Microsoft plans to start charging a $1.50 fee for users to download its Office 2007 beta 2 from next week.

The fee is an attempt to curb the bandwidth costs for the downloads, Microsoft said in an emailed statement to vnunet.com.

"Having exceeded our beta 2 participation goals by 500 per cent, we have had to make the business decision to implement a cost recovery measure for future downloads of beta 2 beginning 2 August 2006," a company spokesperson said.

"Beginning at 6.00pm Pacific time on 2 August 2006, US$1.50 will be charged per 2007 Microsoft Office system beta 2 downloaded."

Office 2007 was launched as a public beta in May. In late June the software developer launched a hosted version of the application for users seeking to test drive the application's features. But enterprise users looking to test the software for potential compatibility issues on their systems need to download the software or order a CD.

Users who have already downloaded the software in the past will be able to obtain updates free of charge.