Microsoft to Charge for Office 2007 Beta 2

Microsoft Friday said that this week it will begin charging US$1.50 for users to download a copy of the Office 2007 beta 2.

“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 in a statement sent via e-mail. “Given how dramatically the beta 2 downloads have exceeded our goals, we have made the business decision to implement a cost-recovery measure for downloading the beta.”

Microsoft will begin charging users starting Wednesday, it said. The company released beta 2 of Office 2007 in May.

Though users will be charged for downloads of the actual Office 2007 beta 2 software, Microsoft will continue to offer an online test drive of Office 2007 it launched in late June that users can access through a Web browser.

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