Related news claimsMicrosoft is currently testing a free version of its Windows platform Office service in India, with advertising exposure supporting usage costs.
A Microsoft spokesperson later confirmed that small-scale testing is underway, but there are currently no plans to launch a free Office service for Windows that would be supported by advertising.
The current operating form of Office services is to provide Office versions in the form of purchases for specific needs (such as government agencies and military units that handle sensitive information, or work environments that cannot use Internet services). Currently, Office services mainly provided to the enterprise and consumer markets are used in the form of subscriptions.
If the user is not subscribed, he or she can only view the document in read-only mode through the Office service, but cannot adjust or modify the content.
However, as more and more software tools and cloud services can open Office service-related files, and Apple's Pages and Numbers can also open and even edit Office service-related files, users do not necessarily have to pay for subscriptions to use Office services.
Therefore, Microsoft's current small-scale testing of Office services that use advertising exposure to support usage costs may be intended to retain more users while also attracting more people to use them.
According to relevant news, the Office service, which relies on advertising exposure to support its usage costs, will maintain a fixed banner advertisement on the side of the operating interface. In addition, a 15-second advertising video will be played every few hours. Even its edited files must be stored in Microsoft's OneDrive cloud hard drive space and cannot be stored directly on the user's PC.
In addition, the actual functions of Office services, which rely on advertising exposure to support usage costs, will also be relatively limited. For example, Word lacks drawing and design tools, line spacing adjustment and other functions, while Excel cannot use plug-ins, pivot tables or macro functions, and PowerPoint lacks dictation, customized slide playback and other functions.
