Microsoft;s next edition of its small-business/home productivity suite, due imminently, will be free of charge and ad-funded.Microsoft Functions nine.0 — which will be the new product;s name, if Microsoft opts to stick with its current nomenclature — may well also debut at some point as Microsoft-hosted low-end productivity service,
Office Standard 2010, as many have been speculating. A hosted version of Functions would give Microsoft a head-to-head competitor with Google Docs & Spreadsheets and other consumer- and small-business focused services, analysts have said.For the time being, however, the new edition of Operates will likely be ad-funded, according to Satya Nadella, the newly minted Corporate Vice President of Microsoft;s Search & Advertising Platform Group. Nadella told me during an interview on July 27 that Microsoft recently released the new ad-funded version of Microsoft Works.If Works 9.0 is out, I haven;t found it yet — other than a couple download links on torrents and other sharing sites. Anyone else seen it?(I;ve asked Microsoft for more information on the new ad-funded Works suite. No word back yet. Update: Even though Microsoft;s own vice president discussed the product, no one will talk. The official comment, via a Microsoft spokeswoman: “We;re always looking at innovative ways to provide the best productivity tools to our customers,
Windows 7 Professional Product Key, but have nothing to announce at this time.”)Nadella added that Operates will likely be just “the first of the ad-funded software we are heading to do.” When I asked for other examples of products Microsoft might decide to make free of charge and ad-funded, he mentioned Office Accounting Express — a product which is currently available as both a no cost download and as a component of certain Office Live paid subscriptions. He also said software downloads/shareware was another category ripe with products that could be totally free and ad-funded.The decision to make Works ad-funded is not coming out of the blue.Microsoft Works 8.0, which Microsoft introduced in 2004, sells for $49.95. It introduced the 8.5 OEM update to Functions in 2006. Microsoft Functions includes an address book, calendar, database, dictionary, PowerPointо Viewer, basic Word, and templates. Traditionally, a number of PC makers have preloaded the Works product on low-end PCs. But with its Office Ready PC program, Microsoft has begun pushing PC makers to preload higher-margin Microsoft Office rather than the cheaper Microsoft Operates, on new machines.In his October 2005 “Internet Services Disruption” memo, Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie noted that “(p)roducts must now embrace a ‘discover, learn,
Microsoft Office 2010 Product Key, try, buy, recommend; cycle – sometimes with one of those phases being no cost,
Windows 7 64bit, another ad-supported, and yet another being subscription-based.” He added: “Groups should consider how new delivery and adoption models may impact plans,
Purchase Office 2010, and whether embracing new advertising-supported revenue models may well be market-relevant.”Even before Ozzie outlined his marching orders, Microsoft was mulling an ad-funded version of Operates. According to a document seen by News.com in 2005, Microsoft was already running the numbers on what it would take to do an ad-funded version of its low-end suite. According to that report:“If ad revenues exceed 67 cents per year, we could actually give Works away and still make more money,” two Microsoft researchers and one person from MSN stated in a paper presented to Chairman Bill Gates at a Thinkweek brainstorming session earlier this year.”Do you think a no cost, ad-funded edition of Microsoft Functions — even if it;s not a “service” — will help Microsoft fight off Google and other Web-based productivity suite vendors? Do you still expect Microsoft to release a non-ad-funded, paid version of Operates as a subscription service at some point?