Microsoft to Charge for Beta

Pleading bandwidith issues I'm sure, Microsoft has decided to charge for downloads of the Office 2007 Beta (no I won't use the silly name with a small 's'.) Yeah, it is only a $1.50. But it reminds me of when Daniel Synder, (in my Top 5 list of the most foolish sports moguls) took over the Washington Redskins and decided to charge fans to watch summer practices. A practice that was quickly backed off to a degree after the PR furor.

Now, I'm sure there are valid issues for this. As I recall Microsoft claims the demand almost brought down the Internet when they publicly released the Beta of both Vista and Office 2007(still resisting.) But this just seems silly to me.

I wonder if we have to pass through the WGA barriers before they will aceept our $1.50.

Comments

[Josh Einstein]

Repost of my comment to Marc's blog:

Bandwidth isn't cheap and Microsoft is not an ISP. oFFice sYSYTEM beta is HUGE and I doubt any software company could handle that demand. I'm sure they wouldn't implement something like this unless the bandwidth costs were causing significant increases in expenses.

Second of all, in large companies like that, budgets are determined well in advance. I'm sure they didn't budget enough money to cover beta distribution and they probably ate through it quickly. They've said on numerous occasions that the demand for the new Office beta exceeded their expectations.

Finally, a common misconception is that companies are obligated to provide beta software. It wasn't too long ago that public betas were unheard of. When you require beta applications, you can cut it off at a given number. When it's public, you have no idea how many takers you may get. And $1.50 is half the price it costs to cross the Ben Franklin bridge or a put a gallon of gas in your car. It's not that big a deal.

[Mike]

This move is not aimed to recoup bandwidth costs, it's to force a real contact with potential customers : in order to pay, you have to provide real address, name and so on. It is a very misleading move, hopefully they'll have to back off.