Microsoft Quietly Offering Ad-Funded Version of Works

mikesd81 writes "News.com reports Microsoft has finally started offering an ad-funded version of Microsoft Works in some countries. Users who run the software see a small ad as they are writing their document or editing their spreadsheet. Although the program has the ability to update its set of ads online, today it runs mostly ads for Microsoft and a few partners, all of which ship with the product itself. Microsoft remains cagey on the details of where you can find Works SE. The company has been testing Works SE in 5 countries: The United States, France, Canada, Poland and the United Kingdom. It is available only through select computer makers and Microsoft won't say which computer makers those are. However, it seems Sony is offering it in the US."

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Old News

[Paiev]

See http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=615
This has been going on for a while. My Sony laptop from December '07 came with this. It should be noted that the ad-funded version is available only to OEMs.

Re:Slightly OT: Microsoft Office 2007

[InlawBiker]

Coming from somebody who uses Office daily, whether I like it or not, I was in agreement with you for a while. Until I got used to the new interface. It is really greatly improved. Sometimes I hunt for a function still but on the whole it's now much more intuitive and easier to get to features without having to scroll through an endless series of drawdowns / pop-outs / more drawdowns.

Anyway it's about time they did something new with Office. For the longest number of years I was hard-pressed to see any advantage in upgrading between Office 97 - 2003, except for some useful things in Outlook.

Re:What about already existing alternatives?

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news, Open Office is being offered WITHOUT ANY ADS for all platforms :-) And unlike Microsoft Works, it can actually read Microsoft Office documents.

Old news

[jrothwell97]

My Packard Bell machine came with ad-supported Works bundled. I bought it on New Year's Eve, so the fact it's taken four months for this to appear on the front page of /. astounds me.
And yes, it sucks far more than previous versions of Works.

Re:Slightly OT: Microsoft Office 2007

[Z34107]

Office 2007 (with the "ribbon") is the biggest thing to happen to the Office suite since Windows 95. Quit whining that they moved the buttons around just that tiny little bit - I found features and said "Oh, wow! I wish that was in other versions of Office, too!" only to realize that it was - I just couldn't find it until now.

When you start Powerpoint (or any part of Office 2007) for the first time, the little round Office logo in the top left will glow and a pop up will tell you "Here is where the Save As button is!"

Couldn't find the "new slide" button? When you start PowerPoint, the ribbon will be on the "home" tab. There's a giant button that says "new slide."

Same thing for center-aligning text. Even with the ribbon, it's the same icon, in the same spot, as every other version of Office since they went to a GUI.

Save as? Big round button. Center align? Hasn't moved. New slide? Big button labeled "new slide." Hardly "logic-killing" or "brain-damaging." And, you can always have PowerPoint or Office save things as PDFs or JPEGs or bitmaps or what have you, and Microsoft Word has supported RTF at least since Windows 3.11.

And, if it's what your employer expects you to use, and gives it to you freely, suck it up. The learning curve really isn't that steep.