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."

Comments

Re:*readies his version of IDA*

[ozmanjusri]

Let's wait for the final build before you start omgwtftrashing MS.

Oooooh, poor baby MS. Did I hurt their widdle feelings now? Should we refrain from commenting on ANY beta software? Anyway, it's not just me that's panning it.
Stephen Frank said

I’ve been a recreational and professional computer user for, what, 25 years, and I can’t make heads or tails of the user interface on this Office 2010 preview...
Seriously, go look at this thing.

Or how about Scott Feldstein

Sweet jebus noooo!
Why does Office have to look like you're piloting the friggin' space shuttle? .

FWIW, my prediction is that Office 2010 will be the Vista of MS Office suites.

Clippy pushes Viagra

[icebike]

Clippy is back, and he's pushing Viagra right to your desktop.

If I wanted ad supported docs I'd use Google. In fact I prefer it, because its at least up front about the ads.

Google Docs is more than adequate for the casual user.

OpenOffice is still free, and easily able to handle book length documents, huge spreadsheets, etc.

So where does Microsoft think they will find a market for this stuff?