The Trojan called Microsoft Office 2003

[Stiffler]

Microsoft has added code to MS Office 2003 called MO3. Said code will give Microsoft the ability to change anything on your computer at anytime they wish with no notification to you. They have already done that to the XBox, so what's going to stop them from doing it to the PC. Click Here to read the full story.

Jon

[DaleDoe]

Microsoft is making certain Microsoft Office 2003 files unreadable by all older versions of Microsoft Office and all competing office suites.

Really?  I'll have to read more about that.  Few new versions of anything go over without at least limited backward compatibility.

But as far as I'm concerned, I'm keeping with Open Office.  And I don't plan to purchase any Microsoft software in the future.  The last time I actually purchased Microsoft software was Visual Basic version 3.0. 8-)

[Michael Kennedy]

I'll have to wait until I see an article from someone who isn't the huge alarmist that Michael Robertson is.  I strongly support what Lindows is doing and do subscribe to his "Michael's Minutes" email that talked about Office 2003 and MO3, but it's tought to take some of his claims seriously.

Oh, and the last Microsoft product I bought was Visual Studio 97.  Before that I had Windows 95, Windows 3.1, and various versions of MS-DOS.  :)

[R. Andrew Lamonica]

Office 2003 came with my new computer and it works fine.  The file format is still the same as Office 2000 & XP, but some new save features were added that users could use to make things incompatible.  For example, in office pro there is an XML save feature.  I am sure that open-source products will like this development, however, other office users will not because it only works in Office 2003 and only some of the versions (I think the home addition cannot save a XML).  Additionally, MS added DRM (Digital Rights Management) feature that could allow authors to make documents only readable under curtain restrictions.  Because it would defeat the purpose to all old versions of office to circumvent the protections they cannot read these managed documents without a plug-in from MS.  Unfortunately, MS is being slow to bring out a Mac version of the plug-in witch will probably mean that Adobe Acrobat will still be the Managed-document format of choice for a while.  Another interesting save-as feature of Office 2003 is its multi-part HTML option.  This makes single-file WebPages that can be view in internet explorer by exploiting the multi-part MIME standard (used in e-mail attachments.)  These documents are easy to decode so if there are any web-browsers out there that cannot do it yet, then they will probably add this feature soon.

I have had pretty good luck with Office 2003 so far.  I really like the dictation feature which is far better than any other dictation software I have ever seen.  Although, the fact that no words appear until you finish speaking a phrase seems a little weird at first. I like the changes to Outlook 2003, particularly in the automatic junk-mail filtering and the privacy guard.  Outlook 2003 does not download graphics or other internet content without you clicking a button so spammers and other sites cannot detect when you open a mail message with web-content in it.

I will have to read up about this MS taking control of your computer thing, but I bet it has something to do with installing office patches so I am not worried.