Microsoft abandons free Vista and Office offer

American software giant Microsoft Corporation has this week confirmed that it is abandoning an offer that saw it gifting customers with free copies of Windows Vista and Office 2007 in return for them accepting installed monitoring software. Lack of supplies sees Microsoft close free software offer through Vista and Office 2007. Credit: Microsoft.

Lack of supplies sees Microsoft close free software offer through Vista and Office 2007. Credit: Microsoft.However, while it may be a viable to suppose that Microsoft is dropping its offer based on a lack of customer participation, the Redmond-based company is actually closing the offer due to exhausted software supplies, reports ComputerWorld.The offer, which was operating via Microsoft’s Windows Feedback Program, saw various units of Windows software freely issued to customers willing to fill out regular related questionnaires and embrace an installed tracking program that monitored daily use of Windows Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 for a period of three months.News that exhausted supplies have led to an early closure on the offer arrives only a few weeks prior to the official expiry date, which was set at December 31 of this year. A reader at tech Web site engadget.com is reported to have contacted Microsoft regarding the premature closure of the free software offer, which had received scant little publicity beyond the observant gaze of blogs, to which Microsoft issued the following response:"Thank you for your interest in the feedback program. Due to high volume, we have reached our ‘while supplies last’ limit and have closed our free product incentive on 12/11/2007 at 2 p.m."According to the stipulations of the deal, those Windows users agreeing to accept three months of tracking found themselves on the winning end of the offer, with the monitoring involving collection of information relating to processor type and speed, file and folder content, utilised software habits, and operational error reports.