Office Starter 2010 is Free, Ad-Infested

[topgear]

Office Starter 2010 will be free, but will feature limitations and annoying ads.

A recent Microsoft blog revealed Office Starter 2010, an ad-infested, feature-limited version of Office 2010 that apparently will come pre-installed exclusively on new PCs. The free version will come packed with Office Word Starter 2010 and Office Excel Starter 2010 that offer "basic functionality for creating, viewing, and editing" documents.

But for those who love Microsoft Works, it may be that the company is booting the software suite out the door. "Office Starter 2010 will replace Microsoft Works, offering a consistent Office user experience, such as the Ribbon, with a simple path to upgrade to a fully-featured version of Office 2010 directly from within the product," the company said.

Office Starter 2010 is one of four editions that will be available: Office Home and Student 2010, Office Home and Business 2010, and Office Professional 2010 make up the three retail versions. The blog also stated that a full version of Office 2010 will reside on new Windows 7 PCs, locked and ready for installation with the purchase of an unlock card.

Ultimately, Office Starter Edition serves as a trial run of the full version, but won't expire in a limited number of days thanks to the revenue generated by integrated advertisement. While a free version does sound tasty, annoying ads may drive some consumers batty.

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Office-S...news-4829.html

[din]

I know slightly offtopic, but ..

For the common man and for his normal use, openoffice is pretty good and more than enough. Of course, it may not have all the features offered by MS office, but then majority will not need those. Why should we go for the ads and trial things !

[ico]

^ Agreed.

Companies should rather start giving OpenOffice.org pre-installed instead of Microsoft Office Starter edition and (useless) Microsoft Works. But then, the world is bad, isn't it?

[topgear]

Yup, Branded PC makers should have added open office but as they have contract with M$ . Also by doing so they can advertise M$ products for which they will get paid. This way M$ and branded Pc makers both can benefit. So they will not do that for sure

[azzu]

Originally Posted by topgear

Office Starter 2010 will be free, but will feature limitations and annoying ads.

[/url]

i wud rather go for openoffice or anything else than ad-infested software

[cyborg47]

do the MS office formats work on open office softwares???

[amritpal2489]

^^ Yup... They sure Do..

[Liverpool_fan]

Well they do. But to the incomplete documentation and idiotic patent (which prevent reverse engineering); they are NOT 100% compatible. But good enough for basic usage though.
It's highly recommended to use ODF as your document standard. But then the world is stuck with the MS formats