July 28, 2006 3:25 PM PDT
Microsoft to charge for Office beta
Last modified: July 31, 2006 9:11 AM PDT
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Consumers who download the 2007 Microsoft Office system Beta 2 will be charged $1.50 per download, beginning next Wednesday at 6 p.m. PDT, a Microsoft representative said.
"Since the end of May, Beta 2 has been downloaded more than 3 million times...That's 500 percent more than what was expected," the representative said. "The fee helps offset the cost of downloading from the servers."
Although Microsoft's Information Worker Product Management Group decided to initiate a fee for new users of Beta 2, the "technical refresh," or update, for current users of the software will remain free, the representative said.
Those who want to test drive Beta 2 to see how it works can access the software for free. But if they want to test it against their internal systems, a download or the CD is required.
The fee marks the first time Microsoft has charged for a download version of an Office beta, the representative said, noting that customers have long had to pay the shipping and handling costs for CD versions of betas.
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Microsoft's money until the cows come home in order to
outspend Apple - all in the name of winning the portable media
player crown.
This article quotes a Microsoft representative claiming that the
$1.50/download of Office is being done to defray costs.
Even better - neither of your completely non-critical articles
says anything about Microsoft's prior predatory business
practices or their willingness to use their massive Office and
Windows-funded piggy bank as a resource for beating up on the
superior competition.
Along with yesterday's press-release rewrite - uh, I mean blog
post about how wonderful Intel's core 2 Duo is, is there anything
News.com can be critical about except for Apple?
I think the answer has a lot to do with who buys ad space on
your web site.
And they're just SO strapped for cash, aren't they?
software. They can't even make their OS secure and virus free.
150,000 viruses and counting. I wonder how many bad lines of
code in Vista and Office. I think Microsoft should be broken up.
Ballmer is out of his cotten picking mind to charge for beta
software, but I guess there are idiots out there that will pay for it.
lose over the next 5 years on Zune! Why should they pay for their
stupidity when consumers and investors can?
2.83b $ profit just not enough any more?
had elements of flip3d in it. I just love that gimmicky Vista eye
candy stuff, even down to the name.
Say it with me. Flliiiiippp Thhhreeeeee DEeeeeeee!
Now who doesn't thinks thats cool?
Office 2007 Beta clearly states that it will no longer or have limited function after February 2007 (or at least that is what it says on the CD of it I got with my PC World magazine).
Jeeze, I would suggest anyone who wants to try the Beta version get the magazine. At least you get a good read along with it.
If on top that, knowing the security issues of MS Office Products you feel is worth it to install it in your machine, the small fee is nothing compared to what the risk of using it can cost you.
If the people who are running the office Beta was given 500 million to do this, and it costs 600 million, it wont hurt microsofts bottom line very much, but whoever is in charge might not have a job as long.
Each Division/Project will have a budget, to insure maximum profitablity for the company, overall you wont notice money being drained out of 13 billion dollars in profit, but the way you make it so high is by not letting everyone leak a little bit of money.
- Tut Tut
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by Alex Todd
July 30, 2006 10:55 PM PDT
- The public has to pay to test Microsoft's software and report back any errors !!!!
that we are making better for THEM.
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Reply to this comment
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See all 60 Comments >>How about they pay us $1.50 each time outlook 2007 crashes and Drwatson sends a report back to them.
Why cant they use bit torrent to distribute their flaky software