Microsoft will be offering a free advertisement-supported version of Office 2010. This software will only have basic document viewing and editing functions.
In a blog post on Wednesday, Microsoft stated that the main goal of Office Starter 2010 edition was to expose new users to Office 2010.
If users like Office 2010, they can buy a license and upgrade to one of the three full versions that Microsoft offers–Office Home & Student 2010, Office Home & Business 2010 and Office Professional 2010. Existing MS Office users can download and install Office 2010 alongside their existing installation by using a virtualization technology known as “Click to Run”.
When Office 2007 was released many users were reluctant to upgrade to it. One of the main reasons was its new user interface. However, in the last one year Office 2007 has seen a large volume of sales. According to Microsoft Office 2007 had 23 million downloads which represents a year-on-year growth of 92 percent.
Office 2010 has many improvements and new features. Microsoft has responded to users’ complaints over how difficult it is to find basic commands using the Ribbon interface. Additionally, Office 2010 also makes collaboration with other users easy when used with SharePoint Server 2010 in the back end.
Microsoft believes that these features put Office 2010 at the forefront of office productivity suites. It also believes that these features will allow it to combat the threat of free Office productivity rivals.
Microsoft stated, “The real differentiation for Office as a platform is all the back end functionality. Office plus SharePoint is compelling and it’s a real platform for delivery that often gets overlooked.”