Office Starter 2010 comes pre-installed with new PC purchases as Microsoft has tied up with PC manufacturers for the same.
Update: Most of the PC manufacturers have started selling their PCs and Notebooks with pre-installed version of Office Starter 2010, meaning that if you would go and buy a new PC today, you are going to get basic version of Office 2010, better known as Office Starter 2010 pre-installed on your machine.
Here are couple of things to know about Office Starter 2010:
What is included in Office Starter 2010
Office Starter 2010 includes
- Basic version of Microsoft Word 2010 and
- Basic version of Microsoft Excel 2010
Office Starter 2010 does not include:
- Microsoft PowerPoint 2010
- Microsoft OneNote 2010
- Microsoft Outlook 2010
- and other advanced Office applications such Access 2010, Publisher 2010 and Visio 2010
Capabilities of Office Starter 2010
Office Starter 2010 is a limited functionality package where only Word 2010 and Excel 2010 are available for use. Even in Word 2010 and Excel 2010, one can create and edit basic documents and spreadsheets only, with lack of any advanced functionalities that Word or Excel 2010 are really capable of.
Office Starter 2010 is an ad-supported free version and contrary to general perception, starter 2010 isn’t an Office 2010 trial version. It has a valid license that does not expire at any point of time. However, one can certainly upgrade Office Starter 2010 into full version of Office 2010 by purchasing Microsoft Office 2010 product key card from any retail store and using the unique product key to upgrade it to full Office version.
Office Starter 2010 is not meant to deal with the needs of a professional or an individual who wants the best productivity out of Office 2010. Instead, Office Starter 2010 is targeted at users who’re not ready to buy full versions of Office 2010 but want to use genuine office 2010 version, instead of using older Office 2007 version or some open-source alternative to Office 2010.
In fact, if you’re one of those Office Starter 2010 users then you must check out a comparison of Office 2007 vs 2010 to help you figure out if you should go for full version of Office 2010 or not.
News bits at the time of announcement of Office Starter 2010
Microsoft has announced a path breaking move concerned with the release of Microsoft Office 2010. In a recent post by Office 2010 Engineering team, it has been announced that this time, Microsoft Office 2010 will reach its worldwide customer base in a unique manner.
Microsoft is working with major PC/laptop/netbook manufacturers for the purpose of selling computer machines with Microsoft Office 2010, pre-installed on them. The pre-installed Office 2010 version will be called Office Starter 2010, which will basically be a reduced functionality, advertisement supported version of Office 2010. It will only include MS Word and Excel applications with much reduced feature set.
For upgrading the Office Starter 2010 to full version, the users will have to purchase Microsoft Office 2010 Product Key Card, which will be easily available at all the computer retail stores. Once the product key written on the Card is entered, Office Starter 2010 will get upgraded to Office Home & Student 2010, Office Home & Business or Office Professional 2010, whatever is purchased by the user. Note that the full version will be completely advertisement free.
For current PC manufacturers, Microsoft has provisioned a special technology called Click-to-Run, which would facilitate fast and easy download of Office 2010 trial version and purchasing full version as well.
This technology would employ virtualization technique to enable end users, maintain multiple versions of Office application suite simultaneously(in case, somebody wants to try out Office 2010 and keep Office 2007 aside for regular use).
This is for the first time that Microsoft is pre-installing Office application suite, that too with advertisement based system.