Microsoft Releases Free Edition of OneNote

yakatz writes "Microsoft announced that OneNote, including the full desktop program, will be free for anyone who wants to use the program. A version of the program for Mac also appeared in the app store yesterday. This means that a native edition of OneNote is available for most platforms (including iPad, iPhone and Android, but not Linux or Blackberry). Microsoft will continue to offer a paid version of OneNote with 'business-oriented' features (including SharePoint support, version history and Outlook integration). The partial rebranding of OneNote also includes some new tools like a program specifically designed to make it easier to take a picture of a whiteboard.
Is this a signal that Microsoft decided that they need to compete with Apple by making their productivity applications free?" (Over at WineHQ, they're looking for a maintainer for their page on OneNote. Anyone running it on a Free operating system? What are your favorite alternatives that are "libre" free, rather than only gratis?)

Comments

Ulterior motive

[nickmalthus]

Who wants to bet that if one carefully reads the EULA for the free edition of OneNote that Microsoft has buried a clause in there that they can data mine all information stored in their Cloud service? Providing the OneNote client and Cloud storage for free would be a bargain given the data bonanza they would have access to: personal contact information, shopping lists, todos, etc.