Microsoft Quietly Offering Ad-Funded Version of Works

mikesd81 writes "News.com reports Microsoft has finally started offering an ad-funded version of Microsoft Works in some countries. Users who run the software see a small ad as they are writing their document or editing their spreadsheet. Although the program has the ability to update its set of ads online, today it runs mostly ads for Microsoft and a few partners, all of which ship with the product itself. Microsoft remains cagey on the details of where you can find Works SE. The company has been testing Works SE in 5 countries: The United States, France, Canada, Poland and the United Kingdom. It is available only through select computer makers and Microsoft won't say which computer makers those are. However, it seems Sony is offering it in the US."

worst for portability

[v1]

MS Works is currently the #1 trouble child for us to do data migration from older systems.

Slightly OT: Microsoft Office 2007

[blind biker]

Is there anyone else besides me whom Microsoft Office 2007 drives completely bonkers? I have never had the gross misfortune of using such an unfriendly POS of an office suite, in my life. The only reason I did use it, was because I had to include some Powerpoint slides into a .ppt file prepared by my boss - so I HAD TO use the company-wide office suite - MS Office 2007 - even though otherwise we are quite free to use whatever we prefer. So I use OO.o usually and just publish my works in .pdf.

Anyhow, it was a traumatic experience. "Where the eff is "Save as"? And how do I insert a slide? OK, how do I center-align this text? No, I don't want to insert Wordard or multimedia clips, thank you. Just a slide. And then save the file under a new name."

For me, the value of an office program, like for example Powerpoint or Impress, is in the speed I can create the presentation (for example) and how good it will look in the end. OO.o Impress is more than adequate in that sense - Powerpoint 2007, well, it failed me. Same with OO.o Write vs Word 2007 - plus the added argument that OO.o creates standstds compliant documents which I will be able to open with a reader of my choice or own creation in 40 years from now. But yeah, the fact that I can create it quickly and without logic-killing brain-damaging consequences is the greatest value.

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Desperation?

[Pecisk]

Seemingly OpenOffice.org makes good inroads in OEMs, so Microsoft have to do something to compete. But ad based Microsoft product is rather stretching. I mean, no offense, but it is very hard and annoying to use Microsoft products _sometimes_. Ads means additional annoyance.

Anyway, it is interesting step to watch and smells like testing waters before rolling out full ad-based Microsoft Office out.

Since you asked...

[symbolset]

Outlook 2007 has some rather interesting features. Typing in the middle of a paragraph - when the cursor crosses the line wrap the cursor is sometimes moved to a semi-random place in the text. That took a little getting used to. The last editor I used that had that problem -- well, I wrote it myself. :-(

The "invisible text" in HTML emails bug is still present too. It's a holdover from O97. You would think they would fix that. Some people feel that having some of the text of their emails randomly deleted or rendered invisible somewhat hampers their productivity.

And, like Microsoft Works, Office2007 cannot be completely uninstalled. If you get the trial version or ad supported version as crudware you're stuck with it forever.

It's shocking that quality like this became the market standard.

Microsoft has been trying to strangle Works

[melted]

... for a looooong time, but someone always screwed up the strangulation by reminding everyone just how much money it brings in. This looks like yet another strangulation attempt.

Huh?

[CSMatt]

I've heard about converting document formats to PDF, but how do you convert to a document format from PDF?