Earlier this month, Microsoft announced a cluster of changes in the way Office 2010 will reach the end-user. Routinely, this has generated discussion. Some did not hesitate to jump at the conclusion that Office is trying to scramble to a standing position, facing ramped-up competition from certain free productivity suites. The standpoint has become so trite that it passes off as by default valid, but I somehow fail to attach the above point to the situation at hand. In fact, I am pretty much happy with what Zdnet’s Mary-Jo Foley suggests – at the moment, the biggest competition for Office is Office itself, in its pre-existing versions.
With Office 2010, Microsoft is taking on a new distribution stractic concerning new PCs to be purchased after the release. These PCs will ship with Office pre-installed so that the user will have to activate it via a key provided with a single-license product card. According to Microsoft, this is beneficial in several ways, including increased ecologic awareness. This, however, implies an end to the practice of doing multiple installations with a single multimedia disc – a danger that some of the update-aware users have already been able to sniff.
Another part of the plan aimed at reducing the pressure from ye olde versions is flattening Office Works, notorious for its incompatibility issues, and replacing it with Office Starter. This offering is supposed to guide the users into 2010, i.e. familiarize them with the consistently promoted Ribbon interface (a concept already settled so deep in the netizens’ minds that they are ready to mistakenly spot it in weird places, e.g. the revamped UI for the next version of Mozilla Firefox) and ultimately walk them along the upgrade path. Just like Works, Office Starter is free (ad-based in fact), which has somehow managed to lead to a couple of misconceptions. In reality, Office was by no means conceived as a light-weight alternative to the full-fledged package. I am pretty sure it will not offer anything that would interfere with its primary function of an upgrade incentive. What will be offered are just significantly trimmed Word and Excel, so I have some trouble figuring out where the speculations are coming from. Similar considerations by the way are likely hold true for the web-based package – especially given the fact that until there is a public beta, it is yet really difficult to tell how perceivable a gap is going to separate the web and the desktop.
Finally, alterations are going to affect the trial and full Office downloads. These will become “click-to-run” offerings that are expected to make getting Office via the web a quicker and easier process. Again, pre-testing reviews from early this summer do not provide a reliable insight into the matter.
An Aesopian bottom line here will traditionally warn one against avoid crying wolf before it is at least remotely in sight.
Another part of the plan aimed at reducing the pressure from ye olde versions is flattening Office Works, notorious for its incompatibility issues, and replacing it with Office Starter. This offering is supposed to guide the users into 2010, i.e. familiarize them with the consistently promoted Ribbon interface (a concept already settled so deep in the netizens’ minds that they are ready to mistakenly spot it in weird places, e.g. the revamped UI for the next version of Mozilla Firefox) and ultimately walk them along the upgrade path. Just like Works, Office Starter is free (ad-based in fact), which has somehow managed to lead to a couple of misconceptions. In reality, Office was by no means conceived as a light-weight alternative to the full-fledged package. I am pretty sure it will not offer anything that would interfere with its primary function of an upgrade incentive. What will be offered are just significantly trimmed Word and Excel, so I have some trouble figuring out where the speculations are coming from. Similar considerations by the way are likely hold true for the web-based package – especially given the fact that until there is a public beta, it is yet really difficult to tell how perceivable a gap is going to separate the web and the desktop.
Finally, alterations are going to affect the trial and full Office downloads. These will become “click-to-run” offerings that are expected to make getting Office via the web a quicker and easier process. Again, pre-testing reviews from early this summer do not provide a reliable insight into the matter.
An Aesopian bottom line here will traditionally warn one against avoid crying wolf before it is at least remotely in sight.
No comments:
Post a Comment