Microsoft Phasing Out Office Starter Edition

nk497 writes "Microsoft has started phasing out its Office 2010 Starter edition, ahead of the arrival of Windows 8. Office Starter was included in the OEM pre-installation kit (OPK) of software sent to manufacturers, and included ad-supported versions of Word and Excel, but not Outlook or PowerPoint. That will be replaced with an Office 2010 Transition OPK, which will instead push users to download a trial of the Office suite and offer a link to buy the full version. The free Office Web Apps will also be available for users not wanting the full version."

Comments

Re:Who cares?

[sdnoob]

actually, a lot of people use office starter, even in soho environments.. and that's microsoft's "problem", it was cutting into sales. not enough people actually *buying* their overpriced office products.

plus, some clever folks online have figured out how to install starter on any newer (vista or seven, i think) pc.

Re:Who cares?

[Tough Love]

Libreoffice cares, that's who. This boneheaded move by Microsoft will be good for at least doubling the downloads.

Re:Office Starter ISN'T "worthless garbage"

[Bert64]

There is no such thing as "100% office compatibility"... Just 2 days ago i watched someone copy his powerpoint presentation from one dell laptop to a slightly different model because he couldn't get the external monitor port working with a projector. The results, when displayed up on a big screen were quite embarrassing, with various formatting errors cropping up. Both laptops were a similar age, both running windows 7 and msoffice 2010.