Wednesday, September 19, 2007
MS Ultimate Steal Insults Intelligence
Last week, Microsoft announced its "Ultimate Steal" program for college students. College students can download Microsoft Office 2007 -- which includes PowerPoint, Word, Excel and more -- for just under $60.00 US.
Hmmmm. MS announces this just one week before Google adds a free presentation tool to docs.google.com. Coincidence?
No coincidence - just blatant PR games. After all, Google leaked its intention to add a free Presentation application to Google Docs while MS was in the throes of its PR blitz for the launch of Office 2007. That was in January/February of this year. Google didn't actually provide a presentation app to round out the suite -- until this month.
So now MS strikes back, reporting a price reduction because....(don't laugh out loud):
"We’re listening to students who have told us they need Microsoft Office ..."
Oh, C'mon. No one believes that! MS heard students screaming at the high price of the Office Suite for over 20 years. It just took competition -- not the needs of their customers -- to offer this "too little, too late" price break.
That's one reason why web savvy students are checking out the free suite of apps at docs.google.com.
Oh, and if you need one more reason to be insulted by the Microsoft offer - here's a screenshot from today's "Ultimate Steal" home page. Notice that Microsoft seems to think that college students are white males.
And check out the looks on their faces... just who are they trying to target with this mess?
Last week, Microsoft announced its "Ultimate Steal" program for college students. College students can download Microsoft Office 2007 -- which includes PowerPoint, Word, Excel and more -- for just under $60.00 US.
Hmmmm. MS announces this just one week before Google adds a free presentation tool to docs.google.com. Coincidence?
No coincidence - just blatant PR games. After all, Google leaked its intention to add a free Presentation application to Google Docs while MS was in the throes of its PR blitz for the launch of Office 2007. That was in January/February of this year. Google didn't actually provide a presentation app to round out the suite -- until this month.
So now MS strikes back, reporting a price reduction because....(don't laugh out loud):
"We’re listening to students who have told us they need Microsoft Office ..."
Oh, C'mon. No one believes that! MS heard students screaming at the high price of the Office Suite for over 20 years. It just took competition -- not the needs of their customers -- to offer this "too little, too late" price break.
That's one reason why web savvy students are checking out the free suite of apps at docs.google.com.
Oh, and if you need one more reason to be insulted by the Microsoft offer - here's a screenshot from today's "Ultimate Steal" home page. Notice that Microsoft seems to think that college students are white males.
And check out the looks on their faces... just who are they trying to target with this mess?
Labels: Presentation Applications
¶ 9/19/2007 04:18:00 PM
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If only Open Office and Apple's iWork 08 could provide some decent competition for M$ in the world of office apps, then we would ALL have access to M$ Office for under $100. :)
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