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Is Microsoft Office Adware?
An anonymous reader writes "Office may fall under Microsoft's own definition of adware. It links to third-party commercial add-ons, includes up-selling promos, requires cookies for certain functions, and collects technical information. While this is like a normal day on the web, should the commercial office suite be held to a different standard and possibly be considered adware? The article also notes that clicking advertising links in Office will bring up Internet Explorer, regardless of whether or not it is the default browser. We discussed Microsoft's decision to turn Works into adware a few months ago.
I got a free copy of Office 2007 Pro from the "Power Together" Vista + Office giveaway. Haven't noticed any ads anywhere, it sure doesn't meet my definition of ad ware.
They're looking at Office 2003, when the latest version of Office is 2007. In 2007, Firefox loaded every time I went to a link, whether in Office, via an Office dialog, or through Office help.
The article states, "it is unusual to require cookies or to use them in a desktop application", yet Office Online is the only part of Office that requires cookies. This doesn't seem that strange to me: no local features require them.
I wasn't able to find any ads in Office 2007, but because I'm running the latest version, none will probably show up until the next version of Office is released. Showing a couple of ad links at the bottom of the help text, and only after the user goes into help, stretches the definition of Adware a bit.
You did your mom a disservice by not recommending Open Office to her. And I'm not saying that because I'm an Open Source evangelist. She's going to have a heck of time exchanging documents with others. For the longest time I didn't even know MS Works still existed. I though (well, hoped and prayed) it had died like 10 years ago until I started working at a college and a faculty member came to me with a .wps file that she needed to print. I had to look it up. Then I had to tell her we didn't have any software to read such a file.
Fortunately, my mom's new computer was shipped with a trial version of Office. She used it until the trial period ended and then, on her own with no prodding from me, went and downloaded Open Office.
Even if the Works Word Processor isn't actually that bad, there's just no excuse for using it because of its incompatability with everything else. It is a cruel joke perpetuated by Microsoft.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Desperation is driving MS to use everything they can to continue the profit line
I have this gut feel that says MS is going to have a REAL HARD time expanding its yearly sales and profits.
67 cents of every new retail dollar spent on PC software goes to MS Office.
Through end of November, U.S. retail PC software sales are up 10.3 percent year over year as measured in dollar volume, according to NPD. By comparison, Office sales are up 50.7 percent, by the same measure and in the same time frame. Office sales are so big, they make calculating broader PC software retail sales difficult. The "magnitude of Office sales relative to the rest of the PC software market is phenomenal. It's the massively huge tail wagging the dog." Retail Black Friday sales of Mac Office were up 215.8 percent year over year. While Mac Office generated blowout sales on Black Friday, Office 2007 sales growth was exceptionally good, too. Year-over-year U.S. retail Black Friday sales of Office were up 65.8 percent, as measured in dollars. The Year of Office 2007
Microsoft's profits are up 79%:
For the quarter that ended Dec. 31, profit rose to $4.71 billion, or 50 cents per share, from $2.63 billion, or 26 cents per share the previous year. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had forecast a profit of 46 cents per share. Revenue rose 31 percent to $16.37 billion from $12.5 billion in the year-ago quarter, ahead of the analysts' prediction of $15.95 billion in sales.
{and, in what must be the understatement of the year]
"It looks like a very nice report," said Sarah Friar, an analyst for Goldman Sachs. Microsoft Corp. earnings leap 79 percent
I was sorely tempted to give my response a flamebait title like "The Geek Turns Delusional."
I won't disguise my opinion here that the Geek's increasingly frantic retreat from reality has been the Slashdot story since the posting of Microsoft's second quarter results.
The CDW poll points to a softening of enterprise IT negative attitudes toward Vista. Familiarity, it seems, has bred content: IT departments are happier with Vista's features, particularly in the area of security, and less concerned about the hardware costs of Vista than they were a year ago. Another year will bring further declines in the relative cost of PC hardware -- and make a lot of corporate desktop hardware look even more antique. Only a major economic downturn would be likely to derail current estimates of another strong year for PC sales, so even if Vista remains tied to hardware sales it would do well, and corporate upgrades could finally kick in as old hardware is upgraded. This has been a year when Vista has had its rough edges knocked off, and the marketplace has adjusted its expectations. By Vista's next birthday it should be more differentiated and acceptable for both its consumer and business marketplaces. Assessing Windows Vista On Its First Anniversary