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Microsoft To Try Works As Adware

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the penny-for-your-eyeballs dept.

Several readers noted that Microsoft has announced plans to pre-install an ad-laden version of Works on some manufacturers' PCs in coming months. Works is Microsoft's lightweight docs-and-spreadsheets software. The manufacturers involved were not disclosed. The adware Works will come with a pre-installed cache of ads that will be refreshed when the machine is online. Microsoft will decide by mid-2008 whether it can afford to forgo the $40 normally charged for Works.

15 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. Switch! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    [...]Microsoft has announced plans to pre-install an ad-laden version of Works on some manufacturers' PCs in coming months. [...]

    Can't think of a better reason to try Linux or Mac.
    Thanks, Microsoft!

    1. Re:Switch! by catbutt · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't like defending Microsoft, but in this case....that's a reason to switch platforms, because you don't like an application that you don't have to use?

      Is it the ads that bother you? Slashdot is adware, you know.

      Personally, I'm happy to see Microsoft finding separate revenue streams for their apps, rather than just bundling them with Windows and claiming they are free. That would have been typical Microsoft....kill Google Docs by bundling something with the OS and covering its cost with the price of the OS.

    2. Re:Switch! by Inner_Child · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Say I did use MS Works. Why should I switch just because of the new adware? So that I may lose the use of other software thats not on Linux? If you use MS Works, chances are you don't use anything that can't be easily replaced in Linux. How many dedicated Photoshop users - to use your example - would actually drop back to something as crippled as MS Works to do anything?
      --
      Today is red jello day - all workers must eat all of their red jello. Failure to comply will result in five demerits.
  2. Why would anyone want Works anyway? by Sh00tingstar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    given that it's not a particularly functional package, and Open office is mature enough to offer most of what you need anyway. I think the adware-laden 'free' trials are one of the most irritating things about buying a new PC!

    1. Re:Why would anyone want Works anyway? by misleb · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A lot of people just don't know about OpenOffice. People will use this because they don't feel like paying for the full thing (MS Office). Sure, they'll mumble and groan about the ads and etcetera, but they'll use it.


      They'll use it until they find out (the hard way) that they can't share the resulting files with others. WEll, technically there is a Works to Word converter, but Microsoft, for some "strange" reason didn't see fit to include it in Office by default. I don't think Microsoft really wants people to use Works at all. They just want to get people using some Microsoft product and annoy them (with ads and document incompatibility) into "upgrading" to Office. Works is a gateway application.

      -matthew
      --
      "THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
  3. HP by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I just bought an HP laptop. It came with a trialware version of MS Office and a (non-adware) copy of MS Works.

    Guess which I uninstalled? Office, or Works? ...

    You guessed it, I zapped BOTH! Then installed OO.o.

  4. Just guessing by OpenSourced · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Microsoft has announced plans to pre-install an ad-laden version of Works on some manufacturers' PCs

    Lemme guess... Perhaps that offer will be done to the manufacturers that were "thinking about/already intalling" Open Office for free in their naked PCs ?

    --
    Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
  5. i have an idea by overcaffein8d · · Score: 2, Interesting

    they should do that with the entire MS office. then we can find an ad blocker, just like we did for AIM .

    --
    Those of us who think they know everything annoy those of us who do.
  6. OpenOffice needs to step up by computerman413 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Maybe OpenOffice should try and arrange to have their products put on Windows computers. It won't cost manufacturers anything, and it won't have annoying ads.

  7. Re:Works sells for 40$? by Zarhan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually...Back in old days, when it was MS Works 2.0 (DOS version!). Early 90's. I really liked the darn thing.

    The target segment for Works, I suppose, is to use it for "home accounting". For that purpose the 2.0 worked very well due to one nice fact:

    It came with it's own teaching program! No annoying clippy. No gazillion menus, and indexed helps where you cannot find anything. Basically a self-running tutorial for elementary word processing and doing some spreadsheets - some basic formulas (doing sums, etc). And it worked. Even my somewhat-of-a-luddite parents changed their home accounting from pen&paper to Works. It would nicely show off some examples, allow you to try it yourself, checked your input, and really taught how to do things.

    These days they are using Openoffice. So am I.

    What went wrong?

    Well, basically, at around version 4.0 Works became bloatware. So, might as well go for Excel/OOO. And the teaching functionality is no longer there in the basic package so it's no longer even useful as a "my first spreadsheet". (Ok, I don't know about the absolute latest versions).

  8. Re:Same as Google apps by l33t.g33k · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think the bigger issue is what people are willing to tolerate. Most users (including myself) don't have the same expectations of web applications and desktop applications. It's fine with me if a web application is ad-supported, because... well, it's on a website. However, if I were to have a desktop application that constantly displays ads, then I would have serious qualms about its quality, and I feel that my computer is "unclean" and I would perceive a decrease in performance. It's like crappy old Kazaa all over again! Web ads are fine, desktop ads are NOT fine!

    --
    My sig is permanently on strike.
  9. Re:Same as Google apps by 1729 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    his is no different than Google Documents & Spreadsheets. It's just ad-supported office applications.

    A large part of Google's success has been that they deliver targeted and relatively non-obtrusive ads. I often click on Google's ads, because they're relevant. When they aren't useful, they don't bother me, since they aren't animated or loud or otherwise distracting.

    Incidentally, I've never noticed an ad while using Google Docs & Spreadsheets, so I'm not sure how they are working advertising into the service. When I'm searching the web, Google's "Sponsored Links" are often exactly what I'm looking for. However, when I'm editing a document, it's very unlikely that I'll click through an advertisement, and my tolerance for distractions is much lower.
  10. Monopoly by fermion · · Score: 2, Interesting
    MS is a convicted monopolist, but we have not seen significant monopoly evidence in a while. The IE, WMP, etc are old hat and not really significant to the current OS. Increasingly sites are designed to meet a general audience, including firefox, and now Safari and iphone. iTunes has a majority of the legal download market, and Zune is not doing that much to change it. The one new success, xBox, has little to do with a monopoly. They invested enough money to make the xBox happen, something they may not be able to do with the Zune due to investor pressures.

    So I am surprised to see such a blatant abuse now. I think it indicates how desperate MS is to find a new profitable product. While losses for xBox and Zune for year might exceed 2 billion, Google has shown that is it possible to make money pushing ads if you provide a service that people want. However, even with leveraging the desktop monopoly, MS has not been able to compete with google, at least not in the developed world.

    So, they are back to thier old tricks. Exploiting the desktop monopoly in new way. Take a product that should be given away, implement some ads, and bribe people to use the MSN add network instead of googles. I am not saying that Google is any better than MSN, simply that instead of creating a better search product, something we desperately need, MS is taking a shortcut.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  11. Works has actually gotten worse over time. by eobanb · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Believe it or not, I have version 1.05 of MS Works. It runs on PC-DOS on my 286, and it's actually great, as it included a terminal emulator, which lets you use a modem to dial into another machine (or use a null-modem cable straight to another computer) and exchange data. If you set up another machine to be an internet gateway, Works becomes a useful, if rudimentary, way of accessing files on the internet on a computer from 1983.

    Let's see Works 9 do that.

    --

    Take off every sig. For great justice.

  12. Another feature to boost its abilities! by Warbothong · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This looks like a long-awaited feature to add to the portfolio of Microsoft Works, the oxymoron which many believe to be an office suite when it is in fact a piss you off enough to buy microsoft office suite. It probably only exists to make sure there is a clear "upgrade" path ("If Works doesn't then why not try Office?", rather than letting customers loose into the wild where they might happen upon a competing free product), and to cater to those who think (rightfully so) that word processing is a basic task for a computer to do these days and should come by default for free but without pissing off the OEMs and DoJ with forced Office preinstallation or reducing the cost of Office (which, along with Windows, keeps Microsoft afloat). (Seriously, I went to buy a mouse from a local computer shop recently and the guy running it took an age to explain to the woman in front of me why the computer she just bought can't do word processing, and that if she wanted it to she'd have to fork out a few hundred quid. I would've intervened with OpenOffice but I was with my girlfriend at the time and I try not to be too zealoty around her)