Andre Yoskowitz
24 Jun 2012 18:59
It appears that Microsoft is ready to discontinue their free Office 2010 Starter edition.
Over the past few years, Microsoft has made an ad-supported version of their popular suite available to anyone with a new Windows 7 computer. The Starter edition comes with Word and Excel and lacks features of the fully paid version, but nonetheless the software was popular.
Into the future, starting with the release of Windows 8, new buyers will get links to trial versions of full Office, instead of a pre-loaded Starter like in the past.
Despite being the clear leader in the market, Microsoft has seen increasing competition in past few years. OpenOffice and LibreOffice offer full office suites, for free, and Google Docs is preparing to gain offline capabilities, making it another free alternative.
Microsoft Office ranges from $99 to $499 depending on the type of package.