as putting a table in a presentation slide) everything looks fine until you hit save. Saving the file saves a downgraded version of your work (a table on a slide is converted to an image), and you probably only get one warning pop-up that says "some features may not be supported". I bet the still-open file continues to look and act fine. No, the problems with the saved file are only apparent much later.

Imagine the user's surprise when they re-open their presentation deck file (remember, created and saved in MS Office) the next day and many aspects of their work on that presentation were never saved or have been downgraded to uselessness...

And that doesn't even address the fact that many of these "unsupported" features are ones that ODF actually supports perfectly well, but that Microsoft just hasn't implemented for saving in ODF.

My, what an exceptionally lovely user experience that is. It just oozes good faith and sincerity of effort toward interoperability, doesn't it?

[PleaseHelpMe]

True! Microsoft still can't gain my respect. Never forget.

[unusximmortalis]

everything you see changed in Microsoft was done by the people, all people, those that work there and the community as well, they pushed things, the culture and all; those people working there are just people like the rest of the world; outside it was known the company official position through their executive voices but the people working there and the community in general helped tremendously steering the direction -- and of course the company desire to survive, to stay alive. it was slow, it is still slow, it is a tug war but it is happening :)