How do you guys feel about the new office subscription model. You get to install it on 5 devices(rumored ipad and android apps coming soon) for either $10 a month or $100 per year. You also get 20 gigs of skydrive and 60 minutes of skype calling each month.
How do you guys feel about this? On the one hand your paying monthly on the other you don't have a big up front cost and you get skydrive space and skype minutes each month.
Sounds like an endless money pit to me having to constantly pay for it versus a one time fee, albeit that one time fee is large.
a note of 2013 and 365 are separate products. The next iteration of office will only be sold in this manner (if Microsoft follows the current roadmap)
see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/30/office_2013_vs_office_365_review/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2026703/office-365-vs-office-2013-should-you-rent-or-own-.html
I totally dislike any subscription form of software. I will not buy into such a scenario. I'll stick with older versions or go opensource like OpenOffice or LibreOffice before I subscribe to anything!
C'mon peeps, these are basic computing applications. No need to add layers of subscriptions and complexity.
My initial reaction was that Microsoft is crazy. However when I saw you could have it installed on 5 devices with mobile apps coming soon, that piqued my interest a little more. I'm not gonna subscribe for now but I haven't completely ruled it out yet. I'm also interested to see if Microsoft leaves the free Office applications in the Windows RT tablets.
Don't know if you are aware but there is an Office 365 University at $79 for 4 years
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/university/#FAQs
The Office 365 University plan allows you to install Office on up to two PCs or Macs and on up to two smartphones or tablets, for use by a single person.
Yeah I saw that hazel! I'm going to hold out and see if they really do release it for ipad. If not then I'm sticking with office 2007.
monthly subscription would simply suck.
I can see current users just sticking to their current versions until they are absolutely forced to migrate up, or over to something different.
why not embrace the App Store, Market Place philosophy.
sell the Word program (as an example) for some nominal amount, $10 or so, and that gives you the basic functions; formatting, tables, spell check etc.
then charge extra, a $1 or so, for 'add-ins' like headers/footer, grammar checking, ToC and the like.
I've been using Word for over 30 years and can count on one hand the number of times I've needed to use Track Changes, or Table of Contents or Mail Merge.
Well, phooey. If this revolving resubscription scheme doesn't pay well, they'll bully the OEMs to put some code into the firmware that won't allow anything else to work.
"A new upgrade for your BIOS has been installed. Please restart your computer"
Just about everything new thing they do costs you and me twice. Once when you have to upgrade your personal stuff just to keep up, and again on your tax bill to pay for the upgrades for schools and government institutions.
It's all about money making, if they can invent a way to transfer money from you to them they will. Subscription software is just another method by which to do so. Constant updates are another method. And I would never use subscription software, let alone pay-by-feature. That's really nickel'n'diming you to the poorhouse. Soon enough they'll be charging every time you change fonts or create a new document. Fractions of a penny per operation. But it will add-up. Soon they'll charge for clock ticks on your CPU. No? That's coming for sure.
People need to wise up and slow down the pace of change. Change is good, make no mistake. But the breakneck speed with which it happens is ridiculous. I'm quite happy with Office 2003 or LibreOffice or ApacheOpenOffice for my daily tasks.
Tech is good, but we need to stop rabbit-holing ourselves with it.
There's a good table somewhere that I saw which showed how and when subscription trumps license in price for office, but I couldn't re-find it. Basically if you usually only buy 1 out of every 4 versions of office (i.e you're still happy with office 03) and you've multiple PCs (MACS, Upcoming tablet versions) the 365 is better for you. However 2013 may indeed be the last non-subscription if the roadmap gets it's way and people a actually buy into this, I hope not though.
Unfortunately I believe they will. Typically subscription software is presented with very nice installers that do all the maintenance and updating for you. And people will want to pay for that rather than cluttering up the house with install discs and license key stickers.
Additionally the install and setup process is baked down to visiting one page. This is the way software is going, and the masses don't care about any sort of permanence when it comes to computing. Witness all the cloud features, especially those photo repositories.
And tablets don't present an environment friendly to piracy, especially apple products. While you still can pirate warez on them, it's not an easy thing and procedures are different than the classic PC and earlier platforms. The average user isn't going take the time and trouble to do so. And we all know piracy is something that helps Microsoft permeate every nook'n'cranny of the computing ecosphere. Many people learn on pirated software, and grow up into purchasing the real deal when it comes time for serious work.
Like with everything else, its a mindless backward step!
I hate to move on from my Office XP!! truly the new versions are pathetic, most of the useful features gone, and replaced by frivolities! my programs written in VBA6 needed much changes to be useable by others using the later VBA7, libraries have been replaced by fancy stuff and the hard core features removed... I am truly disgusted in MS
Not exactly about Office 2013 subscription as such, but a rare Microsoft event happened yesterday.
Microsoft caved in and has said that Office 2013 licenses can now be transfered between computers with immediate effect. Previously they were tied to the computer they were installed on.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/06/microsoft-office-2013-license-transferable/
All problems are solved if you buy it at PirateBay.
All problems are solved if you buy it at PirateBay.
No they are not.
Please don't ever suggest ways to circumvent getting genuine software licenses again, it could get you banned.
ScoobyDoo - "Ruh roh!"
Well, I prefer a one time fee, rather than a monthly / yearly fees.
I see that If you just want to buy a subscription because of Skydrive.
I'd say Google drive will be a better choice, you can take 100GB for $5/monthly. "it's cheaper than skydrive".
and If you like the idea of Skype minutes.. I don't know if you are having some one overseas to call or not..
and both ways, there are now a lot of free mobile apps you can use them to call ...
and believe me, the quality of the call won't be better than the quality of these free mobile apps.
After all, it depends on you.. wither you buying or not..!