All About Microsoft

Mary-Jo Foley

Microsoft adds an 'Office Starter' edition to its distribution plans

By Mary Jo Foley | October 8, 2009, 9:40am PDT

Summary

Microsoft officials shared on October 8 more details about three new ways the company is planning to try distributing Office 2010 when the product ships next summer: Office Starter, Product Key Card and Click to Run.

Topics

Microsoft Corp., Office Application, Microsoft Office, Office Suites, Software, Mary Jo Foley

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Microsoft officials shared on October 8 more details about three new ways the company is planning to try distributing Office 2010 when the product ships next summer.

Via a post on the Office 2010 Engineering blog, Microsoft officials explained three new distribution mechanisms the company will use to get more users to try the next version of Office. The three:

Office Starter 2010: A preload that includes stripped-down versions of only Word 2010 and Excel 2010. (Stripped-down here means basic document viewing and editing only.) Starter will be ad-supported, so, free. But Microsoft is positioning it as “an easy way for customers to try the product and eventually upgrade to enhanced versions of Office,” not as a replacement for Office. This is meant to replace the Microsoft Works trial that is often preloaded on new PCs. In spite of its name, Office Starter 2010 really has little resemblance to Windows 7 Starter Edition.

Product Key Card: This is a single-license card that unlocks Office 2010 which will be sold at major retailers and OEMs. The idea behind this is to allow users to more easily and quickly upgrade to one of the three full consumer versions of Microsoft Office 2010. There’s no media on the card; it’s just a key. This works when an Office image is pre-installed already on a new machine and the key activates it.

Click-to-Run: This streaming/virtualization technology is targeting the existing Office installed base. Microsoft has been testing the Click to Run functionality among a select group of Office testers since earlier this summer. The Office applications are streamed to you and so you can get up and going in minutes instead of a half hour or longer. You can start using the individual apps as each is downloaded to your machine. And the Click to Run version can be used alongside existing versions of Office that you might already have on your PC.

Microsoft officials aren’t yet sharing any pricing details regarding the Product Key Card or Click-to-Run.

I’m betting a lot of pundits are going to be trumpeting “Microsoft drops price of Office with Starter to zero out from Google Docs pressure!” when they read about this announcement. But that’s not what this is about.

Microsoft knows that older versions of Office are the biggest competitors to a new release of Office and that the company needs to find new ways to get customers to try Office so they’ll consider buying it. If you dig up Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie’s “Internet Services Disruption” memo from 2005, Ozzie focuses quite a bit on how Microsoft needed to do more software trials and devlop new distribution mechanisms to keep the company competitive.

Do you think any of these new distribution vehicles will get more current Office users to give Office 2010 a try? Why or why not?

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

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Consumer Preinstalls

As a preinstall on new consumer computers, it makes a lot more sense than Microsoft Works.
Tom12Tom

10/08/2009 10:23 AM
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Family packs, payment plans, unlimited downloads

I think if MS offered family pack bundles; partial payments over periods of time until the software is fully paid for; and unlimited downloads of the software to registered machines, MS could sell more Office and other software.
P. Douglas

(Edited: 10/08/2009 10:32 AM)
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Office Home & Student is a family pack

You can install it on as many as three PCs in your home. It lacks Outlook and Access, but Vista's mail and calendaring programs are sufficient for home use, and there's little need for Access at home.
Michael Kelly

10/08/2009 11:20 AM
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True

but Windows Live Mail is a better option than Windows Mail because it combines calendar features with mail, and also provides the connections to the like-named Windows Live services for Calendar, Mail, and Contacts. In Windows 7, Windows Mail is no longer included, which is good for a number of reasons (user's choice, and no redundancy).

(Photo email is also an amazing feature that wow's everybody that I show)
Joe_Raby

10/08/2009 11:35 AM
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No mailer in 7

Is there no email client at all included with windows 7? That sucks
JonWayn

10/08/2009 09:41 PM
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Choice if fine I use Thunderbird

Most computer manufactures will be including the Windows Live mail option on their computers. If they do not it is easily downloaded and gives MS the option to show you there are other products in the live line that you may be interested in.

People complain when too much is included with an operating system and they complain when there is not enough included, clearly not everyone can be pleased.
Northlite

10/09/2009 06:47 AM
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In the words of Johnny Carson ...

... "I did not know that." Thanks. A trial version of Office 2007 came on my PC. I did not know you could buy it in a family pack.
P. Douglas

10/08/2009 01:19 PM
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There IS one caveat, of course...

You're supposed to have a family member enrolled in a school in order to be eligible for the Student edition of Office.
Wolfie2K3

10/08/2009 01:45 PM
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Uh?

How do they verify? Those editions are sold at the local Best Buy/Futureshop / Other software retailers
Ceridan

10/08/2009 01:53 PM
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Trust

They trust you! Or maybe they ask for a school ID when you buy it?
levinson

10/08/2009 01:59 PM
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