Full FeedMicrosoft introduces Starter version of Office 2010
Microsoft really seems to enjoy putting out multiple versions of products. There’s Vista and Windows 7, each with a large number of versions, two SKUs for the Xbox 360 (recently down from three, excluding limited-edition versions). Not content with those, Microsoft had decided to announce Office Starter 2010. To be fair, however, Office Starter is a free version of the office suite.
Office Starter 2010 will serve as the Microsoft Works replacement for the next version of the office suite. Unlike Works, it will sport full compatibility with the standard Microsoft Office 2010 and will be easily upgraded. Like Windows 7 Starter, Office Starter is fairly limited at the start, offering only Word and Excel, both of which are ad-supported. So after Microsoft finally killed off Clippy, it’s brining ads into the free version of the software which could possibly be even more annoying. This is on top of the online version of Office 2010 that will also be ad-supported.
While offering a free copy of Word and Excel in computers for those who don’t want to pay for Office 2010 is nice, it seems like it could cause some backlash. Ads can be annoying and depending on when the pop-up, it will more than likely annoy people into not using the software. Also, while Word and Excel are useful, it’s surprising that there’s no PowerPoint, though between it and Excel would be a tough decision. Perhaps PowerPoint is just so important that we have to pay for it as opposed to Word and Excel. Either way, we now definitely have Office Starter 2010, Office 2010, and the online Office 2010; I wonder how many more versions Microsoft can squeeze out of an office suite.
Read [CNet News]
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Ad supported is just incredibly stupid. Ads have no future going forward, the sponsorhip media is dying because the public has moved on. The internet itself has disintermediated the sponsorhip society. People realized on a gut level that sponsorship is about misrepresentation and supression and drowning out. We also don’t like to be annoyed with dangerous bill boards, spam and telemarketing.
Hopefully anyone that uses these MS aps uses some form of ad blocking for their browser. New forms of efficient search are arriving (See IBM’s Watson or Wolframs’ Alpha) that don’t need outside revenue to provide better search. MS needs to simply go with subscriptions and recognize that the ubiquity and instantenous nature of the net coupled with vast level of pure competition means people will always have the choice to choose platforms to that don’t involve sponsorship. This was the key behind neutrality.
The days of publishing, advertisment and broadcast are over. Premium and the ability to place and price content is gone. All content will be totally commodified and money will only be made through aggregate instances of individual attention. Its only fools that want that think they can get away with another dot com bubble that think otherwise. The net is about empowerment and being active, its not about the lunacy of demand creation and attention theft. Its funny to watch Ozzy try to turn MS into Net Zero or AOL, I think he needs to go.
Notice how ad free Google’s main page was, that was a key part of its rise, new systems pit ads directly against content until content canibalizes it out. The cloud is anything but the resurgence of one way modal media, is actual the end of it.
on October 8, 2009 at 11:44 PM - LINKThis new version with ads will never work. People hate nags and other distractions while working.
I personally tend to favour SSuite Office’s free office suites. Their software also don’t need to run on Java or .NET, like so many open source office suites, so it makes their software very small and efficient.
http://www.ssuitesoft.com
on October 13, 2009 at 06:17 AM - LINK