Microsoft steps up anti-piracy for its next Office suite

Office 14, the successor to Microsoft’s Office 2007, will ship next year and is likely to include a number of anti-piracy features.

Microsoft estimates that its Office software holds around 90 per cent of the productivity software market with nearly half of that market share composed of unlicensed versions.

Despite having limited success with the Office version of its Genuine Advantage software Microsoft is likely to use a similar implementation, as well as cracking down on businesses that sell unlicensed software, as it did with Windows Vista.

Microsofts CEO Steve Ballmer described the high rate of piracy as “both an opportunity and a challenge,” while critics of Microsoft’s efforts have said that it will drive end consumers to alternatives such as Google Apps and OpenOffice.

Source: ComputerWorld