Microsoft Equipt Fact Sheet

Jul. 2, 2008 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

I wrote about Microsoft Equipt (formerly codenamed Albany) in today's WinInfo.

Here's the product fact sheet:

Product Overview

Microsoft Equipt is a subscription service that, in one easy installation, delivers security and performance with Windows Live OneCare plus Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 and other essential tools to help home PC users be more protected, productive and connected.

Windows Live OneCare offers all-in-one security and PC management by combining award-winning anti-malware protection, centralized backup and PC maintenance features that take the hassle out of PC care. Office Home and Student 2007 contains Word 2007, Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007 and OneNote 2007 so you can get things done and stay organized. If you purchase Microsoft Equipt, you can also extend your Office experience via Microsoft Office Live Workspace, a new service from Microsoft that makes it easy to save documents to a dedicated online Workspace and share these with your friends and classmates.

Microsoft Equipt also includes Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Photo Gallery to help you stay in touch with friends and family. With an active subscription, you’ll get updates for the latest security protection and enhancements, plus version upgrades for Office Home and Student at no additional cost. Microsoft Equipt can be installed on up to three home PCs.

Pricing and Availability

You can purchase an annual subscription of Microsoft Equipt for $69.99 (estimated retail price). You can install each subscription on up to three home PCs. Version upgrades for both Office Home and Student and OneCare, plus updated virus definitions, are automatic at no additional cost.

Included Products and Services

Windows Live OneCare

· All-in-one security and performance includes antivirus, antispyware, firewall, file and photo backup, performance tune-ups, and home network management to help keep your PC running at its peak.

Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007

· Word 2007. Create great-looking documents with ease.

· Excel 2007. Intuitive spreadsheet tools let you create budgets and more.

· PowerPoint 2007. Design stunning presentations for family, school or volunteer activities.

· OneNote 2007. Organize different kinds of information — text, images, audio and video, Web clippings, and more — in one digital notebook.

Microsoft Office Live Workspace

· This new service from Office makes it easy for you to save documents to a dedicated online Workspace and share these with friends and classmates.

Windows Live tools

· Windows Live Mail. Get all your e-mail in one place.

· Windows Live Messenger. Send instant messages to your friends or have a video chat.

· Windows Live Photo Gallery. Organize and share photos.

· And more. Including Windows Live Writer and Windows Live Toolbar.

Automatic updates and upgrades. Office Home and Student version upgrades plus automatic security updates and OneCare upgrades.

Who Should Purchase Microsoft Equipt?

Microsoft Equipt is for consumers, students or people who are buying new PCs and who are looking for security and antivirus features to help protect their families from online threats. Complete with Windows Live OneCare and Office Home and Student 2007, Microsoft Equipt is the perfect companion for any new PC to help you stay secure and productive, and optimize your new purchase.

Families or anyone running a household

A Microsoft Equipt subscription includes installation on three home computers, and Windows Live OneCare makes it easy to help protect and manage your household computers from one screen, delivering antivirus protection, PC management features, and centralized backup to help keep digital memories safe. Windows Live OneCare helps take the hassle out of multiple PC care. Excel 2007 makes it easy to create and manage your budget, track bills and payments and more. Word 2007 offers all the tools you need to design great-looking greeting cards, note cards, résumés and more. Automatic document recovery helps protect your important work from accidental loss.

Parents with students from K-12 all the way up to graduate school

PowerPoint 2007 comes loaded with pre-formatted templates that help kids plug information into slides, consistently and quickly. Word 2007 makes it easy to add that extra bit of polish to papers and reports. With OneNote 2007, students can consolidate, store, tab and search their valuable information quickly and efficiently, plus attach files of virtually any kind — including audio and video.

Today, Microsoft Office is essential for business, with millions of users worldwide. So while students are writing reports, analyzing data and preparing presentations, they are also mastering the tools that will help launch their careers.

System Requirements

You must accept the Microsoft Service Agreement before you can use Microsoft Equipt. You can read the Microsoft Service Agreement at http://www.microsoft.com/useterms. Service is periodically updated. Activation by Internet is required.

To use Microsoft Equipt, you need the following:

· 2GHz or faster processor

· 1 GB of RAM or more

· 4 GB of available hard disk space; a portion of this disk space will be freed after installation

· CD-ROM or DVD drive

· 1024x768 or higher-resolution monitor

· Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or later (32-bit only), or Windows Vista or later (32-bit or 64-bit)

· Send to Office OneNote 2007 print driver not available on a 64-bit operating system

· Some features require Microsoft Windows Desktop Search 3.0, Windows Media Player 9.0, Microsoft DirectX 9.0b, Microsoft ActiveSync 4.1, microphone (close-talking for Audio Search), audio output device, video recording device (such as a webcam), TWAIN-compatible digital camera or scanner, Windows Mobile 2003-powered Smartphone or Windows Mobile 5-powered Smartphone or Pocket PC, or a router that supports Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)

· Sharing notebooks requires users to be on the same network

· Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or later, or Firefox browser

· Phishing Filter requires Windows Internet Explorer 7

· Internet connectivity required; broadband access recommended (fees may apply)

· Windows Live OneCare file backup and restore functionality require CD or DVD burner, external hard drive, locally networked computers, or USB-connected storage device

· Creation or usage of a Windows Live ID will be required as part of the service activation

So ... OK. It's a decent deal, I guess, given the cost of Office Home and Student and OneCare, and the expected upgrade schedule for Office. But ... "Equipt"? (I assume it's pronounced as "equipped.") Sounds like the name of Renault vehicle to me, not a Microsoft product.

Discuss this Article 28

Waethorn

on Jul 2, 2008

Very interesting. Of course I'll expect that OEM's will be getting cheaper versions for bundling, much like they already get OneCare for next to nothing.

dstrack

on Jul 2, 2008

I already have all these products, but I used to have the subscription to Outlook Live, which is now discontinued... this is a great idea in my mind.

weedmonk

on Jul 2, 2008

A very attractive package especially for students.

BrightrevCarl

on Jul 2, 2008

The key success factor for this is whether there's a kill switch embedded into Equipt versions of either OneCare or Office. People are going to worry about buying the service, getting charged for a year, changing credit card numbers and then having Microsoft shut their programs down at the worst possible moment. If Equipt comes with full versions of the apps and the subscription fee just pays for Office Live Workspace and product upgrades, it's a good deal. If Equipt contains a kill switch, it's um...dead on arrival. Now click the button here: http://www.instantrimshot.com/ One more point - I think that people are willing to pay for subscription services in the cloud. There's an inherent understanding that those services are not on their PCs and can be turned off. People see the software on their PC, software that they *paid* for, as *their* software. Turning desktop software off is a bad, bad idea.

dstrack

on Jul 2, 2008

BrightrevCarl - Great point. With my Outlook Live subscription it did not kill my Outlook when they discontinued service... the Live Connector just stopped working properly but there was a fix that came out shortly after...

DRWAM

on Jul 2, 2008

Several of us are using now Live OneCare. As I posted previously, it got rid of the Virtuemonde virus/trojan that I [stupidly] installed, when McAfee and Ad-aware did not even detect it!. BTW, the Ad-aware site claims that it DOES rid it. Trust me, it did not.

clindhartsen

on Jul 2, 2008

Honestly, for the typical consumer, this thing seems perfect as long as it all is set up simply and works together, which it appears it will. I've already for OneCare, plus Office Home, so I don't need this, but I'd probably get this for family or friends if they needed these things.

joe-dokes

on Jul 2, 2008

My god the fawning over this is UFB. Let's see you get to pay MS a tax of $70.00 Per year forever. Doesn't sound like much of a bargain to me. Boy the MS fanbois are really showing their lack of criticism in this case. Virtually every product being bundled for 70.00 Dollars is available fro FREE, somewhere else. On top of that the free product is frequently superior. So you are basically renting Office for 70.00 dollars a year, you might as well buy the student version for 120.00. Guess what you OWN it. Seriously Paul, et al. a little criticism PLEASE. And you wonder why we call you fanboi? Regards Joe Dokes

RaaJ

on Jul 2, 2008

Live OneCare annual subscription costs anywhere between $20 to $50 depends on your luck finding a deal. That much is an unavoidable expense. For the additional $20-$50 per year, you are getting a license to Office 2007. In two years you will be due for an upgrade anyway. So, you would have spent anywhere between $40-$100 on the Office software, along with access to online storage for documents. And guess what, when the new version comes out, you will automatically be upgraded. There are people who might be willing to buy this service instead of buying the individual software elsewhere, possibly costing more. Don't want to buy a service, and instead OWN the software? No problem. You have that option as well. What is your problem exactly? It is not that MS is taking away your option of buying software to own. And guess what? Just like OneCare is marked at $49.95 per year, but could be found for as low as $16 on the internet, this service might also get discounted by some retailers. No one is putting a gun to the buyer's head and making you purchase this service. I thought choice was good !?!

Snakedoctor1

on Jul 2, 2008

OneCare was free on Amazon a week ago after you mailed in the rebate. I agree, $70 a year no thanks. Buy the student version of Office, and use free AV, AVG 8.0 is not bad, IF you have to use Windows. I think they are trying to focus on the consumer/house hold like Apple does with iLife/iWork. Problem is iWork is $69 once, and iLife comes with new Macs. My biggest problem with all of these MS products is the confusion of so many changes over the years. Is it a passport account, or a Live account? Hotmail, MSN mail, Live mail, Windows Live mail? Do I use full Outlook, Outlook Express, Vista Mail, or Windows Live Mail? Is it super premium beta, or the dumbed own new version? POP3 for everyone, no just old MSN users, well there is this plugin for certain Outlook versions. What happened to Hotmail Plus? MSN premium? How is Windows Live Photo Gallery different from the Photo stuff in Vista, or the XP version. None it works with Facebook or MySpace, but with Live space or whatever its called. Oh and how does this all fit into Live Mesh. What about Windows 7? Will it still work on the #1 OS market share wise (World wide of course) Windows XP? (its retired you know). Looking at all of that from Joe Users perspective has got to be just a tad confusing. So Joe looks at iLife and sees user simplicity.

joe-dokes

on Jul 2, 2008

"Looking at all of the from Joe Users perspective has got to be a tad confusing." Yeah, just like the rest of Windows. ie. vista home basic, premium, business, business premium, ultimate. Microsoft's key problem and key to its success has been from day one, how can we make money off of... Now before you pounce on me, and say, "Every business is in business for one reason and that is to make money." mantra, hear me out. Successful companies have one thing in common, they try very hard to create the best product possible. For example, I just watched a documentary about Pixar, and it became clear that everyone at Pixar wanted to not just make great movies, but make movies that they themselves want to watch. Thus, Pixar has had ten hugely successful films in a row. Even the two weakest, Cars and A Bug's Life were quite strong. Microsoft on the other hand, tries to think of new and creative ways to monetize pre-existing business models. Thus, instead of making the best word processor, or messenger, or anti-virus they try to create new ways to extract dollars from their customers. This, method was very successful in the early years of MS, it realized that software was a business when most others were still in the hobby stage. It used the value of an "office suite" to bundle frequently used applications in a cohesive package. This allowed them, (plus some illegal business practices) to become wildly successful. Today MS is simply trying to get its existing customers to pay a higher price for a product than they did before. While every other product in the PC has become cheaper, everyone of MS products has become more expensive. For example, the OEM licensing fee for DOS was about four bucks, today it is nearly one hundred dollars. That is an increase of 25 Times. Compare that to any other piece of software and you'll see that MS is going to eventually kill the goose that lays the golden egg. If MS wants to create another cash machine like Windows and Office (Which by the way are the only two parts of the company that actually make any money.) They need to focus on two things, first creating a product that customers actually want to use, products that people look forward to using, while good enough might have created the Windows monopoly, it will not create another. Second they need to realize that they must bring value to their customers. If a customer doesn't gain a perceived value from MS's products they will eventually look elsewhere. Regards Joe Dokes

tayme

on Jul 2, 2008

@joe-dokes - "Microsoft on the other hand, tries to think of new and creative ways to monetize pre-existing business models." I have to wonder how you were made aware of Microsoft's business model and goals. @Snakedoctor1 - "Is it a passport account, or a Live account? Hotmail, MSN mail, Live mail, Windows Live mail?...So Joe looks at iLife and sees user simplicity." If you'd like, I can list several things that Apple has messed up...like iMovie 08. iMovie 06 was much more intuitive and powerful. Why dumb down the newer version and remove features? Heck, even the great David Pogue agrees - http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/17/david-pogue-on-imovie-08-what-the-bleep/ Your 2 posts above are complete troll FUD. If you don't like MS or their products...that is fine. It is obvious that you both are enamored with Steve Jobs and Apple. I am alos a fan of Apple, but I also see value in almost all of Microsoft's products. --tayme

subzerohitman721

on Jul 2, 2008

In the age of increasing malware and virus threats that continue to multiply and get better, its critical to have some sort of protection. Keep in mind that AVG Free Version 8, is a basic level of protection. One Care Live goes deeper with its protection levels. Now the Full AVG 8 isn't bad but every anti-virus/malware suite has its strengths and weaknesses. While I have been a long time fan of AVG, its not perfect and users should constantly be re-evaluating which anti-virus suite is providing the best protection.

Joshu4

on Jul 2, 2008

Reminds me of Microsoft Works. Except the Microsoft Equipt software appears to be better then Freeware grade (that was Microsoft Works).

joe-dokes

on Jul 2, 2008

Why exactly is my post FUD, or fear uncertainty doubt? I don't fear MS, not even a little, I am quite certain that their main business goal is to maximize profits above all else. How else can you explain five separate SKUs for an OS? At least when they released Windows Media Center Edition, they were trying to get the PC into the living room, this is why the early editions were only available to OEMs and REQUIRED a TV tuner. Was I wrong when I argued that while virtually every other component of the PC has been subject to downward pressure on prices save Windows? Apologists will argue that MS has provided more value than DOS had, but isn't this true of every other PC component or program? How is this uncertain? Third, I never mentioned Apple in any of my above posts. I mentioned Pixar, which is at best tangentially related to Apple. My issue with MS is that they can build a good product. For example, when MS won the first browser war, they won for two reasons, one illegal bundling (Hey this is fact, if you don't like it tough.) and two the developers worked really hard to make IE better than netscape. It was the hunger to build a better product that made IE arguably better than navigator. Yet, once they destroyed netscape guess what they sat on the collective a$$ for the next five years until firefox came along and cleaned their clock. Now when MS beat Word Perfect they did so for three reasons. One they withheld the API necessary to make Word Perfect for Windows 95. Second, they created the first complete office suite, and third they created a product that was as good or even better than the competition. As a result they took control of office productivity applications. Thus, my real point is that when MS is really interested in making a good product they can and have. The reality though is that this has never been their primary inspiration. If you look at Bill Gates original "Open letter to hobbyists" his intention is not really to make good software, but to make a buck. Gates and MS have been trying for nearly a decade to create and promote this idea of software as service. MS clearly sees the future and future to some extent is exemplified by the Mac. I know many people who buy a mac, install a program or two and never and I mean NEVER install another piece of software. Frankly this scares the crap out of MS. What happens when a PC becomes like a TV and lasts between 10 and 20 years? What happens when computers become like every other appliance that has a life expectancy measured in decades? Microsoft is desperately trying to monetize the maturing PC market place. Who can blame them. Am I spreading fear? No, if MS were to try to create annual mandatory licenses for Word or Windows there are still enough alternatives to allow consumers to vote with their dollars. Am I uncertain, no I think MS has been very clear that they wish to create a business model with a predictable revenue stream. http://www.crn.com/software/201000524 Do I have any doubts? No I don't just look at MS stock price it has been basically flat for nearly a decade, why because MS has used billions of dollars to recreate the wildly successful models of Office and Windows but has been largely unsuccessful. MS has decades of future earnings in the billions of dollars but has nothing on the horizon that has the potential to be the next Windows or Office thus Wall Street has ben unwilling to boost its stock price. In order to increase earnings it has resorted to going after pirates windows genuine advantage, it has tried gaming Xbox money loser (though it came out with Halo one of the coolest games ever), it has tried the embedded market Windows CE or whatever they are calling it this week money loser all of about three people use it, even Paul Thurott thinks it sucks, it has tried mp3 players zune money loser, though for an iPod also ran a couple of nifty features. Finally, I also think that MS makes some pretty good products. I've used Office as my productivity suite for over a decade and still think it is without a doubt the best suite out there, Apple works, Claris works et al, have been and continue to be also rans, though keynote is arguably better than powerpoint. Windows 95/98 was good enough to just bout kill Apple and XP had potential but its Playskool graphics and abysmal ability to resist viruses and spyware led to a a near collapse of faith in MS. So much so that they delayed Vista in an attempt to fix XP. Contrary to what Thurott thinks XP SP2, was and is nothing more than bug fixes, virtually all the new features were merely fixes for the gaping holes in its security. I have no fear that MS will continue to make money, I have no doubt that they will continue to look for ways to monetize various aspects of their business model, and I don't doubt that MS is more interested in making money than in making a good product. Regards Joe Dokes

Snakedoctor1

on Jul 2, 2008

Oh I agree that Apple made some changes to iMovie 08 that dumbed it down, probably to to better position final cut express to be honest, push users towards it. That said Apple will allow users to freely download iMovie 06HD still today and of course Apple kept the name the same. If it were MS they would have changed it to Windows Live Movie Maker, but call it Movie Maker 7 or whatever in half of their documentation. Of course I only scratched the surface of the MS confusion, MSN music, Play for sure, URGE, Zune store, oh and my absolute favorite (when it comes to pure WTF were they thinking???) Microsoft Points for the 360 and Zune. @subzero I know plenty of people that dont believe in even using Anti anything and they are fine. On the flip side I have seen some well protected XP boxes running onecare or Symantic Corporate AV with Defender go down in less than a week. Its all about the USER behind the keyboard. AVG and a couple of others are pretty solid for free products. A cheap modern router/firewall, Auto-upates on, XP firewall on, AVG and good dose of SMARTS goes along way.

lotsamystuff

on Jul 3, 2008

"You must accept the Microsoft Service Agreement before you can use Microsoft Equipt. You can read the Microsoft Service Agreement at http://www.microsoft.com/useterms. " Yeah, except "Equipt" isn't on the list. But wait! There's an agreement for "Microsoft Office Home and Student" that reads in part: "The software is not licensed for use in any commercial, non-profit, or revenue-generating business activities." God forbid you should make a flier for the Cancer Run using this software. You just violated the EULA. Ridiculous.

RaaJ

on Jul 3, 2008

EULAs are made to provide a very broad protection to the software provider's rights - and the extent to which they are enforceable in a court of law, and the extent to which the owner would be willing to prosecute fringe cases of violation like using the Office Home and Student edition to make a flyer for a Cancer Run is a tenuous argument at best. Nice strawman, though. Fire away. It is Microsoft afterall. If you said they kill kittens for comic relief in their board meetings, there would be a sizable audience willing to believe and propagate the FUD.

lotsamystuff

on Jul 3, 2008

"If you said they kill kittens for comic relief in their board meetings, there would be a sizable audience willing to believe and propagate the FUD." That's just ridiculous. Everyone knows they kill PUPPIES. ;-)

Waethorn

on Jul 3, 2008

"The software is not licensed for use in any commercial, non-profit, or revenue-generating business activities." "God forbid you should make a flier for the Cancer Run using this software. You just violated the EULA." "Ridiculous." That's right. Your statement sure is! Obviously a "Cancer Run" would be non-profit or charitable, so it wouldn't violate the EULA one iota. Obviously.

Waethorn

on Jul 3, 2008

@losta I should point out to you that federally-registered charities (with tax exemptions et al) actually get software much cheaper through a volume license agreement. They can get Office Professional Plus 2007 for about the same price as a retail copy of Office Home & Student 2007. However, they do have to provide their charity registration numbers to apply. Non-registered non-profits can just buy off-the-shelf educational/home-use software at retail (where available), or other non-retail education SKU's through an education reseller.

drylight

on Jul 3, 2008

Let me get this straight, the company that sells you the operating system then sells you a separate product to protect you from the security problems of the operating system you already paid them for?

johnpapola

on Jul 4, 2008

With all due respect to my fellow mac users... why do you guys care? Let the Windows-only threads be just that. Don't troll in articles that don't affect our platform of choice with MS-bashing and we can take the high road when the haters pour into our stories. Microsoft is trying to find never ways to make money... um... because they're a business. If Microsoft bundled the security software, people would cry "monopoly bundling" and it would be. Vista appears to be dramatically more secure, so it looks like they're doing a decent job on that front. Either way, it doesn't affect what I buy and use, so I could care less.

drylight

on Jul 4, 2008

"With all due respect to my fellow mac users... why do you guys care? Let the Windows-only threads be just that. Don't troll in articles that don't affect our platform of choice with MS-bashing and we can take the high road when the haters pour into our stories." It's just sad to see Windows fanboys (like the author of this blog) and his minions live in a world of make-believe.

johnpapola

on Jul 4, 2008

"It's just sad to see Windows fanboys (like the author of this blog) and his minions live in a world of make-believe." I think Paul is a very fair critic of Microsoft and Windows. Have you listened to Windows Weekly? He rips Microsoft a new one big time almost every episode. And he's generally given very good reviews to Apple's products. He's no Waethorn. He's just gotten very brittle about mac users. He shouldn't, since it's part of his job to tolerate the full discourse on his site, but so be it. I call him out on it constantly. And to that end, why stoke the flames by trolling in the Windows-centric posts? Microsoft matters to our world as mac users less and less and that's a good thing. We can choose to buy their stuff when it's good and ignore it when it's bad. Not fully yet, but it's getting there. So, in the spirit of the high ground, let's leave these guys to their Windows stuff and keep the focus on Paul's ridiculous baiting of mac users and his strawman "iCabal" when the posts fly in that direction.

whiplash55

on Jul 4, 2008

The deal itself isn't bad, especially if you want everything in it. One Care's reputation as a quality AV is suspect, it frequently ranks at or near the bottom of most AV Comparatives studies. Software subscription models work, when they provide value to the customer. Paying $69 dollars for Equip isn't bad, throw in Outlook and toss One Care and it would work for me. Paying a subscription allows you to pay in inflation adjusted $ each year providing they don't raise the price. So the price decreases every year. It also allows people who have a hard time swallowing the large upfront cost of Office, to use the best office suite out there.

DRWAM

on Jul 4, 2008

JohnP, that's pretty funny. If MS gave away a security suite on a Vista PC, I agree that the world would call it monopolistic behavior, when they were only trying to improve security for free. If you think about it, MS is lucky that it didn't happen when a Firewall was included with XP and Vista. God forbid they shut out Symantec from the Firewall business!

Waethorn

on Jul 5, 2008

"One Care's reputation as a quality AV is suspect, it frequently ranks at or near the bottom of most AV Comparatives studies." Sorry, but you're wrong there. It happened on AV-Comparatives.org and has long since been improved. AV-Comparatives.org scores keep changing too. Take NOD32 for instance: when OneCare was doing low in comparative tests, NOD32 was the best. Now it's fallen several places since then. Symantec has also improved dramatically from what it was while McAfee has fallen, and yet another unknown - TrustPort Antivirus Workstation - has taken the lead in the last series of tests. (Does that mean that Leo is going to start recommending it, instead of NOD32, Paul?)

Product Overview

Included Products and Services

Who Should Purchase Microsoft Equipt?

System Requirements

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Microsoft Equipt Fact Sheet

Product Overview

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System Requirements

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