Microsoft reinvents Office Live for small biz as 'free'
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Except for the subs, that is Redmond said yesterday it has rejigged its Office Live Small Business product to pull in more customers by bringing its three existing paid-for versions under one roof for free.â¦
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Microsoft is turning the software into what it hopes will be a one-stop shop for e-mail, voice mail and faxes.
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InfoWorld - Microsoft&#160;has been quietly adding to the cache of reference applications it hopes will help transform Microsoft Office 2007 from a mere productivity suite to a collaboration tool.
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Microsoft outlined a new feature that will be included in Office 2008 for Mac.
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With two new office suites going free, can Microsoft maintain its high price tag on Office?  Don thinks it can -- and will.
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New versions of Office, Exchange, too. But are businesses ready to buy?
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For years, people who use Microsoft Office have been asking for less.
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(InfoWorld) - ThinkFree added offline support to its online application suite Tuesday and launched it as a $7-a-month alternative to Microsoft Office. Touting ThinkFree Premium: Beta Edition as "the most Microsoft-compatible online/offline hybrid office suite," the Boston-based company said offline access to documents gives users the best of both worlds. "The ability to access productivity tools from anywhere is key to being efficient and effective," said TJ Kang, ThinkFree's CEO, in a statement. "But it also needs to include the ability to travel with your laptop to unconnected environments. Premium Edition offers the best of both, the collaboration and anywhere access of the Internet with the speed, reliability, and security of a desktop application." ThinkFree started life as a desktop-only suite of pared-down applications --Â  the desktop edition remains available -- and then moved to an online model as a free suite of word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation maker. Premium adds the ability to save documents either locally or online, as well as a synchronization tool that automatically updates the files stored on ThinkFree's servers when the user reconnects to the Internet. Also new to Premium are a background save feature, a full-screen nonbrowser editor, the elimination of file size limitations, and drag-and-drop file management. ThinkFree Premium runs on Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari browsers, and requires Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux. Until August, the beta is free to use; starting that month, ThinkFree Premium will cost $7 per month per user, with a 10 percent discount for yearly subscriptions.
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The company reports that its free rival to Microsoft's Office suite was downloaded 100,000 times in the first week of release.
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Microsoft Corp. has begun providing free tools so government organizations can better share technological information, in a move it says is aimed at helping cash-strapped customers save money.
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ThinkFree Inc. has added offline support to its online application suite and launched it as a $7-a-month alternative to Microsoft Office.
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You might think the folks at Microsoft (MSFT) have bigger fish to fry than a tiny Bay Area startup named ThinkFree. The company, which offers Web-based word-processing and spreadsheet programs, counts about 60,000 active users, none of whom even pay for the service yet.
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Microsoft's latest version of Office for Mac adds some nifty interface improvements and a bunch of new features. Should you switch?
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In the workplace, Microsoft Office is as inevitable as drawn-out meetings and bad coffee. But Microsoft's combination of Word, Excel and PowerPoint is not the only way to write, crunch numbers or prepare slideshows. And for home users, it isn't even the best way anymore.
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Microsoft Corp.  is planning to release a new version of its Office program for small businesses that handles accounting and customer management tasks, the world's largest software maker said on Friday.
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Office, Microsoft Corp.&#39;s collection of programs for business documents and tasks, is fast becoming a software platform unto itself.
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Microsoft is offering a new subscription model to small businesses that will allow them to use the company&#39;s software for less cost than the currently available licensing model.The plan, called Open Value Subscription program, is part of Microsoft&#39;s effort to give small businesses more flexible and affordable options for purchasing software, said Cindy Bates, Microsoft&#39;s general manager for U.S. small business.The new plan costs about a third of the license-only expense for the current licensing program open to small business, called the Open Value program, Bates said. The plan is cheaper because Microsoft offers upfront discounts for software purchased through the subscription program, and also allows customers to increase or decrease pricing over the three-year subscription period if their business needs change, she said.Open Value Subscription includes Microsoft&#39;s Software Assurance program, the company&#39;s software maintenance and support program for business customers.Microsoft defines small businesses as those with 50 employees or fewer. Bates called 50 employees the &quot;break point&quot; for when a company hires IT management. Up until that number, &quot;usually it&#39;s the business owner or office manager&quot; handling the IT system, she said.Businesses will be able to sign up for the Open Value Subscription program beginning in March, Bates said. Microsoft products available through the program include Microsoft Office Small Business, Office Professional +, Windows Vista Business Upgrade, Small Business Server Client Access License (CAL), Core CAL, Desktop Professional Suite, and Small Business Desktop Suite.As part of its small-business outreach, Microsoft also this week is unveiling a partner program called &quot;Big Easy,&quot; which invests about $10 million in subsidies to small businesses purchasing products through partners.Through the program, small businesses purchasing certain products through authorized specialist partners will get a certain percentage of money back that they can use to purchase other services from those partners, Bates said.For example, a small business would get a maximum of 22 percent of the money it spends if it buys six or more products that are on the approved list. Bates said Microsoft has figured the average return will be about 15 percent to 17 percent on purchases for small businesses.Products available for subsidies under the Big Easy program include Microsoft Office products, Exchange Server, Forefront Security for Exchange Server, System Center Essentials, Project, Visio, Office SharePoint Server, Forefront Security for SharePoint, and Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006, among others.More information about Open Value Subscription can be found on Microsoft&#39;s Web site. The company also provides more information about the Big Easy on its Microsoft Small Business Community Blog.