Microsoft confirms Equipt kill date

Microsoft has told Equipt customers that the subscription software package will be killed off on 30 April 2009. The date comes three months after the company confirmed plans to ditch the Office and security subscription service in November. Microsoft only began selling Equipt to consumers late last summer in the US via the …

[Brett Brennan]

So, does everyone need to buy a new Office?

According to this snippet from the article:

"It confirmed that Office Home and Student 2007 won’t receive subscription licence updates and will enter “reduced functionality mode”. Effectively customers will only be able to view Office documents, but they won’t be able to create or edit docs via the service."

This appears to indicate that all those gazillions of people that bought MS Office 2007 Home and Student edition will need to cough up and buy another version of Office in order to continue to create documents. Is this really true?

Man, if so this is REALLY going to piss off some folks!

[Henry Wertz]

WTF is Equipt?

1) As the title says, WTF is Equipt?

"This appears to indicate that all those gazillions of people that bought MS Office 2007 Home and Student edition will need to cough up and buy another version of Office in order to continue to create documents. Is this really true?"

No, they do not have to buy Office. They can get OpenOffice for free. There will be now a flood of responses on how OpenOffice is a piece of crap. Bull. There's real odd uses where it's not compatible enough, but for most uses (such as Home and Student use...) it's a drop-in for Word, Powerpoint, and Excel. Some versions of OpenOffice 2.4 (including the one included with Ubuntu), and all versions of OpenOffice 3.0, support the docx, pptx, etc. files that Office 2007 uses. You can go to Tools->Options->Load&Save->General, and change the "Always Save As" setting to whatever file format you'd prefer -- I would use the Office 97/2000/XP setting. That way you don't even have to remember to "Save As" an Office file, it'll just do it for you.

Problem solved!

[David Richardson]

@ Brett

No it's not. LiveCare came with a version of office home and student on a yearly subscription along with the av and other crap in the package. It's only these ones that will stop working (as the subscription will have expired). Anyone with a stand alone version will be fine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they stupid?

More people are realizing that the free bit in free software is less about no cost and more about not being beholden to corporate whim. After "plays for sure" and now this, good luck selling subscription services in the future.

[David]

People actually subscribe?

People actually subscribe to get buggy bloated Microsoft software?

Try Open Source, no subscription required and you get all the features all of the time.

[Brett Brennan]

@all...

Thanks for the clarification. Being a Linux person I was {blissfully} unaware of the inclusion of Office H&S in LiveCare. However, several friends and family members (the part of my family tree that doesn't branch and similar friends) are still rooted in "needing" MS "products"...and I know my phone will start ringing if/when Office starts failing. Just like it did when TV stations started switching off yesterday...

IMPORTANT SAFETY TIP: never, NEVER let anyone know that you're smarter than they are.

(zips coat, jumps into MG and blows a cloud of Castrol and a year's worth of carbon credits disappearing into the sunset...)

[rob]

Reason 4925628172 never to purchase Microsoft products

Seriously, which students actually pay for Microsoft products though? I haven't met any.

Two thumbs down for Microsoft, yet again.

[Stevie]

Bah

Subscription based software is ALWAYS a rip-off under any circumstances.

This is where Hollywood would like to take DVD movies too, and where Apple have already allowed the Recording Industry to take us.

Rental model, retail prices.

And people ask why I still buy my music on CDs.