Buy a Windows laptop or desktop computer from most companies, and odds are it comes with a little bloatware: PC makers have a habit of loading a few of their own apps, plus software from partners (who may have paid for a place on your computer).
One place where you can buy Windows laptops with no bloatware? The Microsoft Store. The company that makes the Windows operating system sells a number of “Signature Edition” devices that come with nothing but Windows and maybe some drivers needed for your system to run smoothly.
So it’s kind of funny that Microsoft is signing deals with Android tablet makers to load its own bloatware on their hardware.
Earlier this year Microsoft announced that 11 companies including Samsung and Dell would ship tablets with Microsoft Office and Skype pre-loaded. Now Microsoft has unveiled deals with 20 more device makers.
The new partners include some relatively big names including Sony, LG, and Haier, as well as some lesser-known brands (that might be familiar to Liliputing readers) such as Cube, Teclast, Vulcan, and Iview.
Upcoming tablets from each of the 31 partners will come with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, OneNote, and Skype software.
In some ways, bloatware isn’t necessarily as big a deal on Android tablets as on Windows computers: if you never use the Office apps on your Android tablet, then the app probably won’t affect the performance of your device very much. On the other hand, it’s not always easy to remove apps that come pre-installed on Android tablets, so if you buy a device that doesn’t have a lot of storage space and you have no plans to use Skype or Office, it might be annoying to realize that some of your storage space is eaten up by these apps.
Microsoft Office for tablets = crap. You can’t even save as doc, xls, or ppt, you can’t open password-protected files, you can only print when uploading documents to a Microsoft server, the scope of features even of the pay-for Office365 version is ridiculous.
By far the best office suite is SoftMaker Office HD which just won an award of The Inqurer as best business software. I use it for half a year now and find it excellent. Look at a comparison of SoftMaker Office HD and Microsoft Office, WPS and others:
https://www.softmaker.com/english/ofahdcomp_en.htm
This is the software which should be bundled with tablets, not Microsoft Office!
So…is this uninstallable? Or will a user have to root their phone to get rid of the 100 or so MB that I’m betting Office will take up? And will Microsoft also set Cortana as voice-activated search? If so, how big a nightmare will it be to remove the resource hog from the picture?
Yeah, bloatware is one thing. Being unable to uninstall bloatware is something else entirely – and it looks like that is where the Greedy Ones are leading us poor sheeple.
“Hey guys, remember that $3.xx we’ve been demanding out of you for every Android phone you produce, to cover our highly suspicious patent claims? Let’s make a deal….”
I keep hoping that the ba$tards will eventually have to pay back every penny. Not bloody likely, I know…
It seems to me that it is easier to get rid of bloatware on Windows computers than on Android Tablets. I just rooted my Hisense tablet to git rid of some bloatware I otherwise couldn´t unistall.