Microsoft wants you to pay $100 a year for Office

[HD_Dude]

the sweetness in this deal is that it is good for up to 5 PC's AND Macs.
Sent from my Windows 8 device using Board Express Pro

Hell, yes.

This software is amazing. We all know that. I mean, we all have thousand dollar tablets. So what - we're suddenly poor?

Do the math: $20/year, per machine. Repeat: Twenty bucks. Always updated, always the latest version.

Like many of us, I have lots of machines. About 9 PC's. I use 'em, my family uses 'em, and a few are spares. All working perfectly. So for $200/year I'd have full-blown Office 2013 on all of them?

Hell, yes.

Jeez, if I got Office Student and Home, it's about $140 for one PC...and it's just Word, Excel, One Note and Powerpoint. That would be a one-time investment of $1260. And in a few years a new version would come out, which I wouldn't have.

I believe it's a good deal.

But of course, there are other opinions out there:

- Microsoft is screwing us.

- No corporation should make money

- Everything should be free

- OpenOffice is better

- The Surface RT has Office for free, so the Pro should too

- Linux is the second coming of the Lord

- Office is great but I hate that the kickstand won't adjust

- I won't buy it because I lost my stylus

 

[kristalsoldier]

Well...the Office 365 offer is indeed a good one (of course, I say this because I get a discounted deal if I wanted to). But I have not opted for it yet and probably won't for another year or so. I have three reasons for this decision and you can tell me if they are justified or not.

First, I already have a copy of Office 2010. I have one machine at home on which it is installed and has been since 2010. My office machine, well, has Office 2010 on it too. No investment on my part there. But then again, I rarely use that machine.

Second, the RT that I got has Office 2013 RT on it and for the functionality that it offers, it is good for my purposes.

Third, there are these freebies that come with Office 365 - the free Skype minutes, the extra Skydrive storage etc. The one that is of most interest to me is Skydrive since I like using it as my primary cloud storage solution -though I do have Dropbox and Sugarsync, which I use for distributing some of my files as a backup. Currently, I have the 7GB storage that comes with the Outlook account. But I will be getting myself 50 GB more for £16.00/year, which gives me a total of 57 GB in all which, I think is enough to take care of my mobile needs for the next 36 months.

I had toyed with getting Office 365 at one time and had even posted a query here about it. That was the time when I upgraded from Win 7 to Win 8 Pro. I thought of getting it because since I did the upgrade and not a clean install, I thought my Office 2010 copy would be invalidated (because when I had originally bought my copy of Office 2010 I was living in another country and had bought it there - there are some activation restrictions). But after checking with MS, I was informed that even if I did a clean install and had the valid keys, I could reinstall my copy of Office 2010, which I did last week - and I am happy to report everything works fine. So, I asked myself - what would I have gained by going with Office 365 if I had opted to get it?

I don't have many machines and I can't see myself having 5 machines between my partner and me. At the moment, my partner is remains with Android (on her Nexus 10 - I have one too!). Next month she will be getting a Win 8 phone (probably the Nokia Lumia 620) and in about 8 months from then, I think she will be ready for a Surface (hopefully the next iteration). But from what I understand her usage pattern to be, I think she would go with the RT rather than the Pro.

As for me, I would probably upgrade my home machine (which will necessarily be a ThinkPad laptop, which I will hook up to external monitors) in about 12-18 months time. My current machine is doing just fine and I don't see any reason to get a new one. The only thing I do see myself buying within that time period are the following: A Windows Phone (probably the Lumia 720 when it is released, which should be by the middle of this year) + 1 extra monitor to add to my existing one) + an external HDD (probably a 2TB or even a 4TB unit) + a couple of pen drives. Other than that, I may buy a port replicator from ThinkPad which I can use with my current machine and with a new one when I get it. In other words here repeating myself - I can't see owning 5 machines at any one time in the short to medium term. So, that leaves me with the same question - of what benefit is Office 365 for me?

The other thing that I remain wary of is this annual payment system. I already have a number of annual payments and I would prefer not to increase the number of such payments - they all add up you see. All this being said, I do see a situation arising, however, when I buy my next desk-bound machine (that ThinkPad that I referred to). At that point I may opt for (or may be compelled to opt for) what would be the latest version of Office (now that could be on a subscription model) but that would be because by then my Office 2010 copy will have become seriously dated and a new version would be in order.

So...do you think I am thinking this through incorrectly?

 

[Tom T]

Hell, yes.

Do the math: $20/year, per machine. Repeat: Twenty bucks. Always updated, always the latest version.

One of the problems here, IF you have five machines and multiple users in your home the math works, but I might install my subscription on three machines but honestly I will only use one for productivity. I have no real problem with this subscription model but for me it certainly doesn't equate to $20 a year.....well this particular year is free, hehe, thanks to Microsoft and Office Depot...

 

[souldier]

I've been loving Office 365 since I got it. I let one of my friends use one of my subscriptions, and so when I am going to renew, we will split the cost so I'll only be paying $50. I also got my father on board. If we all bought stand alone versions, that would of totalled to over $400 without Microsoft outlook and publisher.

In a few years time, I could imagine that more than 80% of office users will be using 365. I just hope they don't take advantage of us by making subscription costs higher down the road

 

[Arizona Willie]

Hopefully, Open Office will always be around as a sort of competition for Office to keep them from raising the price too high.

I've been loving Office 365 since I got it. I let one of my friends use one of my subscriptions, and so when I am going to renew, we will split the cost so I'll only be paying $50. I also got my father on board. If we all bought stand alone versions, that would of totalled to over $400 without Microsoft outlook and publisher.

In a few years time, I could imagine that more than 80% of office users will be using 365. I just hope they don't take advantage of us by making subscription costs higher down the road

 

[bosamar]

So it basically comes down to do you want to pay 33 cents per day for it (month-to-month) OR 28 cents per day for the yearly subscription.

 

[Rvacha]

I have 365 and I am very happy. If you need/want Outlook you're looking at roughly $200 for a single site install. Even if you install 365 on just one machine it is at worst a break even proposition if you tend to upgrade to the newest office (was historically every 3 years). One other interesting thing is that not only does 365 allow install on five machines, you can install on as many as you like and "decommission" machines at will. Say you have five machines in a small office and you install 365 on them. Next year you buy all new machines. Simply decommission the old ones and install on the new ones with the same license. The software can stay on the old machines if you'd like, it just won't work on them

If you ever purchased an MS Volume License "ordeal" the 365 approach is WAY better. Its automatic and the web configuration/license management is a breeze.

Subscription is the way of the future at MS. That's what "Blue" is all about - instead of massive product revisions every three years the new MS model is smaller revisions delivered yearly. With 365 you'll get all yearlies and all major upgrades on the fly with no uninstall/reinstall hassles

 

[Rvacha]

On a related note I recommend changing your PC's names to something unique before installing 365. On the 365 web site it'll be way easier to tell which machine is which if you've uniquely named them