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Microsoft Phasing Out Office Starter Edition

Posted by Soulskill on from the decreasing-bloatware dept.

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."

5 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Who cares? by ozmanjusri · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They're just marketing tools. Nobody actually uses them.

    --
    "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
    1. Re:Who cares? by sdnoob · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Who cares? by Tough+Love · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    3. Re:Who cares? by donaldm · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

      I use Libreoffice on my Linux laptop (Fedora 17) and actually do collaborative work with people who use Microsoft Office. Unfortunately I do have to produce xml, docx or doc files so the people who use Microsoft Office can read them which is easy for me to do. Usually most people I work with don't even know I run pure open source software and even if they see my screen think it is some professional version of Microsoft Widows which their company has not upgraded to yet. I do explain when asked but most people I work with have company laptops and are pretty much locked into a Microsoft environment.

      --
      There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
  2. Awesome news for LibreOffice by Qubit · · Score: 5, Informative

    If Microsoft doesn't want to cater to this audience, LibreOffice is more than happy to step up and provide a high-quality, powerful, free (and Free) office suite.

    I've installed LibreOffice on dozens of machines, and many friends of mine now rely on it for opening a variety of files that MS-Office can't (or won't) open for them. It'd be great to hear from any OEMs who are considering installing it as a part of the base package on their machines.

    --

    coding is life /* the rest is */