Filed under: Office, Microsoft
Goodbye MS Works, hello ad-supported Office 2010 Starter!
Stepping in to fill the void will be Office 2010 Starter, which will be targeted at the average consumer's needs. Starter will package only Word and Excel with basic creation and editing abilities, and will be ad-supported.
Over on the Office Engineering Blog, VP Takeshi Numoto posted "Office Starter 2010 will provide new PC owners with immediate exposure to the Office 2010 experience on new PCs right out of the box." You know, kind of like how just about every boxed PC does that now with the 60-day Office 2007 trial. Except instead of a time-limited but full-featured Office experience, you'll get a stripped-down feature set at no cost. Ever.
Microsoft dangled another Office lock-in carrot recently with the introduction of Office Web Apps. Whatever the motivation - competition with Google Docs and OpenOffice.Org, for example - I'm sure most Windows users will welcome the opportunity to get any legal MS Office apps for free.
Hmm...Office Starter, huh? There's not going to be some asinine 7 document limit in this thing, right?
[via CNet]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Cam said 11:06AM on 10-09-2009
"There's not going to be some asinine 7 document limit in this thing, right?"
Well, you do know how obsessed MS has been with the number 7 recently on twitter.... I wouldn't put it past 'em
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richard.gailey said 11:37AM on 10-09-2009
I take it all of the works filetypes will be able to be opened in 2010? Had some old files given to us by a client a while back that needed some data work done, but were unable to open them in 2003 or 2007.
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SDreamer said 11:43AM on 10-09-2009
They could have at least thrown in Power Point too. It's almost an essential these days. Or maybe they could just charge a lot lower for the Office Suites.
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Gardiner Westbound said 11:49AM on 10-09-2009
OpenOffice makes it redundant.
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Dan said 12:35PM on 10-09-2009
I'm partialy happy to hear this. But, it sounds like (hope it's not) a rebadged works suite but with ads.
"Starter will package only Word and Excel with basic creation and editing abilities, and will be ad-supported"
That was/is the problem with works is that specifically for me the worksheet is way too stripped down. For this to be better than works, it MUST BE MUCH MORE LIKE OFFICE, with only removing the most extreme features. If it performs like works... it'll still suck.
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David said 12:47PM on 10-09-2009
Microsoft have removed the three program limit from Windows 7 Starter. They've listened to public feedback about program limits, therefore I would think it would be unlikely for them to impose a limit with Office Starter 2010 (however Windows and Office are different product groups, therefore the Office group may not have learnt from the Windows group).
For me, the question is how is the advertising going to appear in Office Starter 2010. I believe a thin, one-line text banner at either the top or bottom of the window would be tolerable (hopefully with black text on glass, and nothing else to draw attention away from the document you're working on), however anything else (especially graphics) would make it highly distracting.
I feel it makes sense for Microsoft to replace Works with an affordable version of Office - especially if it won't increase the price of consumer-oriented computers. The starter edition provides a logical upgrade path to the full version of Office that Works didn't provide (If you learnt Works, and I've seen plenty of non-savvy computer users who just use Works because it was bundled with their computer, they're still stuck if someone sends them an Office file, or if they send their Works file to someone else, and learning Works doesn't help you if you upgrade to Office and then need to relearn how to use Word, etc.).
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r3loaded said 1:31PM on 10-09-2009
This is actually an extremely good idea, it suits the vast majority of people who never use even the more intermediate-level features in Office.
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naths_mail said 1:50PM on 10-09-2009
And of course there won't be any 'Upgrade to Full Office 2010" prompts anywhere in this starter version, will there? :)
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Butters said 1:50PM on 10-09-2009
And of course there won't be any 'Upgrade to Full Office 2010" prompts anywhere in this starter version, will there? :)
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Jash Sayani said 5:41PM on 10-09-2009
And will the starter version be free ?? Considering the "ad-supported", it should be free. BTW, its irritating to see Microsoft running after Ads! It seems like Microsoft would shut down without Ad revenue! If you use Hotmail, you will know what I am talking about. There are hugr banners on the top and side. Gmail and Yahoo! are better...
BTW, OpenOffice will take over MS Office in no time....
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invaderzimaus said 6:37PM on 10-09-2009
What about those not buying new PC's-they could always use the web apps.
I like Works-but it doesn't have modern features like th ribbon, pdf/xps output,etc.
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SiLo said 2:12AM on 10-10-2009
I don't understand why it took them this long to do it. Was Works really that much of a legacy product that they -had- to keep supporting it up to now? Honestly, who doesn't have Office or at least some kind of new-age word processor?
It makes no sense for Microsoft to keep supporting two separate office packages, especially when Office is everywhere.
With Open Office supporting all the same features (minus the flashy GUI), and for free, it was about time.
I'm using Office 2007, mainly because I like the interface and I'm familiar with it but if someone I know needs to open Office formats and fast, I'll throw them the Open Office USB drive I have.
Microsoft is generally pretty slow when it comes to things, took them forever to fix the row limit in Excel, 2007 finally fixed it instead of telling people to migrate to SQL/Access (also sucks).
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Brandon said 8:03AM on 10-12-2009
If the versions are going to be stripped down to the most features you might as well as just get Open Office. I'd rather have a learning curve for free, than an incomplete version of Microsoft Office. That said I'm sure people will still buy MS Office over Open Office, because lets face it, Open Office kind of sucks in comparison other than it being totally free. And the users who will like the stripped down version of MS Office more than likely will have never heard of Open Office (e.g. my parents). Open Office will continue to remain dominant amongst FOSS enthusiasts and unemployed college students(me :D), and MS Office will continue to remain dominant is corporate environments and home offices. Look what you did, now I'm rambling.
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Brandon said 8:05AM on 10-12-2009
If the versions are going to be stripped down to the basic features
you might as well as just get Open Office. I'd rather have a learning
curve for free, than an incomplete version of Microsoft Office. That
said I'm sure people will still buy MS Office over Open Office,
because lets face it, Open Office kind of sucks in comparison other
than it being totally free. And the users who will like the stripped
down version of MS Office more than likely will have never heard of
Open Office (e.g. my parents). Open Office will continue to remain
dominant amongst FOSS enthusiasts and unemployed college students(me
:D), and MS Office will continue to remain dominant is corporate
environments and home offices. Look what you did, now I'm rambling.
Reply