Are you aware of the new “Microsoft Office Starter 2010”??

I am sure most of you have seen the latest Microsoft Office 2010 products.   The Office versions that most people know are the “Home and Student”, “Home and Business”, and “Professional”.   However, there is something new that Microsoft is offering now that can be loaded on brand new computers through their OEM partners.  (Including Cad Masters Inc. & CompuMart)

This new Office version is called Microsoft Office Starter 2010.  It includes Word and Excel 2010, in stripped-down versions designed to work with basic documents.    As an OEM partner, we will provide the following messages to the end users who will be getting a computer with Office Starter preinstalled.

“This PC is preloaded with reduced-functionality versions of Word and Excel that include advertising. It does not include PowerPoint or Outlook. Purchase an Office 2010 Product Key to activate full-featured Office software on this PC.”

In the past, system builders used to be able to install the trial versions of the Office products on new computers that were only good for 60 days.  Now, the new Office Starter 2010 will NEVER expire.  For the users who only need Word and Excel, this is going to be the most economical way to keep your Office software legal.

So, what’s missing?

• Tabs containing commands for advanced features: References, Review, View, and Add-ins.
• Commands normally found on those tabs have been moved in the Starter edition.
• The Spelling command, normally located on the Review tab, gets moved to the Home tab in Office Starter 2010.
• You cannot review documents and track changes among multiple authors.
• You cannot automatically build a formatted table of contents.

Excel follows a similar pattern.  The missing tabs in this case include Data, Review, View, and Add-ins. Thus, you cannot insert comments into a worksheet, nor can you connect to an external data source or build a PivotTable.

In my opinion, most people do not use these features anyway.  If you are interested in trying the software, definitely remember to mention it when you are ordering a new computer.  It will be a great feature to have and we are offering this for FREE!!!