Office 2007: Microsoft offers 'free experience'

Pankaj Ukey, Office System – product lead at Microsoft Corporation India told R Jai Krishna of CyberMedia News of the Office Ready strategy, which aims at making more users ‘hooked’ on to the new offering.

What is the Office Ready strategy Microsoft has adopted?

Office Ready is a strategy adopted by Microsoft to drive the user experience and also to increase the customer and partner readiness for our new version MS Office 2007. We believe that this will help us to widen our customer base. It will also curb piracy indirectly.

We had advertised extensively during January this year while the product was in its beta phase and now we are in the launch phase. In our new approach to the market, MS will be offering free trial version of the entire suite of MS Office 2007, for 60-days. If the customer wishes to use it after the trial period they can get a license key to activate the features according to their requirements. Even if they don’t, they still can use it but with limited functionalities.

What is your go-to-market strategy?

We are relying entirely on our network of 500 partners. All the partner has to do is to pre-install the PC with MS Office 2007 from a single CD. He can install the version in as many PCs as he wants. In fact some branded manufacturers have already started shipping MS Office 2007 pre-loaded PCs.

The MS Office 2007 has a new-friendly Fluent User Interface. In India, we have concentrated on localisation, and thus product will be available in Hindi also during the launch. By end of this year; it will be available in all the 14 official languages in the country.

How does the partner tend to gain?

The advantage the partners is on saving on inventory costs, and when the customer wants to convert into a full usage version after the trial period, then all they need to call their distributor and ask for the activation key. The customer themselves can activate the product and here also; the partner need not send his technical person and incur expenses on that.

Not stopping at that, Microsoft will be incentivising the partners for their role in increasing the customer base. We have formulated to offer five base points for every pre-loaded PC and 50 for every conversion. These base points are convertible into IDBI cash cards. Hence, we are offering a sustainable business model, which also saves money for the partners.

What are the packages you offer?

We intend to offer three packages: professional, basic and standard, which will be at various price points and the features will be limited to the package offered. However, we want to price the home and student pack at $120 to gain more market penetration, as these two are the highest users.

How does Microsoft gain through this strategy?

Microsoft believes that the Office Ready strategy will widen our customer base, by increasing the usage. Once the customers start using the applications and experiencing them, then they will get hooked on to it. Moreover, it will also reduce piracy indirectly.