By Dawn Kawamoto, 31 July 2006 10:50
NEWS
Microsoft is set to charge a nominal fee for Office 2007 Beta 2 downloads, a move that runs counter to the practice held by most software companies.
Consumers who download the 2007 Microsoft Office system Beta 2 will be charged $1.50 per download, beginning on Wednesday at 18:00(PDT), a Microsoft representative said.
The representative added: "Since the end of May, Beta 2 has been downloaded more than three million times... That's 500 per cent more than what was expected. The fee helps offset the cost of downloading from the servers."
Although Microsoft's Information Worker Product Management Group decided to initiate a fee for new users of Beta 2, the "technical refresh", or update, for current users of the software will remain free, the representative said.
Those who want to test drive Beta 2 to see how it works can access the software for free. But if they want to test it against their internal systems, a download or the CD is required.
The representative said: "This is the first time Microsoft has charged for an Office beta, and it's not something that is planned for on a repeat basis."
Dawn Kawamoto writes for CNET News.com
Comments
There are 8 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
They can keep it.
Who ever uses any of the 'new features' anyway?
You'll just need a faster PC to run it.
2. John McCreesh
Meanwhile MS-Office's main competitor encouarges people to take a completely free test drive - and if they like it, keep the car - see http://why.openoffice.org/keepthecar.html
3. Chris Parsons
Beware of using it if you have any add-ins. I have tried it on one 'clean' machine and it works just fine, but on my main machine which has SnagIt and Cloudmark anti-spam, Outlook kept crashing.`
4. Karen Challinor
So they want us to pay for downloading their beta software so that we can test it and find the bugs for them so they can charge a fortune for it when it goes live, have I got that right then ? surely they should be paying us to test it for them ?
5. Ian Hathaway
It's a test to see how many shmucks are out there.
6. Lionel A Smith
Clearly MS want more folk to trial OO.
7. D.Duran
Who started this rumor lol
Not sure what is going on a M$ but they haven't issued any press release at thier site that they are going to charge to use MS Office 2007 Beta 2.
It is ironic that they send me a beta product to test as I am a registered Microsoft Beta tester and charge me.
Has anyone seen this announcement from M$
8. anonymous
They can keep it.
Who ever uses any of the 'new features' anyway?
You'll just need a faster PC to run it.