Forum Home
Press F1
Thread ID: 75921	2007-01-14 21:30:00	Telecom has just hiked home line charges	Chris Keall (10417)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
516073	2007-01-16 21:51:00	Telecom just love abusing their position. But like another company starting with the letter "M" likes to try and do. I'm sorry but are you talking about Microsoft and how exactly have they been abusing their position? (I'm not for or against Windows or Mac as I have a PC and a G4 laptop)	beeswax34 (63)
516074	2007-01-16 22:03:00	Well they have 'improved" a wee bit in the last few years although they do "ecourage" people and businesses to use IE, MS Office rather than OpenOffice, Firefox and Linux when they are looking for suitable alternatives. UK Government demands Office competition in schools "There are now six credible alternatives to Microsoft Office in schools, according to the government's advisor on IT in education. Open Office, Corel WordPerfect Office, Star Office, Lotus SmartSuite, Sun's One SE and EasyOffice all offer the functionality that schoolchildren and teachers need, said Becta, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, in a report issued this month. All six packages were found to offer at least half of the functionality of Microsoft Office 2007, providing all the essential features for the education sector. "We looked at nine alternatives to Office. Six had at least 50 percent of the functionality, offering the basic functions that you need," Tom McMullan, a Becta consultant, told ZDNet UK. But Becta also found three popular Office application suites which it said were too poor to be used in schools. The blacklist was led by Microsoft's own Works package, a simplified version of Office. Also discouraged is the use of Ability Office, sold by supermarket chain Tesco, as well as Google's online applications. Becta called for a selection of the six commended alternatives to be offered to schools as well as Microsoft's software. Becta executive director Stephen Lucey said: "We want to see easier access to competitor products so that schools and colleges can exercise real choice." Becta said there were 176 more features in Office 2007 than in Office 2003, but said that most of the advancements were appropriate only for the private sector. There were no "must-haves" for schools. "Becta has not yet been able to identify any realistic justification for the early adoption of Office 2007 across the educational ICT estate," it wrote in a report which evaluated both Office 2007 and Vista, Microsoft's latest operating system. Microsoft, though, dismissed Becta's findings. Steve Beswick, its director of education for the UK, said, "Teachers are pushing Office 2003 hard. We haven't seen many schools switch to open source and there are lots of new features in Office 2007." Refuting the suggestion that it was difficult to argue with an organisation as powerful as Becta, Beswick told ZDNet UK: "An even bigger force to argue with is the customer. They should evaluate it and test it." Mark Taylor, the founder of the Open Source Consortium, a UK-based group of open source suppliers, said schools should consider whether the extra features in Office 2007 were worth the cost. "Open Office hasn't got as many features as Office 2007. The question is whether it is worth those extra features for the price tag. Do people use all the features in Office 2007?" he said. Taylor added that migration from a Microsoft package to Open Office was no more complicated than migrating between Microsoft packages. As reported last week, Becta also suggested that schools should not yet deploy Vista. It said that costs were high and that, as with Office, there are no must-have features for schools in the new operating system. Microsoft is offering a free 60-day trial to encourage schools and businesses to try out Office 2007.	winmacguy (3367)
516075	2007-01-16 22:05:00	I'm sorry but are you talking about Microsoft and how exactly have they been abusing their position? (I'm not for or against Windows or Mac as I have a PC and a G4 laptop) Just out of curiosty which version of 10.x are you running?	winmacguy (3367)
516076	2007-01-16 23:55:00	I can't help noticing that the newsgroup postings were all in Nov last year, and then nothing. Could it be that the problem, whatever it may have been is now resolved? No, the poster said that it was happening every month. It is more likely that they changed providers, and I think there was a more recent follow up post on that point. I myself had been with paradise, and left after far too many problems with their email systems, which they blamed on their mailservers being attcked woth spam. The problem with going to Telstra cable, is that it is impossible to switch providers, without going back to ADSL, as there is no competition on telstras cable network. I actually don't know why telstras cable also was unbundled by the government, as it is the better technology than adsl, and currently telstra have a monopoly on in, so can charge what they want.	rogerp (6864)
516077	2007-01-17 00:39:00	No, the poster said that it was happening every month. It is more likely that they changed providers, and I think there was a more recent follow up post on that point. I myself had been with paradise, and left after far too many problems with their email systems, which they blamed on their mailservers being attcked woth spam. The problem with going to Telstra cable, is that it is impossible to switch providers, without going back to ADSL, as there is no competition on telstras cable network. I actually don't know why telstras cable also was unbundled by the government, as it is the better technology than adsl, and currently telstra have a monopoly on in, so can charge what they want. At least if Telstra does not keep at it, you can change to ADSL. At the end of the day you have more choices than most pple.	Nomad (952)
516078	2007-01-17 02:22:00	At least if Telstra does not keep at it, you can change to ADSL. At the end of the day you have more choices than most pple. Yes but there is a cost if you switch between providers on different network infrastructures, not to mention the hassle, and with telstra phone numbers not being transferrable. You have all the wiring and connections fees with switching to telstra clear (for phone and internet), and then connection and wiring fees again, for switching back to telecom. If there was a competitor on telstras network, then the consumer wouldn't need to pay these wiring and connection fees.	rogerp (6864)
516079	2007-01-17 03:14:00	AFAIK the line rental for phone by Telstra is lesser. The line is not as congested for the net. April 07, law comes in with portability of telephone number. Some ADSL ISPs offer free connection, contract free, no toll call switching to get a discount, one of this is Xnet. There are hassles but the benefits IMO outweigh it. Its not like you are changing all that often. The portability of phone numbers is great, you don't have to notify pple that you have changed teleco's or #'s.	Nomad (952)
516080	2007-01-17 05:05:00	No, the poster said that it was happening every month. It is more likely that they changed providers, and I think there was a more recent follow up post on that point. I myself had been with paradise, and left after far too many problems with their email systems, which they blamed on their mailservers being attcked woth spam. The problem with going to Telstra cable, is that it is impossible to switch providers, without going back to ADSL, as there is no competition on telstras cable network. I actually don't know why telstras cable also was unbundled by the government, as it is the better technology than adsl, and currently telstra have a monopoly on in, so can charge what they want.OK, this may be true, i don't use ISP email as i have me_own_email@me_own_domain , so if the_address_i_cant_even_remember@paradice.net.nz did fail or have issues, i wouldn't notice. I have a little difficulty understanding why anyone who values email communication that much is using a user@isp address when we could either have ones own domain(s) for professionalism, or Gmail for personal or forums and the like.. Different swings for different kids in the email game i suppose. Every no and then i gag when i see companys using company_name@xtra as the official email address. This as well as looking really unpro, this binds them with a certain ISP far more than any issues with cable vs ADSL	personthingy (1670)
516081	2007-01-17 05:16:00	OK, this may be true, i don't use ISP email as i have me_own_email@me_own_domain , so if the_address_i_cant_even_remember@paradice.net.nz did fail or have issues, i wouldn't notice. I have a little difficulty understanding why anyone who values email communication that much is using a user@isp address when we could either have ones own domain(s) for professionalism, or Gmail for personal or forums and the like.. Different swings for different kids in the email game i suppose. Every no and then i gag when i see companies using company_name@xtra as the official email address. This as well as looking really unpro, this binds them with a certain ISP far more than any issues with cable vs ADSL many small business got onto the internet when the only email providers the general public knew about were Xtra and hotmail. Even running Xtra's CD to set up dialup and email was hard for them, so if someone tried to tell them about domains, they would get a blank stare or a rude response. Having a hotmail address for a business (which I actually have seen before) looks REALLY unprofessional.	Greven (91)
516082	2007-01-17 06:57:00	Look like you are one in a million, Billy. im constantly getting shafted by telecom. Which group would you say has been the worst affected in the telecommunications field in recent years? Deaf people who didn't have equal access to the telephone network until about 2004 when the NZ relay service (www.nzrelay.co.nz) was started (they fought hard for years for this), or people starved of high speed broadband? NZ is a free country, not a communist state. People can criticise in this country.	barryk (8612)
1 2 3 4 5 6