Supermarket Giant Now A Microsoft Competitor

from the add-'em-to-the-list dept

Mon, Oct 2nd 2006 9:11am — Joseph Weisenthal

There's no doubt that Microsoft is under assault from a variety of attackers including Google, web-based software, and open source. As if it needed any more competition, it now has to do battle against a supermarket chain. Tesco, the UK's largest grocer, is planning on selling its own, private-label software for cheap. The store will offer a range of products including an office suite, an anti-virus tool, personal finance software, a CD/DVD burner, and a photo editing product. The company has also launched a site to sell and support the offering. Of course, Tesco isn't likely to carve a huge stake of the software industry, but the move is indicative of the fact that many of the basic consumer applications are rapidly commoditizing. Microsoft is obviously well aware of the changes going on, and is looking for new ways of distributing its consumer software, but it's hard to see the company coming upon anything that will adequately replace some of its most lucrative cash cows.

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18 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 2 Oct 2006 @ 9:29am

Can I get a pricecheck in Aisle 3 for the antivirus software please?
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Steve E, 2 Oct 2006 @ 12:05pm

I wouldn't underestimate the impact Tesco could have on the market. They're extremely good at marketing and their customer base is full of people who won't be particularly tech savvy so it should be a pretty easy sell at the prices they've been quoting (under £20 per software title).
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Oct 2006 @ 12:33pm

Microsoft is the King and that's that. Companies should just sit back and let them continue to move us into the future.
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- Royalpeasantry, 2 Oct 2006 @ 12:47pm
  
  Re:
  oohhh boy.. let the flaming commence....
  
  I'm not even going to bother doing it myself.
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Me, 2 Oct 2006 @ 12:47pm

This is what needs to happen
If a monopoly goes too long unchecked and unopposed then the quality of the product wil surely degrade. I am not saying that a supermarket will cause Bill to lose any sleep but the more of these little startup software companies the better.
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The Man, 2 Oct 2006 @ 12:49pm

Quarter Pounder
MS does not compete with the low cost (however much 20 pounds is) software vendor. Office is primarily a business and education app. Some cheap ass software is not going to rate, nor will it be compatible. Star Office never did crap to move into MS market and Office is still more expensive than it should be. Unfortunately it is a very good app and worth the money. As far as the other types of software, it will just be in the same market as all the other cheap software vendors. You can't go to any office store without tripping over no name anti-virus and picture software. I see nothing really innovative here, other than putting their name on it. Even that is not innovative; Grocery stores have put their name on toilet paper and other stuff for years. Just more of the same. By the way, I think Charmin is doing fine even though they are "competing with grocery stores"
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Bag Boy, 2 Oct 2006 @ 12:59pm

Wet cleanup on aisle Redmond. That European ban on MS Office may be a factor.
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Tech Geek, 2 Oct 2006 @ 1:17pm

Good. Might put Bill on his toes for a bit! Although if its only tescos making these products, Bills not gonna lose sleep..... if more smaller companies made software, they might make their software bigger and better down at the labs of microsoft.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Oct 2006 @ 1:25pm

Microsoft got into the market because of the home users. Do not forget that. Windows/Office in the home is what makes people automatically put it in the office without checking competition and others.
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Who Cares? We DO!, 2 Oct 2006 @ 1:33pm

I've been listening to "BILL BASHING" for years and if ever another platform takes over Microsoft in the future (Not in my lifetime) everyone will be screaming for application compatability AGAIN.
"Oh I can't bring your doc in because your using this or that". ENOUGH, thank goodness this country is primairly using one damn product to communicate with.
The Military not to long ago had over 300,000 DIFFERENT applications on 300,000 desktops, now we're down to maybe 1500 apps. Life is a bit easier with Bill I'd have to admit. (Although I don't want to, I must conceed)
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Oct 2006 @ 1:35pm

Why even pay £20 for an office suite when openoffice does everything you need and more. Its ironic that the only reason openoffice doesnt have 90% market share is free software cant advertise. Oh well.
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The Man, 2 Oct 2006 @ 1:46pm

Open Office
It also does not help that Open Office sucks, is slow to run and full of bugs. I tried it, but free is not worth the effort. If you account for the extra time it takes to play around with Open Office, it comes out to be much more expensive than MS Office.
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Not a prob for me, 2 Oct 2006 @ 1:56pm

Open Office
I didn't know anything about MS Office but knew a lot of the things I couldn't open were from Office user. I downloaded Open Office and it has worked flawlessly. I'll give you it's a little slow to open but other than that no issues.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Oct 2006 @ 2:04pm

c'mon
this is a pointless article. for one, as someone mentioned previously, there are a ton of cheap anti-virus, firewall, etc... software out there. another, this is going to go as far as k-mart internet service. a few moronic individuals will go for it and that will be that.
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walt foster, 2 Oct 2006 @ 2:10pm

OpenOffice -- StarOffice
I wonder why my experience is so different than yours with OpenOffice and StarOffice.

Surely you are kidding when you say that by accounting for the extra time it has taken you to get around in OpenOffice and StarOffice makes them more expensive than MS Office.

To anyone else reading this download OpenOffice 2.0.3 or StarOffice 8 to compare with MS Office.

I am sure you will find OpenOffice and StarOffice much more reasonable in StarOffice and far more reasonable in OpenOffice than the expensive MS Office.

The use of OpenOffice and StarOffice saves good dollars and makes sense.
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Matt, 2 Oct 2006 @ 9:38pm

Open Source = Money Saved = Confused Users = Time
walt foster >> "The use of OpenOffice and StarOffice saves good dollars and makes sense."

Switching to open source usually means lots of users trying to make "sense" of why they can't do the same things the same way that they could with MS Office. The saved "good dollars" will be sucked up in the hour or two that the average office worker will need, to figure out how to convert those Office docs that everyone else outside of the company, that they do business with, keeps wanting to send them.

Nice try though, at a proven ineffective argument.
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- anonymous, 3 Oct 2006 @ 4:46am
  
  Re: Open Source = Money Saved = Confused Users = T
  And you began to save big money at the next upgade.
  
  office is unit cost*∞ number of upgrades
  open office n hours*cost per hour.
  
  Nice try though, at a proven ineffective argument ;P
  
  And remember to send in openDocument all the reply that you can get out with.
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