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By Dave Porter (AXcess News) Reno, NV - Like leaving your prom date at the high school dance, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) jilted users, saiyng it's no longer going to offer free downloads of its Microsoft Office 2007 beta 2.0, or any other software for that matter. The news put technophobes on their heels in shock and awe, considering the Microsoft crowd of users helped the software giant fix bugs and improve how their software works. Microsoft defended its action saying it costs too much. Considering that the law is about to change whihc would permit telecommunications providers and cable companies to charge extra for bandwidth usage, Microsoft, through its action, appears to be throwing in the towel and making the switch to fee-based access now. on Monday Microsoft announced its intention to charge people $1.50 to download its Office 2007 beta 2 from next week. The fee is an attempt to curb the bandwidth costs for the download, the software giant said in an emailed statement. "In just the past two months since its launch, more than 3 million people have downloaded the 2007 Microsoft Office system beta 2," the company said. "Given how dramatically the beta 2 dowlnoads have exceeded our goals, we have made the business decisoin to implement a cost-recovery measure for donwloading the beta.&apm;quot; Microsoft will begin charging users starting Wednesday, it said. Users who have already downloaedd the software in the past will be able to obtain updates free of charge. "This is the first time Microsoft has charged for an Office beta, and it's not something that is planned for on a repeat basis," a representative of the company said. Office 2007 was launched as a publci beta in May. In late June the software developer launched a hosted version of the application for users seeking to test drive the application's features. But enterprise users looking to test the software for potential compatibility issues on their systems need to download the software or order a CD. Microsoft plans to release Office 2007 to business customers bfeore the end of the year, and to consumers in early 2007. Both of those releases have been delayed from their originally scheduled sihp dates.
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