Tag Archives | Microsoft

Office 2010 Goes Free, Gets Ads

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 8, 2009 at 3:07 pm

Office CardWhen Microsoft Office 2010 shows up sometime next year, the most basic version will have an appealing price: $0. Microsoft has announced that it’ll work with PC manufacturers to put something called Office 2010 Starter Edition on new machines. The new version will replace the venerable-but-languishing Microsoft Works, and will provide reduced-functionality versions of Word and Excel that don’t cost anything–and which embed advertising of some sort. PC owners will be able to purchase upgrade cards at retail outlets that let them turn Starter Edition into a full-blown copy of Office.

It’s impossible to fully judge Office Starter Edition until we know (A) just how “reduced” the functionality is, and (B) just how intrusive the ads are. (Companies have often talked about the idea of ad-supported office suites, but I’m not sure if anyone’s done it successfully; unlike Web searching, it’s not obvious how you’d integrate ads into a productivity suite in a way that made sense for consumers and advertisers.)

But if the ads aren’t too obnoxious and it’s easy to uninstall Office if you don’t want it, this could make sense–Microsoft presumably likes the idea of introducing cost-conscious folks to Office at no charge and preventing them from defecting to Google Docs or Zoho. Unfortunately, the free suite will be available preinstalled on new computers, not as a download–but if it becomes as pervasive as Works, it’ll show up on lots of machines.

Microsoft is also saying that there will be an online demo version of Office 2010 that uses virtualization to let you try out the suite without installing it–an important option considering that you can’t install Office 2007 and Office 2010 on the same machine. (When I’m king, there will be a law prohibiting software companies from releasing apps that can’t exist concurrently with their predecessors.)

Office 2007 was originally accompanied by an online demo version that the Office site says is no longer available. Don’t tell anybody, but it’s still accessible here. It works quite well–I wish something similar were available for every major application.

Anyhow, let’s wrap this up with a T-Poll:

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European Commission Market-Tests Microsoft Browser Remedy

Posted by David Worthington on October 7, 2009 at 8:24 pm

Opera BoxWhen the European Commission (EC) mandated that Microsoft ship Windows XP sans Windows Media Player, the final product proved unpopular with consumers. For Windows 7, the issue is Internet Explorer, and a more diligent EC announced today that it is market-testing its remedy for effectiveness.

After repeatedly wrangling with Microsoft over whether the company would be permitted to ship Internet Explorer 8 with Windows 7, the EC and Microsoft reached a compromise: letting customers pick which browser they want. Windows 7 users in European countries will select their default browser from a ballot screen that will be pushed for customers to configure via Windows Update.

The ballot features a choice of 12 browsers; browsers are listed alphabetically by vendor, and are sorted into groups according to their popularity. Microsoft provides introductory information for each option. You can see a screen shot of the ballot screen here.

Further action could be taken against Microsoft pending the EC’s findings in the Opera antitrust case. Opera indicated today that more work was needed for the ballot remedy to become acceptable.

I’d be interested in knowing what the users ultimately do, and would like to see data about installations to see if it jives with what is being reported on the Web. Firefox 3 has surpassed IE 7’s market share in Europe, but who’s to say that the remedy isn’t effective if Internet Explorer 8 is the most popular choice. As long as people are happy with the process and it is fair, the results really don’t matter.

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Oh Yeah, Windows Mobile 6.5

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 6, 2009 at 12:09 pm

htcpureBetween yesterday’s news about Flash on phones and today’s Google-Verizon deal and announcements yet to come from the CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment show in San Diego, it’s a big week for phone-related developments. But the release of the first phones with Windows Mobile 6.5 is going off with a whimper, not a bang. (That’s the HTC Pure, available from AT&T, to the right.) The title of John Herrman’s review of Microsoft’s new phone OS over at Gizmodo kind of sums it up: “Windows Mobile 6.5 Review: There’s No Excuse for This.”

The fact that Windows Mobile 6.5 is blah and uncompetitive with iPhone OS and Palm’s WebOS isn’t news. Microsoft’s massive problems with its phone OS were apparent the moment Steve Jobs removed the first iPhone from his pocket at his Macworld Expo keynote in January of 2007, and they’ve unfolded in slow motion ever since. The company unveiled the new version back in February at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, and it was clear then that the update was going to be an unsatisfactory stopgap. This week’s only new twist is that the unsatisfactory stopgap has finally reached consumers.

I’m trying to think of another example in tech history of a major player moving quite as slowly to react to the changing world around it. The ones that come to mind involve the major developers of productivity apps for DOS–products such as Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect–and their delayed reaction to the transition from DOS to Windows in the early 1990s. Both Lotus and WordPerfect eventually came out with perfectly respectable Windows versions. But it took way too long, and the products were never the same.

Microsoft is in no danger of becoming the next Lotus or WordPerfect anytime soon. Long-term, though, there may be nothing more important to the company’s future as having a competitive mobile operating system. Even if Windows Mobile 7 turns out to be dazzling, it going to be a latecomer to a party that’s been going on for years. Speculation has it that the first WinMo 7 phones may not show up until the end of next year, around three and a half years after the first iPhone arrived.

That might just be too late. And even if Microsoft stages a dramatic comeback in the phone biz, it may have more than a year of additional slow-motion woe–and degradation to the Windows Mobile brand–ahead of it.

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Mac vs. PC? No, Mac and PC

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 5, 2009 at 9:32 am

Mac and PC9 to 5 Mac is reporting on the NPD Group’s newest figures on Mac ownership in the U.S., which say that twelve percent of households with computers have a Mac–up from nine percent in 2008. But the really interesting factoid is that the overwhelming majority of that twelve percent of Mac-owning homes also have a Windows machine.

Makes sense to me–these days, there’s very little reason not to be biplatform. Once you get them home, they can share nearly everything you might want to share, from MP3s to Word documents to a printer. And OS X and Windows, for all their differences, are now similar enough that moving between them isn’t much more complex than owning a Mazda and a Chevy and driving both.

Apple runs ads that depict PCs (and by extension PC users) as nebbishy losers and talks about switching from Windows to the Mac. Microsoft has been mocking Macs and Mac users as effete and spendy. But if more than eight out of ten Mac households are also PC households, we’re not talking about an either/or situation, and the whole notion–leveraged by both companies–that Mac users are different kinds of people from PC users doesn’t jibe with reality.

Maybe Apple should do more to explain why a PC household should welcome a Mac or two; maybe Microsoft should stop snarking at Mac owners, since most of them are also PC owners. If they did, they’d be addressing millions of sensible consumers who find value in both companies’ wares…

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“Barrelfish”: Microsoft’s Latest Future OS Project

Posted by David Worthington on September 30, 2009 at 2:33 pm

Last Friday, Network World reported that Microsoft’s research labs in Cambridge (UK) has previewed an experimental operating system code-named ‘Barrelfish.’ However, it is just one of many fish in Microsoft’s barrel, and is not nearly as close as Microsoft’s project “Midori” is to becoming an actual product.

Barrelfish and Midori tackle a similar problem that Microsoft has determined cannot be met by evolving its existing technology. They run on multi-core systems, and are designed for heterogeneous hardware environments, where applications and resources can exist in separate places.

Beyond sharing a similar mission, there are major technical differences between the projects. Midori is rooted in a research project called Singularity, which is constructed using Microsoft’s .NET Framework; Barrelfish uses some open source components.

Barrelfish, like Singularity, is just a research project. Midori is differentiated, because it an offshoot from the Singularity lab work. Microsoft has placed Midori under the control of Eric Rudder, senior vice president for technical strategy at Microsoft and an alumnus of Bill Gates’ technical staff.

The company has also mapped out a migration path away from Windows to Midori, but there was still a lot of hand-waving in the memos that I reviewed last year. Microsoft has since placed all information regarding Midori under lock and key on a “need to know” basis.

After I wrote my Midori expose, I was told by a source at Microsoft that I had just scratched the surface. Microsoft is a big company that has a lot of resources, and I will not pretend to know everything that is going on in its skunkworks. What I do know is that Barrelfish is just research–for now.

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Death to QWERTY?

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 30, 2009 at 10:03 am

No QWERTYTechCrunch’s MG Siegler has a thought-provoking post up which discusses the multiple rumors and other bits of info out there about upcoming devices with touch interfaces–the fabled Apple Tablet, of course, but also Microsoft’s Courier dual-screen concept device and scuttlebutt about an Apple touch remote control and  multi-touch mouse. MG ponders all the evidence and comes up with a sweeping conclusion:

While it may be hard to imagine right now, eventually there will not be physical keyboards.

My first instinct was to dismiss the idea. I’ve written in praise of physical QWERTY; I’m not ready to give it up; I see no immediate scenarios that involve it disappearing. And hey, Steve Jobs himself told me that Apple couldn’t figure out how to make a Mac with a pleasing touch interface. (Yes, I know that Jobs saying that simply means that Apple doesn’t have anything it’s ready to roll out just yet.)

But with tech predictions, the safest strategy is often to avoid being safe. We’ve already seen the death of the floppy, and it’s clear that desktop PCs are on their way to being archaic, niche products. And I’ve frequently predicted that it’s not going to be very long until most people think of the PC as something you can put in your pocket. So I’m not ruling out the possibility that MG’s prediction is right–although I’m guessing that the decline, fall, and disappearance of physical QWERTY will take a decade or two if it happens at all, and that it’s contingent on smart people inventing better ways to enter text via touch interfaces and/or voice input.

What’s your take?

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5Words: Microsoft’s Release Security Freebie

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 29, 2009 at 9:35 am

5wordsMicrosoft’s free security suite ships.

More stuff about Microsoft Courier.

Newton guy back at Apple.

Dell’s cord-free charging Latitude Z.

OEM prices for Windows 7.

CNN releases an iPhone app.

Apple, swipe Zune HD features.

T-Mobile’s poised to sell Cliq.

More folks get Google Wave.

Google Docs caters to students.

Wize product search engine redesigned.

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Windows 7’s Early Arrival

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 24, 2009 at 2:40 pm

Puget SystemsOctober 22nd may be Windows 7’s official arrival date, but at least one manufacturer plans to not only be ready for it but ahead of schedule. Custom PC manufacturer Puget Systems says it’ll begin shipping Windows 7 machines on October 13th, nine days before so many of us will be holding festive Windows 7 launch parties. Sounds like anyone who springs for fast shipping could have a PC on his or her desktop around a week before the OS’s formal debut.

I can’t remember how firm the release dates for Windows upgrades past have been, but if Puget has permission to do this, you gotta think it most likely isn’t the only company who plans to ship early. I guess operating systems aren’t like hot books whose publishers do their very best to prevent any sellers from jumping the gun.

I continue to believe that it’s not only rational but arguably the most sensible plan of action to wait a few weeks before buying Windows 7 or a Windows 7 PC, just so any showstopping technical problems get fixed before they bedevil you. But I wonder how many folks will decide to buy a Puget PC to get a nine-day head start on even other early adopters?

Let’s end this with a T-Poll:

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Microsoft Phones Revealed?

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 24, 2009 at 12:08 am

Gizmodo is certainly on a roll–after publishing what seems to be a Microsoft video of a dual-screen concept tablet PC, it’s dug up photos that supposedly show two Windows Mobile smartphones which will be cobranded by Microsoft and Sharp. One looks a lot like a Palm Pre, one looks kind of like a Sidekick, and neither is inherently exciting. Then again, it won’t be hardware designs that will make any upcoming Windows Mobile phone a big whoop–that’ll only occur if Windows Mobile 7 turns out to be a great leap forward. At the moment, at least, almost all smartphone hardware isn’t much more than a container for software–even with the iPhone, maybe fifteen percent of what makes it interesting is the hardware, and the rest is the iPhone OS.

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Google Burrows into Internet Explorer

Posted by David Worthington on September 22, 2009 at 11:30 pm

Google ExplorerToday, Google announced a plug-in for Internet Explorer that usurps the IE browsing engine’s role, rendering pages with Google Chrome instead. The plug-in, called Google Chrome Frame, targets Web developers who must program around IE 6’s proprietary quirks.

Internet Explorer remains the world’s dominant Web browser, but many of its users are running archaic versions of the software –to the frustration of Microsoft and its critics alike. Older versions of the browser do not support the latest standards, hindering what users can do on the Web.

Google argues that Chrome’s Webkit and JavaScript engines will seamlessly bring IE up to par, awhile preserving the interface that people are accustomed to in IE 6 and IE 7. Microsoft has largely solved its issues with standards support with IE 8, but Google Frame targets it as well.

Of course people will have to install the plug-in, which requires a 10MB download. Web developers will also have to modify their HTML code to invoke the plug-in. Nonetheless, it’s a new approach to getting people to upgrade their browsers.

Google is using an attrition strategy to bring IE users on board with Chrome. I could not imagine why any corporate IT folks would install this plug-in; they keep IE installed for compatibility reasons. Microsoft has also enabled legacy support in IE 8.

Google Chrome Frame is a neat technology, but I don’t expect that your mother will end up using it unless it is bundled with software that people widely use. Google might attempt to leverage its Web properties, but many people are a creature of habit. My father is still using AOL, and my attempt to move him to Gmail failed.

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