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Microsoft To Try Works As Adware
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.
[...]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!
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!
Even more people using a program that saves to proprietary formats that can't be used by other programs.
Sigh.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
I'm pretty sure *I* have a free CD somewhere here, and I have never bought a computer with Windows on it. Maybe it came free with my digital watch.
With some irony it isn't even a useful office suite for homework as it can't (or couldn't when I was 17) handle 'industry standard office files' - as required by UK schools.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
Has any one actually shelled out money to buy works? It is installed as crapware by the vendors. How out of touch with reality is MSFT really?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
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.
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
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.
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.
This is no different than Google Documents & Spreadsheets. It's just ad-supported office applications. However, the fact that it's locally installed is nice, because it allows for more advanced functionality than AJAX. I think Microsoft has a winner with this one. Not just because of the ad revenue, but because of the user lock-in. Users of works would be more likely to upgrade to MS office. smart move.
I don't think works even lets you write .doc files-- Openoffice supports most MS formats fairly well. Seems like the market just isn't there for Works, even if it was free and ad free.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Excellent. Now how do we purchase adspace for Open Office and KOffice in this wonderful program?
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.
Isn't he the number three Al Queda guy these days?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Why would Microsoft do *anything* with works? This can't be a big money-maker for them, unless they are charging OEMs behind the scenes to have it installed (in which case the OEMs are stupid for installing it).
I think Microsoft is just practicing the ad-supported software model with an application they don't really care about, just to see how well it works. They can iron out the wrinkles (or maybe drop the idea all together) without damaging the reputation of one of their core products.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
but only so long as they use Clippy to present the ads. It would be like life in hell in a great cuddly way.
Quack, quack.
Microsoft Works
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
the Vasoline.
That's still the consumer's responsibility.
What amazes me is that so many are still willing to bend over for this abuse... AND PAY FOR IT!
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Can't think of a better reason to try Linux or Mac.
Thanks, Microsoft!
Seriously... Isn't Works already bundled with new PCs for free (to the end user) anyway? So isn't this just extra revenue for MS and/or the vendors, while reducing the value of the product?
Jerks. Not that I've ever used anything in Works for more than 45 seconds, but still, it's the principle of the thing.
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
...and I then delete it because it's a WORTHLESS piece of shit.
works or windows?
Hey! That's my sig you're smoking there!
Microsoft still makes Works? And they charge money for it? Is it still one of the best document-encryption tools around?
I haven't even seen a Microsoft Works installation since the days when I'd carry around a floppy with Norton Utilities on it - and use it often.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
#974: Airline Food
#632: Civil War
#232: Microsoft Works
Living With a Nerd
By bundeling ad-ware with Works, it gives Ad-Ware a bad name ...
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.
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)