(Credit:
Walt Disney Co.)
We asked Chris Heatherly, vice president of technology and innovation, Disney Consumer Products, The Walt Disney Co., to answer a set of questions--and he took the time to dive a little deeper.
How do you define "innovation"?
My favorite quote about innovation is one where Steve Jobs was asked how they systematize innovation at Apple and he said "We don't. We hire good people." I think a lot of talk about innovation amounts to a lot of dancing about architecture. People get caught up in trying to have an innovative "process" instead of having their values where they should be--making great product. To borrow from James Carville, "It's the product, stupid!" Who cares what your process is? It's what you put out there that matters.
If you want to make great products, you have to have high standards and absolutely insist on those standards. There's a great story about Pixar and the making of Toy Story 2. They completed most of the movie and then decided they didn't like how it was coming out. So they scraped it and started from scratch. How many companies have the guts to do that? Not many.
But I haven't answered your question. I think innovation is understanding people and what they need and giving them the most perfect solution you can to their problem even if they might not know they have it yet. It's giving people something new that they haven't seen before or making them re-experience something familiar in a totally new and better way. Everyone talks about Apple. The reason we all worship Apple is that there is no detail too small for them to sweat out. They don't stop at trying to make a great product. Look at the packaging. They work to reduce materials, to improve communications, to reduce shipping costs, to have better environmentally friendly materials, to create a great out-of-box experience, and on and on. Once you live and breathe these principles, you can't compartmentalize. You have to make everything as great as it can be. It becomes a way of life.
I think too many people confuse innovation and technology. I have seen a lot of designers try to make a mediocre concept innovative by putting Bluetooth or some other whiz-bang technology du jour in it. That's not innovation. It's cheating. Innovation is about solving problems for people. As I write this, I am at the New York Toy Fair. I am always so impressed and humbled by the incredible cleverness and simple innovation in small things that toy designers and inventors do every day. I think the technology business could learn a lot from these guys. The toy business has to work with very cheap stuff so they can't fall back on expensive technology. They really have to make the magic trick out of Popsicle sticks and rubber bands, if you take my meaning.
Yesterday, I saw a company that makes bubbles that you can't spill. Brilliant! I bet a lot of people have looked at bubbles and said "How can you innovate bubbles? There's nothing you can do. They're just bubbles." But this guy did and now he has a huge business because it turns out that parents don't buy as many bubbles for their kids as they might because they are afraid they will spill them and make a mess. To me, that's real innovation. A simple, clever idea well executed that makes things better for people.
What are the most important areas of innovation in your organization (product, process, IP, marketing, etc.)?
To be a creative company, you have to have a creative core, whatever that means for your company. For Disney, that's people like storytellers, animators, and Imagineers. For a company like Apple, it's designers and engineers. The people at the core of what you do have to be the heart that pumps innovation through the vessels of the organization. You can't live without your heart. But the other parts of the organization have just as important a role in innovation. Take technology, for example. Pixar is very clear that it is about telling stories and that everyone who is there is there for that purpose. Technology plays a really important role for them. They like to say that "art challenges technology and technology inspires art." They don't look at technology as being a second-class citizen to their artists. It's a respected peer. There are lots of other parts of the organization that have to be part of an innovative mission.
Here's one people don't put in a sentence with innovation very often--legal. Look at Google. They are constantly doing things with search and indexing and now with YouTube that challenge the legal status quo. If they had a legal team whose only role was to keep the company from getting sued, they would never do those things. If you want to be innovative, everyone has to be on board for the mission. Everyone has a role to play.
But one of the keys to innovation is having management that expects and drives innovation. You can have the best designers in the world and the worst management and nothing good will come of it. You have to have leaders who believe and have guts and support innovative work. You have to have leaders who hire the best talent and weed out the people who have the wrong values and intentions, but who at the same time are extremely tolerant of good people making mistakes or failing sometimes. If you manage quarter by quarter or have no tolerance for failure, you won't ever have innovation, no matter how creative your people are. You have to be willing to lose.
What would you consider your most successful innovation? How did you "find" it?
I'm very critical and I always think we can do better than we have done in the past. My favorite stuff--no matter when you ask me--is in the future and stuff I normally can't talk about it publicly.
My recent favorite innovation is a new technology called Clickables that we are launching in connection to our new Disney Fairies virtual world. It's a way for kids to take their online world experience into the real world. The core of it is a magical bracelet. By simply clicking their bracelets together, girls become friends in the online environment. And it's safer too because if you had to physically click with your friend that means they were in physical proximity to you, you saw them, and you know who they are. They aren't some random person online. Also, it allows kids to download virtual objects from their inventory and trade with their friends, which is another complicated thing we made simple. Most online worlds don't let you trade because it's hard to authenticate. We made that simple and seamless.
(Credit:
Gearlog)
How did we find the idea? We knew that online worlds were going to be a big deal and so we got about 50 of our smartest people together from different divisions and of different job types--marketing people, technology people, designers, even finance people and lawyers--and we had a big brainstorm. We have a great process for brainstorms that's led by our head of creative Len Mazzocco. He's like the Michael Jordan of brainstorming. We came up with probably a few hundred ideas but narrowed it down to 75 really good ones from the two days. Then we narrowed it down to our top 10 and top 5 and in there was the nugget of the Clickables concept. Then we decided that this was such an important area that we would create a dedicated team around it, called our Toymorrow team that would be a little SWAT team focused on technology in the toy space. We moved really aggressively to find partners who shared our vision and had applicable technology. Speed is of the essence in these things. Len always says that "God gives everyone the same ideas at the same time." If you don't move fast, someone else will have your idea and do it before you can get it to market.
My other favorite recent product is a digital camera we made for preschoolers called Disney Pix Jr. I love it because it is so simple and so rugged and just does what it says it will do. I threw one myself down a flight of concrete stairs 20 times and couldn't break it. And the interface is so simple. We even got rid of the on button! And we have a fun feature on it called PhotoFriends that lets you pose with a Disney character in your picture. Kids are having a lot of fun with that. But for me, that is a great product because it meets the need and does what it says it's going to do. It doesn't read your mind or have Wi-Fi or cure cancer or any of that. It's just a great camera for kids. It is what it's supposed to be. Not a lot of products, especially technology products, can say that.
Which innovation "failure" did you learn the most from, and why?
That's easy. The Disney Dream Desk PC. We had all the right ideas in the beginning. We wanted to make an inexpensive computer without all the doodads in a small form factor about twice the size of the Mac Mini (you couldn't make it smaller back then because the processor was so hot) with a creative software suite a la iLife but for kids and with robust parental controls. I am proud of the way the software and Internet filtering came out. But the PC grew from this small inexpensive thing to this almost full-sized PC that was not as kid-like as we wanted and was much more expensive than we originally planned.
If we had kept with our original idea, we would have had the OLPC four years before Negroponte. That was the hardest project of my life, and I can't say I didn't fight hard. But our partner didn't share our vision. They thought it was imperative that it have all the slots and expansion and all the stuff parents probably don't really care about when they buy a kid a PC but that geeks care about a great deal. I thought we could change them, that we would convince them. But I felt compelled to launch, and I wound up compromising in some areas I didn't want to. I learned from that. Your partners need to share your vision or you will never get the result you want. I believe it's Louis Armstrong that said "There's some people, if they don't listen, you can't tell them." You have to stick to principles. If the people you work with don't want to do the project right, it's not worth doing.
What lessons can you pass on to others from how your organization has changed to make itself more innovation driven?
Anyone who reads a newspaper knows that Disney has had some major changes in the past few years with a new CEO--Bob Iger--and the acquisition of Pixar. We are getting back to our roots. Focusing on quality, incredible storytelling, and the magic people expect of us. Bob's really focused on bringing the company together as a team and put quality and innovation at the forefront of the company's agenda. What he's done is create a great collaborative environment for innovation and the rest has taken care of itself. You can see the whole company flourishing right now.
In your opinion, what are the biggest barriers and challenges that stand in the way of organizations becoming more innovative?
The organizations are their own biggest barriers. A lot of things that big companies do that they think are conservative and prudent are actually very foolhardy and dangerous. It's said that cynicism is ignorance masquerading as wisdom. Business is very simple. You have to offer a product that is better than your competition and you have to keep your customers happy. A lot of big companies get caught up in other things. Managing a P&L is important, and money keeps the lights on. But if people don't like the product or service you are putting out there, it doesn't really matter how clever you were about saving costs here and there. When you're dead, it doesn't really matter why. You can't cut your way to glory. Look at Apple. In the last recession, everyone else laid people off and cut back on R&D. Apple said "We are going to innovate our way out of this." And look what happened for them. You can't stop innovating.
Beyond your organization, who do you admire for risk-taking innovation, and what do you think makes them successful?
Apple is too obvious, so I'll say Target. At a time when everyone was trying to follow Wal-Mart into the bargain bin, Target had a vision that everyone deserved nicely designed products. A lot of people thought they were talking over their audiences' heads or they were full of themselves. In fact, everyone else was underestimating the intelligence and taste of their guests, and Target saw something no one else did. But Target innovated in a lot less obvious ways too. Take queue lines. At a lot of big-box stores, you could spend 20 minutes waiting to check out. At Target, you will wait less than 5 minutes most of the time. If the register is stacked up more than 3 people deep, they will open another one. That's customer service. Today, Target is beating all of their competitors' comps and doing more business per door than anyone else. Not everything has worked for Target. Remember the short-lived Philippe Starck line? But they keep trying and more often than not, they succeed.
What innovation are you still waiting for?
I think the single most important innovation we all need is low-cost green energy. Energy is the United States' #1 trade issue, #1 security, #1 economic issue, and #1 environmental issue. Green energy will have a more transformative effect on the world than the Internet, it's that big. Outside of this, I am working a lot with robotics these days and I'm very excited about all this smart technology that will make its way into lots of products. I live in LA and we are (in)famous for our traffic. I would love us all to have robotic cars that could figure out traffic flow, so I never have to sit through a traffic jam again.
Regular readers of this blog know that I don't believe that Google Apps is a viable alternative to Microsoft's Office.
While Microsoft is not releasing a completely online version of its Office on Tuesday, it is releasing Office Live Workspace, an online-collaboration tool for Office that works in cooperation with the desktop application suite.
Workspace enables users to view documents online, even if their computer doesn't have Office installed. However, if they want to make edits, they have to download it and make changes in the appropriate Office application.
For users who have Office installed on their PC, this is not as bad as you would think. It may be a little bit annoying, but the benefit is that they get to work on these documents and collaborate within the fully functional desktop application. The online application will track revisions and comments made on the document.
Microsoft has also made a plug-in available for Office that makes accessing a workspace a bit smoother. It also enables users to edit things such as notes, lists, calendars, tasks, and contacts in the Web application.
(Credit:
Microsoft)
A lot of Web 2.0 purists are going to be very quick to dismiss the notion that Office Live Workspace is a legitimate Web application, simply because of its dependence on the desktop version of Office. I would have to disagree with those people.
While it may not be completely Web-based, Workspace offers a lot of value for collaboration on group projects, and it is not limited by online versions of the Office applications. People get to work in an environment that is familiar to them and do not sacrifice any functionality in exchange for collaboration.
Until someone can build a full-feature online-productivity suite, this is certainly a viable option.
Via LiveSide.
Microsoft and Dell are seeing Red.
The two companies planned to announce on Friday that they were teaming up to offer three (Product) Red PCs, supporting the charitable effort that benefits women and children affected by HIV and AIDS in Africa. However, their news dribbled out early, after the New York Times' John Markoff mentioned the plans on the paper's Davos blog.
Dell plans to slather its all-in-one desktop PC, the XPS One, in red. The two are also teaming up on Red versions of the XPS M1330 and XPS 1530 notebooks, which, should be noted, were already available in red paint. The difference will be a special version of the operating system.
The PC is Red on the inside, too, with a special edition of Windows Vista Ultimate edition that includes specially themed desktop wallpaper and sidebar gadgets.
Most importantly, the two companies will donate a portion of the proceeds to the (Product) Red effort, a total joint contribution of $80 for each XPS One, and $50 for each notebook, directly to the Global Fund for each special edition PC purchased.
The move is a personal victory for Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, who has been a big proponent of (Product) Red, but it has been Apple that has been first to the market with its (Product) Red iPods. Gates told CNET News.com at last year's CES that he was trying to get his company on board with the effort.
Dell will also offer a (Product) Red printer, the 948 all-in-one printer. Dell will make a $5 contribution to the Global Fund for each purchase.
CNET News.com's Ina Fried contributed to this report.
(Credit:
Seattle Post Intelligencer)
Is Apple's PR wearing thin?
Sure, there was the MacBook Air and the buzz around "thinnovation." But wasn't that--pun intended--too "thin" for a big media splash, especially compared with past years? Now that MacWorld is over, pundits are reviewing Apple's PR efforts, and when the expectations are so high (and a company is so good at it), it is not too surprising that some are disappointed with what they've seen this year. Frank Shaw, a PR professional at Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft's lead PR agency, is one of them, and you have to give him credit for being so vocal in public despite his affiliation with the Apple rival. (It would be easy to dismiss his criticism as just a Microsoft cabal.) Shaw is wondering whether Apple's shock and awe, event-focused product launch PR philosophy has lost its relevance in a time of always-on communications:
"The concept of holding news, building expectations, and then unveiling a massive surprise has been super effective, and no more so than last year with the iPhone. It was a tour de force from a communications standpoint. This recent Macworld? Not so much."
He refers to the Feiler Faster Thesis, which states that people's ability to retain and process information has accelerated, resulting in significantly faster news cycles:
"So in this world, is a twice a year news bang sufficient? The answer could be yes--but there is little room for events like today in that world. Apple stepped to the plate today, IMHO, and hit...a single. The company won't be up to bat again for a while...if you are only up a few times a year, you better hit some home runs."
He admits that he's a proponent of "small ball" rather than "home run ball," and it's hard to judge whether that makes him old-school or PR avant-garde:
"I've never been a big fan of 'giving up control of the message' or 'information wants to be free' or 'user generated content will rule the world' or 'it's all about the conversation.' But I'm a huge believer in the value of ongoing communication, to the right audiences, about the topics they care most about, in a regular, sustained way."
iPhone guilt
But Apple products raise more than just PR questions. On the O'Reilly blog, Dale Dougherty takes Apple's 1984 slogan "The computer for the rest of us" as a starting point to meditate on the "rest of the rest of us"--those excluded from our high-tech frenzy and without the means to participate in the Apple universe of godly gadgets. He does so because he feels "iPhone guilt":
"Taking the iPhone out of my pocket in a public place makes me uncomfortable. Some people ask nicely about it: 'How do you like it?' But I'm keenly aware that others don't have what I have and they notice it. The iPhone is a great phone but I'm conscious that it's helping to define 'the rest of us versus them.'"
Dougherty's moral treatise poses some uncomfortable questions:
"Is the high-tech world indifferent to the problems of the poor? Do we have any competence that matters in helping them find a better life? Or are we just making 'the happy few' that much happier? What is a social network if the people facing the toughest problems are not part of it? They don't need more signs that tell them that they are on their own. The have-nots don't do networking. It doesn't get them anywhere."
"Whether it's the latest from Web 2.0 or Apple Computer, do we need to ask what it means for those who aren't able to take part? Does it help them catch up or put them further behind? That calculation is part of the social cost of any new technology. We might think of it like we're starting to think about our oversized carbon footprint and its impact on the physical world. Is there any way to offset the negative social impact of the technology that we're so busily developing?"
"It's a challenge for the 'best of us' to address."
(Credit:
Hem.com)
Europe loves the VW Beetle, the Renault Twingo, and the Smart. The U.S. has the Mini and will finally get the Smart, too. And recently India proudly presented the spiritual successor to all of these--the $2,500 Tata Nano, a "people's car" that is widely gushed about, not only for its surprisingly slick design but also for its innovations.
In recent years, ecoconcerns, design savvy, and an (urban) willingness to quest for practicality have fostered the trend toward specialized cars that are as small as the niches they serve. While the idea of a small car is not new, in the case of the Nano, and that's an interesting addendum, the miniaturization of the product goes along with a miniaturization of price, development process, and distribution model. The Nano is the world's new "cheapest car," it was developed and designed by an off-site micro-organization, and it operates with a decentralized distribution model that allows the suppliers who assemble the car to also sell and service it directly to the consumers. What you can learn from Tata: shrink the product, shrink the feature list (no frills!), shrink the development team (no red tape!), shrink the price (ultra low cost!), and shrink (localize!) assembly and distribution. Think small, score big.
In fact, nano is the new big. Language is always a good indicator of cultural shifts. There is talk of the "Nano-effect," of "nano-sphere," and the magazine Nanowerk observes that, "Over the course of the last 12 months, the LexisNexis database of newspaper articles records 239 stories referring to nanotechnology in the British press. In the same period there have been 239 stories referring to 'iPod' and 'nano'."
India's Economic Times even proclaims the "coming Nano Age:"
"Small is getting a big play. Part of the push is coming from companies eager to stuff cell phones with value add-ons and another is about demonstrating technology that is smart, simple, small and beautiful. (...)Nanotech products or small, nifty gadgets may not be cheap, as the emphasis is not on price cutting but efficiency at a small scale. Though it remains to be seen whether, the Tata Nano, a nanotech medical device or a pocket printer, will set the cash counters ringing."
(Credit:
iGo)
Smartphone keyboards are fine for composing short e-mails and maybe tweaking the occasional Word document. But if you want to get any serious work done on your device, fuhgeddaboudit. Your thumbs don't deserve that kind of punishment. Instead, reach for the iGo Stowaway Ultra-Slim Bluetooth Keyboard, which serves up a full-size set of QWERTY keys and then folds up slim enough to slip into your pocket.
The Stowaway normally lists for $149.99 (ouch!), but Amazon has it on sale for just $29.99--which qualifies it for the store's free Super Saver Shipping. Just make sure you check device compatibility before ordering; although the keyboard works with a broad range of BlackBerry, Palm, and Windows Mobile devices, some customers have complained of compatibility issues (check the user reviews on the Amazon product page).
I've been a big fan of Stowaway keyboards since they first came out for Palm PDAs almost 10 years ago. They're amazingly compact, comfy to type on, and guaranteed to boost your mobile productivity. [via Business Hacks]
Everyone wants to be a designer. That's the value proposition of JuJups.com, a new online service claiming it will allow consumers to design their own personalized and customized 3D content. 3D printing, as the underlying technology is called, is a form of rapid prototyping that builds up three-dimensional objects by "printing" successive layers of materials (polymer, cells, sugar, etc.) on top of each other.
(Credit:
George Hart)
As a recent Wired story points out, 3D-printing technology has been around for a while, mostly used by professional design firms and design-intensive businesses such as automakers, handset makers, and aerospace companies. Recent advancements have enabled the technology to "print out" fully functional finished products, leading to a remarkable boom in equipment sales: according to market research firm Wohlers Associates, 8,000 machines, or 36 percent of the industry's two-decade worldwide sales total of 22,000, have been sold in the past two years alone.
Multi-material 3D printers, capable of producing 3D parts and assemblies made from different materials in a single build, are hitting the market, and companies like Freedom of Creation (FOC) are paving the way for making rapid manufacturing technologies accessible for consumers.
In addition, a steady drop in the price of printers has spawned many new businesses trying to push 3D printing into the consumer market: 3D Outlook Corporation is selling 3D models of mountains and other topographic 3D maps for prices below $100, catering to hikers, resorts, and real estate firms.
Companies such as Fabjectory and FigurePrints produce 3D models of virtual characters (from virtual worlds or games). SolidWorks, a U.S. unit of Dassault Systemes SA, a French maker of design software, has launched Cosmic Modelz, a site that lets kids use 3D printing technology to create their own customized action-figures. And now JuJups wants to step aggressively into the emerging market with a Web-based 3D-printing service for everyone.
The JuJups site, however, currently only offers customized designs of photo frames, which it then prints out on 3D color printing machines and ships to customers. Although the company says it plans to expand its printing capacity to support the growing demand for customized objects including giftware, memorabilia, toys, etc., it is a little odd that it put out a bold announcement (for immediate release) of an offering that is apparently not quite ready for prime time at this point.
The JuJups example shows that there's still a gap between hype and reality when it comes to 3D printing for consumers. Trendwatching, and other trend-spotting media (Times Online, Post-Gazette, Make) have long propagated "MIY" (make it yourself) culture as a key trend.
Terry Wohlers, president of Wohlers Associates, says 3D printing is the fastest-growing part of the rapid prototyping industry. Wired believes it is witnessing a design revolution. Earlier this year, Glen Emerson Morris, a technology consultant, predicted in the Advertising and Marketing Review that 3D printing (or desktop manufacturing, as he calls it) would hit the consumer market big time: "It will likely have an impact on society, politics, and business as great or greater than the Internet. So, fasten your seatbelts. This is going to be a really wild ride."
Morris argued that "one of the reasons consumer use of home 3D printing, better described as desktop manufacturing, is likely to take off quickly is that there is very little manufacturing being done in America anymore. As a result, there will be very little pressure by manufacturing special interests against it."
And yet, we're still sitting here with our seatbelts fastened--but the wild ride has yet to occur. Aside from the above-mentioned niche sites, the big mainstream push from Generation C (C = content) to Generation 3D has been lost somewhere along the way. When will big retailers start to add 3D printing features to their sites? Where are the powerful brands or smart start-ups embracing the model? When will see the YouTube of 3D printing?
(Credit:
Yodel Anecdotal )
The Putting People First blog by Experientia has pointed me toward the excellent essay "The Long Wow" by Adaptive Path's Brandon Schauer. Schauer outlines a vision of creating lasting customer loyalty and brand value that runs counter to the fixation on quick wins and instant gratification, which many companies, under the pressure of shorter product life cycles and CMO tenures, seem to pursue these days. He defines "The Long Wow" as "a means to achieving long-term customer loyalty through systematically impressing your customers again and again."
This goes far beyond adding new features for features' sake, implementing loyalty programs such as membership awards, or simply measuring loyalty in economic terms. He writes, "Like Christmas, customer loyalty can't be bought or bottled. It's not something you can capture in an ID card. Loyalty is a sense that grows within people based on the series of notable interactions they have with products, services, and companies." As he describes them, "Notably great experiences are punctuated by a moment of 'wow,' when the product or service delights, anticipates the needs of, or pleasantly surprises a customer. For Schauer, "OXO's Good Grips Angled Measuring Cup triggers such a moment of wow. A set of angled markings on the OXO cup lets you quickly measure liquids for recipes without having to stop cooking and bend over. Suddenly a little part of your life is easier, because OXO thought carefully about the way you cook. This delightful surprise resonates because it feels tailored to your needs."
It is interesting to assume a causal relationship between this kind of lasting value and the time it takes to create it. What if the immense pressure to innovate quickly or to rush to market comes at the expense of quality and sustainability? What if the "Long Wow" presupposes a long time-to-market or, in other words, "slow innovation?" Innovation and creativity expert Derek Cheshire has answers to these questions and--obviously inspired by the Slow Food movement--suggests a slow approach to innovation. In a recent manifesto for Change This, he heralds the goal of creating "an innovative company whose structure and culture are conducive to long-term growth and sustainability." His argument is convincing, "In the world of slow, there will be less waste as there's time to be more resourceful and to use the materials already available."
Essentially, this is a question of how companies manage their time. Both the concepts of "Long Wow" and "Slow Innovation" ask for more time: more time to listen to customers, more time to build a meaningful relationship with them, and more time for the innovator to develop products and services that are built to last. But what about the customers? Will they have the time to wait for this kind of high-quality, sustainable innovation?
Monday morning, Zoho, the online productivity suite, announced full offline functionality for its Zoho Writer product. Zoho had previously released partial offline functionality for Writer earlier this year, but you could only read the documents and not edit them. What good is that? Luckily, as a little post-Thanksgiving gift, we now have full offline editing, utilizing Google Gears (download Google Gears for Windows or Mac from CNET Download.com).
The offline functionality here couldn't be any easier. If you need to go offline, just hit the "Go Offline" button at the top, give Zoho permission to use Google Gears, and you are ready to go. If you make any edits to the documents offline, when you get Internet access again, you just hit the "Go Online" link and there you are! Everything is automatically synced back to Zoho's servers, and you are good to go.
I have used the offline functionality, built on Google Gears, for Google Reader on many occasions, so I am not one bit surprised at how well it works with Zoho. Google has built a killer platform for offline Web applications. Zoho is leading the way right now, offering offline functionality for its word processor, even before Google Apps does. Zoho currently offers 14 online productivity services, so maybe it's time for Microsoft to start taking note.
via VentureBeat
Correction 2:10 p.m. PDT: This blog initially misstated the savings for buyers of Office 2004 for Mac Student and Teacher edition if they choose to upgrade to the 2008 Special Media Edition. The savings would be $350.
Microsoft has improved on an earlier offer to those who buy Office 2004 for Mac before the new version of Office is released in January.
In September, the company said it would offer buyers of Office 2004 an upgrade to the comparable version of Office 2008 for the cost of shipping and handling.
Now, those who purchase Office 2004 for Mac Student and Teacher edition ($149), the Standard version ($399), or the Standard upgrade ($239) are eligible to receive the new Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition for $6.99, the cost of shipping and handling. The Special Media Edition will retail for $499.
The Standard flavor includes a single license, while three licenses are included with the less expensive Student and Teacher edition. Microsoft does not verify whether those who buy this education edition really attend or work at a school or university. However, consumers must pledge in the End User License Agreement that they bought the edition for use in a school.
The Special Media Edition includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Expression Media, an image file management application.
The discount offer lasts until January 14. Office 2008 for Mac is set to ship the next day. Customers' licenses from the 2004 and 2008 versions will remain valid.
The potential savings would be $350 for buying Office 2004 for Mac Student and Teacher and receiving the 2008 Special Media Edition for free.
Office 2008 for Mac is also available in other flavors. For $399, the Standard edition swaps Expression Media for the Entourage scheduling application. Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student, equivalent to 2004 Student and Teacher, includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for $149.
Microsoft provided an early look at the Office 2008 for Mac 11 months ago, and has been gradually rolling out details about other new features, such as a bigger selection of templates and enhanced Exchange support, and the capability to configure out-of-office settings in Exchange. No public beta tests have been made available.
At full price, Office 2008 for Mac costs at least twice as much as its competitors. Other Mac productivity software options include the $79 Apple iWork, the free OpenOffice, and the $49 ThinkFree desktop and online bundle. Additional free competitors to Office include browser-based suites such as Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Zoho Office. All options offer a word processor, and presentations and spreadsheet programs that can read Microsoft Office documents.
