Microsoft Readies Ad-Supported Office Starter 2010 235
Martin writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "Microsoft Office Starter 2010 will be not available for purchase; it will only come pre-loaded on new PCs. It includes basic functionality so users can view, edit, and create documents via Office Word Starter 2010 and Office Excel Starter 2010. Not only are these programs ad-supported, but Microsoft claims they are 'designed for casual Office users,' who apparently will be perfectly fine with reduced-functionality and ad-supported software."
*readies his version of IDA* (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:*readies his version of IDA* (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you tried Office 10?
Unless you're desperate to stick with Microsoft products or are part of a large organisation which can use the collaboration features, there's better options out there. It's a huge, slow, clumsy tool, not something that welcomes casual use.
I'd suggest you get hold of the tech preview and see for yourself.
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Re:*readies his version of IDA* (Score:5, Funny)
Office 10, that's so 2002. I think you mean Office 13.
Is that the one that turns into a disaster shortly after launch, but then they manage to rescue it whilst completely missing the mission objective? :)
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Huge, Slow, Clumsy? Have YOU tried it?
Minimize the Ribbon and rely on the contextual menu that comes up when you highlight text and the interface is as small as notepad.
It takes up almost exactly 300MB of space. Which is comparable or smaller than OpenOffice.
I don't know what part of it you find slow. On every system I've run it on, even my pretty old laptop it seems snappy and responsive.
And if Office10 Home and Student is priced similar to Office 2007 then you'll probably be able to find a copy priced a
Re:*readies his version of IDA* (Score:5, Insightful)
Alas, I doubt they'll let you minimise the advertisement pane.
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Just wait until the ads get hacked, or the DOJ makes them advertise Linux/OpenOffice as part of a settlement.
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No. They'll just have a picture of some fat guy sitting in his mom's basement in his underpants with a speech bubble that says "All us hackers use OpenOffice.org! It is so 1337!".
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Speaking as one who HAS tried Office 10 -- and many of the alternatives -- I'd love to hear you explain what you're talking about.
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Oooooh, poor baby MS. Did I hurt their widdle feelings now? Should we refrain from commenting on ANY beta software? Anyway, it's not just me that's panning it.
Stephen Frank said
I’ve been a recreational and professional computer user for, what, 25 years, and I can’t make heads or tails of the user interface on this Office 2010 preview...
Seriously, go look at this thing.
Or how about Scott Feldstein
Sweet jebus noooo! .
Why does Office have to look like you're piloting the friggin' space shuttle?
FWIW, my prediction is that Office 2010 will be the Vista of MS Office suites.
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Wow two whole completely random people on the internet who nobody has heard of think it's confusing?! It's a total disaster!
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Both of them have the same initials, too.
I think maybe somebody's random name generator has a broken seed.
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Neither is a revolutionary piece of software that re-sets the benchmark for everything to come and blasts all competition into dust.
I noticed you were careful not to include two of the words the person you were replying to used: From MS.
I think your decision was very well made.
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I noticed you were careful not to include two of the words the person you were replying to used: From MS.
Ooh, burn. Well spotted.
So I'm going to do it now. "Neither is a revolutionary piece of software that re-sets the benchmark for everything to come and blasts all competition into dust all that strange coming from Microsoft."
I also want to ante up with the following.
It's totally understandable why people would say that OpenOffice fails because of Microsoft's plot. Otherwise they would have to admit that it (OpenOffice) kind of sucks in comparison.
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OO.o does not suck. It works just fine for lots of people and probably the vast majority of people. Their move to supporting the ribbon bar in the UI is a bit questionable, but as far as features and the like, I don't see too many things lacking. (I do like the text box object I can have in MS Word... can't figure out how to do that in OO.o yet) but for the most part, OO.o is feature and function complete. Can you use OO.o to support various VBA apps or MS Office addons? No. And if you need those, the
Clippy pushes Viagra (Score:4, Interesting)
Clippy [wikipedia.org] is back, and he's pushing Viagra right to your desktop.
If I wanted ad supported docs I'd use Google. In fact I prefer it, because its at least up front about the ads.
Google Docs is more than adequate for the casual user.
OpenOffice is still free, and easily able to handle book length documents, huge spreadsheets, etc.
So where does Microsoft think they will find a market for this stuff?
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Re:Clippy pushes Viagra (Score:4, Insightful)
by having OEMs pre-load it in exchange for discounts off the OEM price of windows
Basically, they'll abuse their monopoly position and it will take several years for the US DOJ and EU to bring them to heel... other markets are stuffed because they don't have "effective" anti-monopoly commissions to protect customers and OEMS from abusive multi-nationals (I say "effective" because the US market isn't working properly either...)
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Re:*readies his version of IDA* (Score:5, Insightful)
Your approach is little more than theft ...
Yes, in the same way that it's 'little more than theft' if you leave the room to take a whizz while watching an ad-supported TV program. i.e. nothing like theft at all.
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Just what I've always wanted... (Score:2, Interesting)
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I see you're typing a document... (Score:3, Funny)
Would you like to view a commercial for the US mail service?
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Relevant to my document?
Typos and all?
We've been this way before:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/db/Clippy-letter.PNG [wikimedia.org]
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He says as he posts on an ad supported website...
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He says as he posts on an ad supported website...
There are ads on the internet? I forgot about that...
(this post was enabled by firefox+adblock)
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He says as he posts on an ad supported website...
Perhaps he checked the "Ads disabled" box up in the top right of the page...
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It's ad supported? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, let's buy ad space on it, and then advertise for Open Office.org!
Re:It's ad supported? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Right on spot. But now there's one more reason to switch to OO.org! Who wants to see blinking flashing ads while composing a document?
No matter what they do, they always end up helping the competition every time they try to compete with it. They are really ridiculous in this matter. The only thing they know how to do is to market their crap using their already established monopolies as a leverage tool.
Oh well...
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So... their response to a free, open source office suite offering file format compatibility with their own business-standard office suite is to release a crippled version of two of their programs (the two that OpenOffice does the best job of replacing I think) and include advertising in them?
Wow. What a strategy.
Now those users can do less than the fully featured product OR the free alternative AND watch ads while they do it.
I'm sure Microsoft will beat back the OSS onslaught when they tempt consumers with
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They are ignoring OO.o, this is solely a reaction to Google Docs. See, Microsoft knows its traditional business models of selling bucketloads of Office is on the way out, and they *need* an opportunity for growth (or the shareholders will get even more pissed at them, and Ballmer will not get his bonus... well, won't get as big a bonus as he wants).
So, they see Google just doing what Google does, and making some money from adverts and they see the Google shareprice, ans they think... lets combine the 'cloud
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Who says they're ignoring it?
But even if they were - perhaps there's some validation for that. After all, as per.. http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1398133&cid=29689373 [slashdot.org] ..it's entirely more likely that people who grow tired of the ads would just download a patch to remove the ad functionality (not counting the people who would actually -buy- Office, of course).
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Who says they're ignoring it?
The GP.
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This seems to be MS' direct answer to OOo.
OOo is widely seen as interesting alternative to Office, but a major complaint is "limited functionality". Now personally I wouldn't know what's lacking - collaboration maybe but that's for big organisations, not for me. Now MS releases an Office with "limited functionality", that sounds very much like OOo.
Interesting parts are of course what functionality is gone, and how it is ad-supported. If there's a blinking moving ad taking up 20% of your screen that's horr
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What it's lacking is MS compatible scripting
I estimate about 99.9% of the users doesn't know that MS Office supports scripting or how to use it. This is very much an enterprise-option where some IT person produces templates that includes such scripting. So for most users this is a non-issue.
and an exchange capable PIM like outlook.
Again enterprise-level stuff. Not for the home users or small businesses.
And whether the "look and feel is better" that is usually not as much a matter of preference but a matter of familiarity. Most users are familiar with MS Office already. OOo is different. Fo
Just use Open Office (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm, sounds exactly like Open Office, just without the ads.... I'll stick with OO. I'm a "casual" office user and haven't touched MS Office in five years.
if I wanted... (Score:4, Insightful)
...a slightly more annoying Office with slightly less functionality for free I'd use Open Office.
Oh wait, I do!
Doesn't sound to bad to me... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Seriously in this day and age there is no reason to have a pirate copy of an office suite. Open Office or Symphony work fine and have 0 adverts.
I don't know anyone who would having the choice of free Office software with and without adverts would take the first choice.
Although I can see Clippy now.. "Hi I see your trying to write a letter to your girlfriend, would you like to buy some Viagra?"
Ads for what? (Score:2)
Alternatives (Score:2)
I think "casual" office users would be more than happy with something like Open Office, or Google Docs. There are free alternatives that don't have ads, why would someone use this? If it gets put on PCs automatically it will get used by users too lazy or uninformed to find something better, but doesn't MS already have a product they've been putting on new PCs called MS Works?
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GRRRRRR... (Score:2, Insightful)
that's what I get for posting to slashdot while I'm on the phone.
To finish my thought -the reason why is very simple.
Piss fucking simple:
COMPATIBILITY
Re:Alternatives (Score:4, Insightful)
Most users actually use what is pre-installed, a clear attempt for MS Office to gain new grounds. Why do you think the IE6 is so widespread still ? It is the default bundled browser on Windows XP. This is not a good news for Open Office or Google.
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Yup, but I give it 6 months before the anti-trust lawsuit starts up again and MS is forced to put a 'which brow^H^H^H^HOffice suite do you want to use' the first time you try to run it.
(and have you noticed how they keep trying to force their stuff on you, I installed MSN, and the excellent apatch to remove the really annoying ads, and it pops up a dialog saying 'set Bing as your default search provider and prevent other programs from altering this'. I'm not sure I like that.)
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Because they already have this and it does what they want it to do. The same reason they stick with Windows and Outlook and Media Player and IE.
Go ahead, make my day (Score:3, Insightful)
By experimenting with starter edition, non-technical users will conclude that MS Word is unstable (software with ads usually hangs while trying to load them), lacks essential features and of course looks junky. We can then take pity on them and offer to install "new Windows [ubuntu.com] that comes with no ads and fully functional software".
You would think Microsoft would learn its lesson after shipping with a media player that doesn't play DVDs and can't rip/burn your own CDs to standard MP3s. Apple, take cue for a new "I am a Mac" ad featuring a comparison to iWork.
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The publisher of the app is probably more relevant than the "ad supported" part in regards to "hangs while trying to load".
You cant say "will lack essential features" when you dont know what will be in there or what people who will actually use this version requires. Personally I think they are happy enough being able to read word docs and write the occasional one-pager.
I very much doubt it
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I actually had my first experience last week where an older person figured out Ubuntu faster than Windows.
He demanded I install it on his laptop, as well.
Can you uninstall it? (Score:3, Insightful)
The question will be whether you can uninstall it? I've got better things to do with my disk space and network bandwidth than support/tolerate adware. Do I have to pay for the Ads to be downloaded if my Internet access is over a 3G network???.
For that matter is it possible in Windows 7+ to uninstall IE (or the anti-virus/Windows update/big-brother/similar software)?
Can one get back to the state where it is more like a Windows 2000 system (I still have my Win2K install disks...) or even Windows 98 or 95 [1]?
Sigh, when will someone sue computer manufacturers (HP, Dell [2], Apple, etc.) so they will all provide hardware without software and end the paternalistic (monopolistic) HW+SW bundling practices?
1. Though in theory one really wouldn't want to run 95 or 98 because their unprotected nature is presumably what started the madness...
2. Though I recently noticed Dell may be returning to providing a Linux option...
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Aside from taking this opportunity to mention that anybody seriously considering removing OEM crapware manually would be FAR better off reformatting (it's faster, there's no risk of something left behind, and shouldn't cost anything - the media is essentially free, all that matters is the license key conveniently printed on a sticker) I'm sure that this will be removable. Office (in all its flavors) has always been pretty easy to uninstall, and there's no particular reason they'd do differently here. It's n
seems like an obvious move (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems like a pretty obvious move - with the advent of so many free non-MS alternatives I think Microsoft has a legitimate fear that they will become just one of the options in the "office suite" space, rather than the de facto standard. Getting their "free" offering onto as many desktops as possible MIGHT protect that status.
The open source alternatives however are hard to "compete" against, since they are generally going to continue to live even with a vanishingly small "market share" - as long as enough technical types are willing to support them.
I think in the long term, MS and others are not going to be able to justify to the consumer the high prices for their offerings that they have been able to up to now, and that low cost (perhaps free/ad supported) is the only way they are going to be able to maintain any level of profitability and stay in business.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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...they have to lay down another couple of hundred dollars for real Office.
Perfect opportunity to install real OpenOffice without laying down any more dollars.
Thanks Microsoft.
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For what it's worth, Office has had significant SKU differentiation (usually in which portions of the full suite were included, sometimes in what features of individual programs were available) for probably over a decade now. Nobody seems overly bothered by it. Each versions spells out what is and is not included, and the one that most people find most necessary (Word) is included in every suite SKU (you can also buy the individual programs, if none of the suites fit your needs).
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I've seen Windows Live Messenger ads... until I installed APatch and removed them. lovely.
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Adverts coming from an internet server? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Adverts coming from an internet server? A quick fix to C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts should fix that...
I'm sure they've thought of that, and will have it check to see if the address found for the server name actually returns the right stuff and if not it'll try a short list of fixed IP addresses like WindowsUpdate does to avoid being redirected by DNS poisoning attacks.
If you have an outgoing firewall on the other hand (say, an iptables setup on your router or a third party firewall on the machine itself), some rules there would get rid of the adverts. Though maybe the apps would disable themselves if it was
Goodbye MS Works! (Score:2)
Thank goodness I won't have to worry about relatives with MS Works any more!
This screams 'Anti-Trust' (Score:2)
Excel for Casual Users? (Score:4, Insightful)
How exactly does a spreadsheet fit into the "casual user" profile?
"Oh, I was just screwing around one day, modeling possible amortization breakdowns on various theoretical mortgages. You know, just to kill time before I finished up the index and the table of references in my letter to grandma..."
Casual Users Need Databases too (Score:3, Insightful)
And that is exactly what casual users use Excel for.
Don't worry! (Score:2)
You can still format the machine and reinstall!
Another pro-linux slant.....yawn (Score:3, Insightful)
"......who apparently will be perfectly fine with reduced-functionality and ad-supported software."
Apparently. Right. No-one *at all* has whinged about how many features they don't actually need in Word/ Excel, and yet once that's being addressed, it's now a problem. Like your average buyer will complain about getting basic Word and Excel over Works (a fully featured Works, which I'm sure eveyrone would prefer)..
And can we also cut the crap with Open Office? It's been bandied about as Vastly Superior for *years* now....and I've yet to work at a company that's seriously using it. Big it up once >20% of word processing users agree with you (which means OO still has a loooong way to go).
Re:GOOD MORNING SLASHDOT !! (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow wasn't the big shit about Microsoft Office over Star/Open Office the whole idea that you won't be able to use the poweruser features and all the scripting. So why should the casual user deal with ads in something that will be feature crippled and basically "consumer" branded (read CRAP) when they can fire up a free non-ad infested version of Open Office. All the basic shit is there and it is basically the same, users can export the files to doc and even set it to default to saving as a Microsoft Word doc. Before you reply about difference remember they said casual use, not corporate office use. If it wasn't for being the incumbent Operating System, Microsoft would have no standing with this. I wonder if they can even be construed as them manipulating their monopoly to enhance their Office productivity market as a matter of curiosity. Whether or not it does, this looks like a waste of time. I guess it is better than Microsoft Works.
Re:GOOD MORNING SLASHDOT !! (Score:4, Insightful)
>So why should the casual user deal with ads in something that will be feature crippled and basically "consumer" branded (read CRAP)
Unfortunately, they will use it because it is there, installed on their machine.
Still, at least this new version of office really will stink, and will make Open Office look even better.
Nope (Score:5, Insightful)
Peolpe will use it because it's there. And now because office is "free" with their new computer they will have no reason to pirate it and every reason to use it, thus deepening the MS monopoly on the desktop.
I smell some new antitrust action.
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Re:GOOD MORNING SLASHDOT !! (Score:4, Insightful)
So why should the casual user deal with ads in something that will be feature crippled and basically "consumer" branded (read CRAP) when they can fire up a free non-ad infested version of Open Office.
Because everyone is already familiar with Word and Excel, and it's more painful to switch to Open Office than to see some ads. Speaking from experience, switching to Open Office is quite annoying if you're used to Word and Excel. (Although it is more annoying to switch to Office 2007 from Office 2003, with that stupid ribbon interface).
Re:GOOD MORNING SLASHDOT !! (Score:4, Insightful)
In my experience most people barely notice the difference.
Re:GOOD MORNING SLASHDOT !! (Score:5, Insightful)
In my experience most people have never even heard about Open Office and will never even bother looking for an alternative to MS Office.
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In my experience, people who say they are satisfied rarely are.
Re:GOOD MORNING SLASHDOT !! (Score:5, Funny)
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In my experience, we used StarOffice across an entire school district for years and were plagued with compatibility problems with other schools. Also, Star/OOo lacks some very useful interface features compared even to Office 2000. We still have Star installed on our images to support old documents, but Office 2007 has greatly reduced our incoming support requests. It actually works *better*, as much as I hate to admit it.
I'm the resident FOSS advocate at the schools. I'm the one who has pushed Linux accept
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In my experience, we used StarOffice across an entire school district for years and were plagued with compatibility problems with other schools. Also, Star/OOo lacks some very useful interface features compared even to Office 2000. [...] OOo and Star simply are not "there" when compared with Office.
It sounds like you're saying that OOo/StarOffice compatibility with MS Office is not "there", not the complete package per se.
This might sound pedantic, but I think it's an important distinction.
Re:GOOD MORNING SLASHDOT !! (Score:4, Insightful)
Heh, I think you argued yourself into redundancy when you noticed how bad the ribbon effect was! ;)
My in-laws didn't want to fork out the hundreds of for the full blown version of Office. Had something like this existed then, they may have used it out-of-the-box. As it was, at the time I gave them the choice - use an illicit copy of Office (which they weren't comfortable with) or use a FREE and legal Office replacement (which they weren't even aware was available).
The opted for the free and legal route and now use NeoOffice quite comfortably. The 'pain' of 'switching' was less than the pain of the pricetag for Office, although to be honest there was no real switch involved with it being a fresh install, and even if there was I think the average user is having to learn to 'switch' every time a new version of MSOffice is released because MS in their wisdom keep changing the interface dramatically. So simply sidestepping to a competitor version with at least the level of functionality the vast majority of users need is actually quite easy.
I think this 'free' pre-bundled Office Lite may have quite an impact on the uptake of OOo though. If only because there'll be fewer non-tech users buying a PC without Office pre-installed. At that point they usually turn to their 'techie friend' for help, whereupon their friend may suggest OOo like I did. People like free - if it's pre-installed it's free, yet OOo is also free. People like easy too - pre-installed means no extra work, installing OOo means 5 minutes of work which isn't QUITE as a easy... shame, but OOo loses on those odds I fear.
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The 'pain' of 'switching' was less than the pain of the pricetag for Office
In my experience, the "pain" of switching from MS Office to a non-MS office suite tends to be a bit less than the pain pain of upgrading from one version of MS Office to another anyway - OOo is certainly less "different" than some versions of MS Office.
Unfortunately, it does seem that people are more accepting of the MS-inspired pain though - maybe that has something to do with the feeling that upgrading MS Office is something that has to be done so the pain must be endured, whereas switching to an alternat
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I've often wondered if MS gives PC manufacturers some kind of kickback for bundling thier sucky office products (works/office trial/this new crippled office product) in the hope that it will net them sales for the full version.
Another reason I can think of is that some manfuacturers (notablly dell) offer office as a build time option. Therefore it is probablly in thier interests not to open peoples eyes to the existance of openoffice.
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I think you're onto something there. Although from memory, many of the Office 30 day Trial versions give you the option to 'upgrade' to the full version at the end of the trial period. Which means a direct 'download' sale from MS and not necessarily a box-off-the-shelf sale for a 3rd party retailer. I suppose if it establishes lock-in for the customer then it increases the chances of the retailer making that sale long term rather than short term.
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Maybe for a power user it's annoying to switch...for someone like myself who's just using it to type up papers and such, there is absolutely no difference. I doubt the users that this adware office is aimed at will have any trouble switching to OOo.
Re:If a bundled web browser is an antitrust issue. (Score:5, Insightful)
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If a bundled web browser is an antitrust issue... ... t hen why isn't bundled "office" software?
Because this version of Office is an option when you buy the new computer that you can choose to remove whenever you'd like. Whereas Internet Explorer is something that you have no say on when buying a new computer or even uninstall when you do get the computer (well, not easily anyway.)
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Because it isn't bundled.
I dislike Microsoft and dont like defending them but this simply isn't bundling. The Office license is sold separately, while dell does include a free Microsoft Works package with most models (I even got a works disk with a Red Hat workstation a few years back) the package is entirely removable. This is no more illegal then if an OEM pre-installed Open Office or Ubuntu including Open Office with their default install.
The browser
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Is it integral to the OS?
If it's not then it's an OEM problem and has nothing to do with antitrust. This is not bundling, much like Dell's "free" MS Works it is a separate line item and completely removable. If this were bundling the including a power supply with a laptop would be bundling and that is definitely not an antitrust issue.
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Afaict the deals between MS and OEMs are secret so it's difficult to tell exactly what is going on.
If the OEMs are paying a reasonable price for the OEM copies works or office trial (or when it comes out office starter) and the OEMs are including it of thier own free will then I agree it is not an antitrust issue. OTOH if MS is pushing the OEMs into bundling it then IMO it is an antitrust issue
The fact that most big brand machines I see come with either works or an office trial* makes me suspect that the la
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(I went th
That should have said: I went through a long period of purchasing mostly whiteboxes between these machines and the one big brand I did get in that time I don't remember what if anything was in the original software load
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It'll be using docx and xlsx files, right?
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Heh, I was thinking about works as well. I wonder if there will be new bloated file formats for wasting space and bandwidth? Maybe the time is ripe for WindozeSecureEmail which will put the text into a hi-def-animated-picture-filled pdf-like drm-o-rama file format? That should burn off a few clock cycles.
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