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BLOG: Good Morning Silicon Valley: Psst, kid, wanna try some Office? First taste is free [San Jose Mercury News, Calif.](San Jose Mercury News (CA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Oct. 9--For more than 20 years, Microsoft has offered Works, often coming pre-installed with Windows, as an entry-level productivity suite, and for roughly the same number of years, PC buyers, put off by its limited functionality and proprietary formats [http://blogs.computerworld.com/14883/microsoft_drops_works_finally], have let it sit on their hard drives unused. Now Microsoft has decided that if new computers are going to come with any hobbled productivity applications, they might as well be hobbled versions of its mainline Office products that can be painlessly upgraded for a price and can generate some advertising revenue until then. Once Office 2010 is launched (it's scheduled for a broad beta later this year, with general release likely in the spring), Microsoft will let PC makers pre-install a full but locked down copy of the suite [http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft-to-replace-Works-with-adsupported-Office-Starter-2010/1255022321] on new machines. Out of the box, customers will have free access to Starter versions of Word and Excel, which will be limited to basic document creation, viewing and editing and will display ads on screen as you work. If you want to step up, you'll be able to buy a product key card with a license number [http://blogs.technet.com/office2010/archive/2009/10/07/new-ways-to-try-and-buy-microsoft-office-2010.aspx] you can punch in to unlock whichever Office version you paid for -- Home & Student, Home & Business, or Professional. "It's a way for us to reach customers who may have not experienced Office before, (for them) to get a taste of it," VP Takeshi Numoto told CNet [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10370848-56.html]. Microsoft will also make it easier for people to take Office 2010 for a test drive on their existing machines with a service called Click-To-Run, through which users will be able to download trial versions of the programs and run them in a virtual environment while leaving their existing setup intact. Probably a smart move by Microsoft as it faces increasing competition from free and Web-based productivity products. There will be some grumbling about bloatware-loaded PCs and the presence of ads, but at least what comes out of the Starter versions will be in the true Office format, and this approach certainly gives Microsoft a better shot at converting customers to the full suite than Works ever did. To see more of the San Jose Mercury News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.mercurynews.com. Copyright (c) 2009, San Jose Mercury News, Calif. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |