[objclxt]

"The idea of shipping a new platform, where Office is included and a core feature, with an unfinished copy of Office is crazy to me."

I've got a Surface box in front of me, and it definitely says "Includes Office Home and Student 2013 RT PREVIEW", with a footnote saying a final version of Office will be available to download in the future for free.

This was also pointed out to me in person by the assistant at the Microsoft Store when I bought it. On the one hand it would be quite nice to have a finished version of Office, but I certainly didn't feel misled when I bought it. Not that I disagree with you that Microsoft should have released a final version, but I guess the priority was to get something out ASAP.

To pose what will surely be a controversial question here: if Apple can get away with selling Siri as a core feature whilst it's in beta, why can't Microsoft do the same with Office?

[MBCook]

It's nice to hear that MS is making the preview aspect clear to purchasers so no one is misled. That was a great thing to do.

I heard the Siri comparison brought up on a podcast I listen to (something on 5by5, don't remember which show). The theory they mentioned was that while Siri was certainly the feature they really marketed for that revision, it wasn't the core feature.

So a more apt comparison may be if the iPhone shipped with a buggy phone app that got updated day one, but that's not quite an apples to apples comparison. And Siri was a big reason people bought the 4S, just like Offixe is a big reason to buy Surface.

With Google, that's just their MO. They release early and often, that's just part of their experience. Apple (to my memory) hasn't done that historically, but seems to be going it more lately. Siri is the obvious example. OS X 10.0 could be considered a beta, but it didn't even boot by default on the computers it was pre-installed on. The new maps and Final Cut Pro x could be argued to be beta too.

I guess it's becoming more common, which is kinda sad.