UK's Biggest Supermarket Challenges Microsoft

An anonymous reader writes "The UK's equivalent of Walmart is taking on Microsoft in the software game. Tesco is famous for it's cheap 'value' food, but it's now offering 'value' alternatives to Microsoft's biggest products. From the article: 'Now, when you traverse the aisles in search of baked beans, sanitary towels and two-for-one packs of raw mince (hamburger), you can grab yourself a copy of Tesco Office (£20) — an alternative to the almost de-facto standard that is Microsoft Office — or Tesco Antivirus (£10), which is designed to keep your PC free of malware.' Tesco apparently 'takes one in every eight pounds spent in the UK'."

Comments

Re:If people want an alternative to the de facto..

[cliffski]

Because the kind of person that will buy anti-virus software in a supermarket is not likely to know what to do with downloaded zip or rar file they will get from sourceforge.

tone?

[kebes]

The tone of TFA confuses me. It's clearly anti-tesco (anti-big-business?), with phrases such as:

The supermarket chain may be saving the consumer hundreds of pounds (MS Office can cost in excess of £300), but it's already making more money than it presumably knows what to do with.

Huh? Since when do companies make more money than they know what to do with? The profits are reinvested and/or end up with investors. And since when is it a "bad thing" for a company to turn a profit.

I understand the anti-Wallmart argument where 'the little guy' is driven out of business, but TFA is describing how Tesco undercuts Microsoft and (see 'update' at the bottom) major media outlets. It is acting as if competition between massive multinational, multi-billion dollar companies is 'mean' and 'not fair.'

That, to me, makes no sense. Competition in any marketplace is typically good for the consumers since it keeps prices at a reasonable level, forces companies to innovate, and forces companies to compete for customers!

I wish Tesco plenty of success in their attempt to undercut software in this fashion. If they can use their brand-name to get people to realize that software needn't be so expensive (and moreover to realize that alternatives are viable), this is a net positive.

Re:Microsoft will not be unseated

[TheRaven64]

You are seriously missing how branding works. This is not aimed at people like you. You know what Microsoft Office is, and you could probably list half a dozen competitors easily.

The average person knows more-or-less what an office suite is for (typing letters, right?). They have probably heard or the Microsoft brand. They have definitely heard of the Tesco brand. They are unlikely to have heard of the OpenOffice.org brand, or the StarOffice brand, or the AbiWord brand (or whatever). They will go into a supermarket and see 'Microsoft Office: £200, Tesco Value Office: £20.' They will know that most other Tesco Value products are similar quality (sometimes slightly lower, but not too much) than their branded equivalents, and decide that it's not worth paying an extra £180 for a branded office suite to go with their £200 computer.

The Tesco Value brand used to just be for food, but it's increased a lot recently. I own a Tesco Value toaster; it was a sixth of the price of the one it replaced, and has lasted longer. They also make most other home appliances (washing machines, etc). Typically, they fall into the no-frills-but-functional category.

Re:If people want an alternative to the de facto..

[NSIM]

>Then why don't they just use free alternatives from the
>internet. Open source or just plain freeware?

Because the vast majority of people wouldn't know where to look for such software if you gave 'em a map, and a high percentage of those who did find "free" software would manage to download all sorts of spyware and other crap in the process.

Perhaps Sourceforge should put up a "PC Essentials" list with the more mature free/open source products list on it, today I defy defy the average PC user who doesn't know specifically what they are looking for to find safe free sources of software and get what they need without spending a lot of time and effort.

Because Tescos is a trusted brand name

[fantomas]

Because the UK media have been telling people "careful about what you click on when go online, there are bad people out there". People don't trust little weird geeky sites which assume knowledgeable users.

It's way confusing out there for non-geeks. It took me a long time to explain to my dad the difference between "being online" and "the web" (...the blue E button isn't the internet, dad, it's a program you can see some of the internet with, yes I know it's weird it's called Internet Explorer but it's not exploring all the internet ...). Hey I don't mind. Internal combustion engines confuse the hell out of me and don't even get me started on different washing cycles on the washing machines... technology eh?!

Lots of people trust the biggest supermarket in the country, it sells them food they trust, clothes they trust, and they sell computers these days. So they'll trust "Tesco software".

Re:Because Tescos is a trusted brand name

[ScentCone]

Because the UK media have been telling people "careful about what you click on when go online, there are bad people out there".

But you say that like it's a bad thing! It's actually true, even if it's a lot more nuanced than as presented - just like everything you get from aimed-at-a-large-audience news/communication. Economics, legal matters, cosmology, genetics, giant multi-million-node internetworked systems... I think it's better they say "careful!" than say "there are free things out there that can work well for you, start looking."

Re:Because Tescos is a trusted brand name

[Kadin2048]

Because WalMart is practically in bed with Microsoft, and Tesco is not?

If Tesco had the sort of "relationship" that Walmart does, and were making as much money off of selling MS software to begin with, they wouldn't bother cooking up their own 'Tesco Office' to sell.

If Walmart wanted to do something like this, they could probably muscle MS into making them a Walmart-branded version of Office and sell it. Apparently they don't want to associate their company name with computer software (something that many Americans associate with obnoxiousness), and they're content to just sell the MS-branded boxes.

You don't "insource" when you're making perfectly good money selling the other guy's stuff already. That Tesco is doing this indicates to me that they aren't as cozy with MS as the U.S. retailers are.