Office suite subscription by Claudia Sonea

Microsoft Corp is not wasting time while the damsel in distress, Yahoo, makes up her mind. Business must go on, although the idea of the takeover hasn’t been abandoned. On Friday they announced a program called “Albany” that will offer an alternative to the one time license fee. Yet, they did not offered details on how much the program will charge, nor about the availability to users world wide. You were probably wondering what the program offers. Well, because most of us are dependant of the Office software, Microsoft decided to give us the possibility of chosing between the license fee or a subscription basis, with security software and free online services. Users will be able to download and install Office 2007 and then receive updates for a subscription to which there is added Windows Live OneCare, a Web-based security software, and Windows Live Mail and Office Live Workspace. Although Bryson Gordon, product manager for the project stated that they are not changing the traditional marketing, for Microsoft this is a big step that most likely was determined by a strong competition and the need to revive the sales. One of the major rivals is none other than Google who also fights for the hand of Yahoo, giving Microsoft a hard time and a lot of headaches. Google Docs is a free, Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application that seem to become more and more appealing even to the users of Office. I still rather work with Microsoft Word the 2003 edition as it is more simple and easy to use. Still, anything that it is free deserves to be checked out and there even some advantages to Google Docs. Have you tried it?

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080421/tc_nm/microsoft_subscription_dc;_ylt=AqAYiadxl2nIZa_kIOhmQeis0NUE

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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edited by Beata Biskova