By Andy McCue, 29 November 2006 15:10
silicon.com recently purchased a copy of Tesco's Complete Office for £19.97 and hit the computer shops on London's Tottenham Court Road to find out what the reaction on the street is.
Harjiv Sehgal, a staff member at retailer GHS Technology, questioned exactly who Tesco is aiming the software at. "Anyone who wants Microsoft Office will buy that. But if you are going to buy your computer in Tesco you are not going to spend hundreds of pounds on Microsoft Office," he said.
Sehgal said many people would also probably opt for a cheap illegal copy of Microsoft Office rather than pay £20 for the basic Tesco equivalent.
Photo credit: Andy McCue
Comments
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1. anonymous
Seems a bit pointless paying £20 for some software that is already available as open source. Anyone with a broadband connection can easily download Open Office which is "better than decent" and does enough to satisfy the requirements of most home and small business users. It's also compatible with MS Office files.
2. Simon
"We're not going to compete with 'free' on the basis of cutting our price, we actually compete with 'free' by being a better product."
Funny, I thought they competed with free by locking the doors and breaking any compatibility, or dragging the vendor through the courts till they give up, or just plain steal the idea ! The idea of Microsoft competing by making better products is something only credible within the reality distortion field around redmond.
3. John Marshall
What do Tesco use on their corporate networks I wonder - if they had the courage to use their own product, and could persuade another multinational to adopt it as their network product as well - I'd ensure my company adopted it instead of Office 2007 next year.
4. Freebe
I don't understand the charge for such a suite, it is already FREE, yes FREE and for those who can not grasp that, it means $0.00 dollars.
Here it is {drum roll} :
http://www.openoffice.org/
5. anonymous
I tried OpenOffice and while it works fine with Word and Excel files, you've had it if you want to use it with Access and your database uses forms. It simply doesn't work, and it tells you so.
The problem is most home users won't have a clue what OpenOffice is, and when they see Tesco's offering in the supermarket they will chuck it in the trolley, even if they don't really know what that is either...
6. anonymous
I believe there as as much, if not more, pirated copies of Microsoft software out there than there is legally licensed. I am told that 'copyrite' does not exist in Muslim countries, so they reverse engineer and distribute software freely as it does not break their laws. If Microsoft sold their products at a fair and not over-inflated price in the first place, it would probably kill the bulk of the pirate market overnight. Who is going to bother trying to reverse engineer Tesco software at £20.00?
7. Simon Allen
This is another smart move by Tesco. The software will be installed as standard and the support line run on the usual 09 level.
Tesco have patience. They can afford to let this bloom slowly and gather strength over time. Domestic punters like a CD in their hand that they can understand.
Tesco have not just patience but foresight. Two qualities they share with Microsoft.