How does Microsoft get people to upgrade Office (or anything for that matter)?

Factual Questions
1

I searched the archive and couldn’t find this, though I’m sure this has been discussed before.

Here’s the thing: I just recently upgraded to Office 2000 from Office 97 after finding I was having more problems without it than with it. This got me to thinking…how the hell does Microsoft get people to upgrade things like Office to begin with? So at some point, the whole world was using Office 97, then 2000 came out…so what? So some group of businesses and home users actually decided they would go out and blow millions of dollars (collectively) on a newer version of the software that essentially didn’t do anything really new in terms of features. Eventually, enough people have the software that NOT having it becomes a burden, and soon everyone must own it. Then the cycle repeats again when another version comes out.

The reason this seems strange to me is that when the first few people buy it and no one else has it, I would think the pressure would be on THEM to conform to the OLDER version since they are inconveniencing their friends/ business associates with quasi-incompatible documents, etc. with this new version. So how the hell do the sales ever get started? If every business is always trying to save money, I’d think they’d all agree NOT to upgrade and save all that cash…
Disclaimer: Please note that this is NOT meant to be an anti-Microsoft rant. I just want someone to explain the early part of the sales life cycle to me for a product that should logically have trouble selling, but seemingly does not. Is the answer just ‘clever marketing’?

2

I have a feeling that most of the initial inertia is overcome as people buy new systems packaged with the new versions of Office. Since most people seem to buy new systems every three to four years, your timeframe looks about right.

3

There are other factors, too.

Compatibility. I’ve upgraded at home to remain compatible with what’s on my desktop at work.

Obsolesence. Lack of support for the old stuff. Too often the tech support answer is “that’s fixed in the new version”.

Reliability. New version is more robust. I’m about to upgrade to XP from 98 because I’ve read so much about it’s improved stability.

Features. Sometimes there is a new feature that makes the upgrade worthwhile.

4

Some people do upgrade for new features. The features in Office applications passed me up years ago, so I don’t get anything out of that, but new Microsoft OS’s are (sometimes) more stable, have better support for new hardware, and add tools and utilities.

On the other hand, Microsoft forces upgrades by simply refusing to sell the older software. New installations must buy Word 2000 (for example). They will be able to read documents produced in Word 97, but unless they make an extra effort, Windows 2000 users will produce documents that can’t be read by Word 97. Does Microsoft change the format of its documents with every revision of Word for purely technical reasons or is it to force upgrades and discourage clones? I have no idea, but I have my suspicions.

5

at least files are interchangable between 97 and above. before this you had to upgrade just to read the files

6

Well, I had to buy Excel 5.0 when I got my PowerMac 7100, because Excel 2.2 would not work in that environment. I seem to recall that it would launch but was severely unstable. And of course it wasn’t PowerPC-native.

Now I’m starting to think I’m going to have to do it AGAIN!!! I find Excel 5.0 to be weird and unpredictable in a dual-monitor setup under MacOS 9.x, and of course it would be confined to the Classic environment under MacOS X, so I’m on the lookout for a reasonably priced upgrade bundle that would give me Excel for X and Excel 2001 together.
But then I start to think about talking paper clips and macro viruses and you know Excel 5.0 isn’t all that bad, and with MacLink Plus it’s easy to translate newer formats, so…

7

I think the real question is how does Microsoft get people to buy Office in the first place.

8

From what I’ve seen so far in the, uh, pre-release version of Office X, there is no damned paper clip! This “feature” is gone! I hope the “real” (not “non-released”) version keeps it this way.

9

This is one mechanism that Microsoft have used over the years, combined with removing existing versions from sale. It goes like this:
[list]
[li] Gary in Accounts gets a new PC[/li][li] New PC has latest version of Office on it[/li][li] Latest version has new document format[/li][li] Gary sends document to Mary in Human Resources[/li][li] Mary can’t read document, asks Gary to save in earlier format[/li][li] Gary does, but it’s a PITA for him, as new version defaults to new format[/li][li] Much repetition and annoyance[/li][li] New PCs to be ordered for Mary. Mary explicitly requests new Office version to avoid more digital suppositories[/li][li] Mary gets new PC[/li][li] Mary sends document to Frank in Payroll[/li][li] …[/li]
In the meantime, competing office suites such as Star Office, a free, open source (you get the program source code too), Microsoft Office compatible product, are “broken” because their import and export filters no longer work. Some believe that Microsoft change document formats explicitly for this reason.

Microsoft are happy - they’ve managed to sell you the same product again! You had a perfectly good program, and you’ve upgraded it for maybe two-thirds of the price, for maybe 10% more functionality. Unlike an axe, for example, software doesn’t get blunt or worn out when you use it. Axes have built-in obsolescence. Software doesn’t. Unless someone changes the document format…

10

I can tell you one way…

Suppose Ryan buys WinXP.
Suppose that after he buys XP Office 98 stops working.
Suppose that he calls Microsoft for help.
Suppose they tell him that his three year old program is #@*%^?{ OBSOLETE!!! So go spend $300 on the new version and we might help you.
Suppose Ryan telly Microsoft to f-off since he just spent his last $200 on WinXP to fix the problems with Win98.
Suppose Ryan starts looking around Warez sites…

11

I’ve always wondered about that talking paperclip. Who in the hell came up with that bright idea? It just creeps out everyone I know. Who in the hell wants some bug-eyed office supply spying on that they’re doing?

Now, it would be hilarious if they made it just a little more intelligent:

“I can see you’re procrastinating writing that term paper. May I suggest some cool websites?”

12

Because “Microsoft Works” is an oxymoron, so they buy the better version.

13

The only reason I’ve ever heard of for upgrading was a false hope that the new product was more stable. They always promise that, that it will contain hundreds of fixes you can’t get any other way, but they forget to mention that an equal number of new bugs are included.

14

I bought Windows XP recently, and all of a sudden my Word for Windows 2000 is freezing up a lot. I don’t use the other stuff quite as often (excel, access, etc.) so I am only buying and installing the upgrade for Word. This has more or less always been my experience with Microsoft: operating system upgrades seem to immediately preceed a degradation in office products stability.

15

I know that in Ohio, Microsoft has worked out a deal with the public colleges that any student can buy certain MS products for $10 per CD (so i can get office for $20). The reasoning behind this “generosity” as explained to me is so that college students get hooked on the products, and then there’s a whole generation of computer users right there who are weened on MS Office. Worked for me! :slight_smile:

16

Where did you get this bullshit? Since Office97, file formats have **not **changed. StarOffice 5.1 was released after Office97. Cite. The latest StarOffice 5.2 has filters that are compatible with Word, PPT and XL versions 97 and 2000. Cite.

So, according to you, “some people” believe that Microsoft explicitly changes their file formats to “break” StarOffice filters, even though we haven’t changed our file formats since before StarOffice ever came out, and even though StarOffice does have the latest filters for Office?*

Fighting ignorance, indeed. Sheesh.

Do you have a Cite that shows where Office was ever marketed as being more stable than the previous Office version? Do you have a Cite for where Office has ever promised that the next version will contain hundreds of bug fixes? Do you have a Cite for those “equal number of new bugs” statistics? Can you provide a link to any software application that does not have bugs? No, you can’t, b/c every single solitary software application ever written has bugs. I’m tired of everybody saying our stuff has bugs, as if no other program does. They do. They all do. It’s proven fact. (Can’t find an on-line stat, but every QA educator is in agreement with this statement. c.f. Testing Computer Software, by Kem Caner).

It is impossible for an existing, released application to have been fully tested against an OS that is released after the application. QA tests Office against the latest available build of the OS. Unfortunately, sometimes the OS group has no choice but to change some existing APIs etc., which causes problems with an existing piece of software. Every piece of software suffers from this problem - it is not unique to MS Office.

As for the OP, you don’t really have to. The last time I upgraded my PC was b/c Unreal Tournament didn’t run well enough, so I had to upgrade the OS to Win2000 to get the latest drivers for my video card. If you have no need to upgrade your machine, don’t. My Mother uses Office 4.2.1 on her WFW 3.11 machine with her HP III with no complaints whatsoever.

[sub]* Yes, I know OfficeXP is the latest, but it hasn’t been out long enough for most competing software companies to release their upgraded filters. [/sub]

17

That may be true on paper, but I’ve had problems loading Office97 files in Office 2000 (namely PowerPoint files). There was probably a way to get it to work, but the easiest solution was to upgrade my computer to Office 2000.

Nobody said that. But in many cases an old version has a bug for which no patches were released. The only choice for the user is to live with the bug, or upgrade and hope that the new version of the software doesn’t have the bug.

But some companies actually fix the bugs instead of saying “it’s fixed in the new version.”

18

I don’t remember any specific ads promising hundreds of bug fixes, so there probably aren’t any cites. But repoters are told that every time.

The answers here sound about right to me. There are several different routes which push the market to the latest version.

The quip about changing formats under the motive of breaking competitors probably grew from the urban legend about the Win 3.0? 3.1? motto “We’re not finished until we don’t run on DR-DOS.” I think a lot of people would attribute that motive to Microsoft.

19

Sigh. I knew someone would bring up PP97 file conversion in PP2K, b/c that was kinda my baby. Bottom line, there were so many changes to the Escher (drawing) layer that altought PP2K could open PP97 files, certain objects weren’t handled properly. Certainly there were workarounds, but they weren’t that discoverable. In PP97, Escher was in its infancy - we’re much better now.

And we really don’t have the resources to address every bug in a patch - we’re all way too busy working on other stuff, ie. the Int’l versions, as well as the next version. Believe me, we know about those bugs, it’s just that we have a release schedule to keep, and we can’t get to lower priority bugs or corner-case bugs with workarounds when we have more severe ones to deal with.

I’m not sure what you mean here, unless you’re talking about support saying that. They shouldn’t be saying that if it isn’t true. Unfortunately the product groups can’t control what support says or does. Personally, (and anonymously :)), I think our support sucks. I lurk in MacFixIt and MacNN forums answering PPT questions for this very reason.

Don’t get me started on the DR-DOS urban myth. That’s what it is. There was plenty to do w/o trying to make Snowball explicitly fail under DR-DOS.

20

I didn’t say it was true. I implied it was believable.