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Microsoft Readies Ad-Supported Office Starter 2010
Martin writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "Microsoft Office Starter 2010 will be not available for purchase; it will only come pre-loaded on new PCs. It includes basic functionality so users can view, edit, and create documents via Office Word Starter 2010 and Office Excel Starter 2010. Not only are these programs ad-supported, but Microsoft claims they are 'designed for casual Office users,' who apparently will be perfectly fine with reduced-functionality and ad-supported software."
You think the ads will last long? Bring it on.
Wow wasn't the big shit about Microsoft Office over Star/Open Office the whole idea that you won't be able to use the poweruser features and all the scripting. So why should the casual user deal with ads in something that will be feature crippled and basically "consumer" branded (read CRAP) when they can fire up a free non-ad infested version of Open Office. All the basic shit is there and it is basically the same, users can export the files to doc and even set it to default to saving as a Microsoft Word doc. Before you reply about difference remember they said casual use, not corporate office use. If it wasn't for being the incumbent Operating System, Microsoft would have no standing with this. I wonder if they can even be construed as them manipulating their monopoly to enhance their Office productivity market as a matter of curiosity. Whether or not it does, this looks like a waste of time. I guess it is better than Microsoft Works.
Hmm, sounds exactly like Open Office, just without the ads.... I'll stick with OO. I'm a "casual" office user and haven't touched MS Office in five years.
What makes you say MS is ignoring openoffice? I just assumed this new cheapo version of Office is in direct response to the rise again of viable alternatives such as openoffice and Google Docs.
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Who says they're ignoring it?
But even if they were - perhaps there's some validation for that. After all, as per.. http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1398133&cid=29689373 ..it's entirely more likely that people who grow tired of the ads would just download a patch to remove the ad functionality (not counting the people who would actually -buy- Office, of course).
>So why should the casual user deal with ads in something that will be feature crippled and basically "consumer" branded (read CRAP)
Unfortunately, they will use it because it is there, installed on their machine.
Still, at least this new version of office really will stink, and will make Open Office look even better.
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...a slightly more annoying Office with slightly less functionality for free I'd use Open Office.
Oh wait, I do!
This doesn't sound all too bad. The ads would likely bother most of the slashdot crowd but then most of us are either using open office, a pirated copy of office, or when we're forced to at work, legitimate purchased copies of office. Microsoft finally offering a free copy of office with new computers with the stipulation that there will be ads and limited functionality is still better than nothing. It really kills a sale of a new computer when a person asks "Will this have Microsoft Word on it?" and you say "Well no... that will ll be $100 extra..." And some people just aren't open to the idea of an office alternative (open office.) I'm surprised they haven't done something like this sooner, though I'm willing to bet that the growing popularity of open office has been pushing them in the direction of offering a "free" version of office.
Because PC makers will bundle it with their computers, like they do with MS Works. Microsoft won't be bundling it with Windows.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Because nothing reads doc and xls files, right?
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Peolpe will use it because it's there. And now because office is "free" with their new computer they will have no reason to pirate it and every reason to use it, thus deepening the MS monopoly on the desktop.
I smell some new antitrust action.
that's what I get for posting to slashdot while I'm on the phone.
To finish my thought -the reason why is very simple.
Piss fucking simple:
COMPATIBILITY
more than happy with something like Open Office, or Google Docs
Most users actually use what is pre-installed, a clear attempt for MS Office to gain new grounds. Why do you think the IE6 is so widespread still ? It is the default bundled browser on Windows XP. This is not a good news for Open Office or Google.
By experimenting with starter edition, non-technical users will conclude that MS Word is unstable (software with ads usually hangs while trying to load them), lacks essential features and of course looks junky. We can then take pity on them and offer to install "new Windows that comes with no ads and fully functional software".
You would think Microsoft would learn its lesson after shipping with a media player that doesn't play DVDs and can't rip/burn your own CDs to standard MP3s. Apple, take cue for a new "I am a Mac" ad featuring a comparison to iWork.
The question will be whether you can uninstall it? I've got better things to do with my disk space and network bandwidth than support/tolerate adware. Do I have to pay for the Ads to be downloaded if my Internet access is over a 3G network???.
For that matter is it possible in Windows 7+ to uninstall IE (or the anti-virus/Windows update/big-brother/similar software)?
Can one get back to the state where it is more like a Windows 2000 system (I still have my Win2K install disks...) or even Windows 98 or 95 [1]?
Sigh, when will someone sue computer manufacturers (HP, Dell [2], Apple, etc.) so they will all provide hardware without software and end the paternalistic (monopolistic) HW+SW bundling practices?
1. Though in theory one really wouldn't want to run 95 or 98 because their unprotected nature is presumably what started the madness...
2. Though I recently noticed Dell may be returning to providing a Linux option...
So why should the casual user deal with ads in something that will be feature crippled and basically "consumer" branded (read CRAP) when they can fire up a free non-ad infested version of Open Office.
Because everyone is already familiar with Word and Excel, and it's more painful to switch to Open Office than to see some ads. Speaking from experience, switching to Open Office is quite annoying if you're used to Word and Excel. (Although it is more annoying to switch to Office 2007 from Office 2003, with that stupid ribbon interface).
In my experience most people barely notice the difference.
Heh, I think you argued yourself into redundancy when you noticed how bad the ribbon effect was! ;)
My in-laws didn't want to fork out the hundreds of for the full blown version of Office. Had something like this existed then, they may have used it out-of-the-box. As it was, at the time I gave them the choice - use an illicit copy of Office (which they weren't comfortable with) or use a FREE and legal Office replacement (which they weren't even aware was available).
The opted for the free and legal route and now use NeoOffice quite comfortably. The 'pain' of 'switching' was less than the pain of the pricetag for Office, although to be honest there was no real switch involved with it being a fresh install, and even if there was I think the average user is having to learn to 'switch' every time a new version of MSOffice is released because MS in their wisdom keep changing the interface dramatically. So simply sidestepping to a competitor version with at least the level of functionality the vast majority of users need is actually quite easy.
I think this 'free' pre-bundled Office Lite may have quite an impact on the uptake of OOo though. If only because there'll be fewer non-tech users buying a PC without Office pre-installed. At that point they usually turn to their 'techie friend' for help, whereupon their friend may suggest OOo like I did. People like free - if it's pre-installed it's free, yet OOo is also free. People like easy too - pre-installed means no extra work, installing OOo means 5 minutes of work which isn't QUITE as a easy... shame, but OOo loses on those odds I fear.
It seems like a pretty obvious move - with the advent of so many free non-MS alternatives I think Microsoft has a legitimate fear that they will become just one of the options in the "office suite" space, rather than the de facto standard. Getting their "free" offering onto as many desktops as possible MIGHT protect that status.
The open source alternatives however are hard to "compete" against, since they are generally going to continue to live even with a vanishingly small "market share" - as long as enough technical types are willing to support them.
I think in the long term, MS and others are not going to be able to justify to the consumer the high prices for their offerings that they have been able to up to now, and that low cost (perhaps free/ad supported) is the only way they are going to be able to maintain any level of profitability and stay in business.
In my experience most people have never even heard about Open Office and will never even bother looking for an alternative to MS Office.
Here comes the anecdote waving contest, I am now satisfied.
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The 'pain' of 'switching' was less than the pain of the pricetag for Office
In my experience, the "pain" of switching from MS Office to a non-MS office suite tends to be a bit less than the pain pain of upgrading from one version of MS Office to another anyway - OOo is certainly less "different" than some versions of MS Office.
Unfortunately, it does seem that people are more accepting of the MS-inspired pain though - maybe that has something to do with the feeling that upgrading MS Office is something that has to be done so the pain must be endured, whereas switching to an alternative is a choice, so there is an easy way to avoid that pain (by not switching). Most people take a very short-term view and avoid the immediate hassle, even if it might mean more hassle in the future.
I think this 'free' pre-bundled Office Lite may have quite an impact on the uptake of OOo though. If only because there'll be fewer non-tech users buying a PC without Office pre-installed. At that point they usually turn to their 'techie friend' for help, whereupon their friend may suggest OOo like I did.
I'm not convinced - PCs have traditionally come with *some* crappy office suite installed (e.g. MS Works). I'm not sure this is going to change anything.
People like free - if it's pre-installed it's free, yet OOo is also free. People like easy too - pre-installed means no extra work, installing OOo means 5 minutes of work which isn't QUITE as a easy... shame, but OOo loses on those odds I fear.
I suppose a lot will depend on what the PC manufacturers decide to bundle with the machines. Sadly, I suspect they will bundle the MS product, just because "MS Office" is a brand that people recognise (even if it happens to have "(crap edition)" after it). If OEMs were going to start bundling OOo, I suspect they might've done it before now - I can't think of an especially good reason for them to have been bundling MS Works instead of OOo for years, other than for the ability to use the MS brand and _maybe_ because using OOo might undercut some of their MS Office sales.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Basically, this is adware? I bet anyone any amount of money that anti-malware software doesn't classify this as adware.
Can't people just use OpenOffice already?
I've often wondered if MS gives PC manufacturers some kind of kickback for bundling thier sucky office products (works/office trial/this new crippled office product) in the hope that it will net them sales for the full version.
Another reason I can think of is that some manfuacturers (notablly dell) offer office as a build time option. Therefore it is probablly in thier interests not to open peoples eyes to the existance of openoffice.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
by having OEMs pre-load it in exchange for discounts off the OEM price of windows
Basically, they'll abuse their monopoly position and it will take several years for the US DOJ and EU to bring them to heel... other markets are stuffed because they don't have "effective" anti-monopoly commissions to protect customers and OEMS from abusive multi-nationals (I say "effective" because the US market isn't working properly either...)
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In my experience, we used StarOffice across an entire school district for years and were plagued with compatibility problems with other schools. Also, Star/OOo lacks some very useful interface features compared even to Office 2000. We still have Star installed on our images to support old documents, but Office 2007 has greatly reduced our incoming support requests. It actually works *better*, as much as I hate to admit it.
I'm the resident FOSS advocate at the schools. I'm the one who has pushed Linux acceptance through on a limited basis and kept the schools from paying out thousands for various applications when there were alternatives. Yet I must concede that OOo and Star simply are not "there" when compared with Office.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
How exactly does a spreadsheet fit into the "casual user" profile?
"Oh, I was just screwing around one day, modeling possible amortization breakdowns on various theoretical mortgages. You know, just to kill time before I finished up the index and the table of references in my letter to grandma..."
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"......who apparently will be perfectly fine with reduced-functionality and ad-supported software."
Apparently. Right. No-one *at all* has whinged about how many features they don't actually need in Word/ Excel, and yet once that's being addressed, it's now a problem. Like your average buyer will complain about getting basic Word and Excel over Works (a fully featured Works, which I'm sure eveyrone would prefer)..
And can we also cut the crap with Open Office? It's been bandied about as Vastly Superior for *years* now....and I've yet to work at a company that's seriously using it. Big it up once >20% of word processing users agree with you (which means OO still has a loooong way to go).
In my experience, we used StarOffice across an entire school district for years and were plagued with compatibility problems with other schools. Also, Star/OOo lacks some very useful interface features compared even to Office 2000. [...] OOo and Star simply are not "there" when compared with Office.
It sounds like you're saying that OOo/StarOffice compatibility with MS Office is not "there", not the complete package per se.
This might sound pedantic, but I think it's an important distinction.
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And that is exactly what casual users use Excel for.
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