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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."
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.
Well, let's buy ad space on it, and then advertise for Open Office.org!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Have you tried Office 10?
Unless you're desperate to stick with Microsoft products or are part of a large organisation which can use the collaboration features, there's better options out there. It's a huge, slow, clumsy tool, not something that welcomes casual use.
I'd suggest you get hold of the tech preview and see for yourself.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
...a slightly more annoying Office with slightly less functionality for free I'd use Open Office.
Oh wait, I do!
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.
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.
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.
Alas, I doubt they'll let you minimise the advertisement pane.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
In my experience most people have never even heard about Open Office and will never even bother looking for an alternative to MS Office.
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Office 10, that's so 2002. I think you mean Office 13.
Is that the one that turns into a disaster shortly after launch, but then they manage to rescue it whilst completely missing the mission objective? :)
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Your approach is little more than theft ...
Yes, in the same way that it's 'little more than theft' if you leave the room to take a whizz while watching an ad-supported TV program. i.e. nothing like theft at all.
In my experience, that's what she says :-(