Microsoft Office will be FREE starting in 2010.

[Papa Deuce]

from cnn.com

It’s too early to say Microsoft has checkmated Google in online documents – the latest version of Office hasn’t shipped yet. But the sleeping giant in Redmond has clearly woken up to the Internet threat.

Get this: Microsoft – the king of paid software – will announce today that it is going to give a version of Office away for free online. Both the online and desktop versions are scheduled to arrive in the first half of next year. Yes, you read that right. The latest version of its ubiquitous productivity software, dubbed Office 2010, will come as both a piece of software you can buy for your computer, and as a service you can access in your browser. [UPDATE: Microsoft says it will support the Firefox and Safari browsers as well as IE.]

For free. From Microsoft.

One could argue that the software giant is late to the giveaway party. Folks like Google, Zoho and SlideShare have been offering free equivalents to Word, Excel and PowerPoint for years. Unlike those companies however, Microsoft already has a very profitable $20 billion business selling desktop versions of its Office software. It would have been foolish to jump into the free game too hastily and watch that business evaporate overnight.

And that’s what makes this bold move to the web either the dumbest thing the company has ever done, or a stroke of genius. If Microsoft gets this wrong, it will cannibalize its own Office business, and investors will howl. If it gets this right, Microsoft will crush Google, Zoho, and all the other rivals who are nibbling away at Office’s dominance.


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I wonder what the free version will be missing.

 

[onelilspark]

I'll just be glad that when I click on a Word document it won't take 20 minutes to open because I only have the trial installed. No, I don't have the registration key. Please close now and allow me to view the document only. Kthanks.

 

[mrsv98]

Personally I think it is more in response to Open Office rather than Google. That is all we use, totally free and just as powerful as Office.

Now if they could just make a stable OS, then I would be happy!

 

[Free4Life11]

No thanks. Office 2007 works just fine for me and I'm sick of them constantly coming out with new versions of their software. Free or not, I don't need it.

And Microsoft Office Live works great for me....so I'm not sure what amazing changes they will be making.

I don't really care for this "sharing" of documents anyway. Frankly, I trust my writing skills and grammar much more than my coworkers...no thanks, I don't want their input or changes.

 

[bicker]

Personally I think it is more in response to Open Office rather than Google.

Well, I don't think so. Open Office is an installable, offline executable application. Isn't Office Live solely an online hot-downloadable application. It won't work offline, right?

 

[SandrA9810]

Meh, wouldn't matter much to me. A high school teacher in 11th grade gave the class a copy of Office and a copy of Adobe programs. As long as my computer doesn't crash the hard-drive I have no real need to upgrade... the old works as good as the next.