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Microsoft "Albany" Offers Office and Security as Subscription
News.com is reporting that Microsoft has confirmed a subscription service is in the works for the next consumer version of their Office Suite. "Code-named Albany, the product has a single installer that puts Office Home and Student, OneCare, as well as a host of Windows Live services, onto a user's PC. As long as users keep paying for the subscription, they are entitled to the latest versions of the products. Once they stop paying, they lose the right to use any version."
Don't worry, it'll be cracked in the first day or so.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
This is Microsoft's way of demonstrating once and for all that you don't "own" the software you purchase. I hope this doesn't catch on and become the primary distribution model. If we don't own the software we purchase then the manufacturer does not have to guarantee any proper functionality.
Let me see, I need to type my college papers, christmas letters, and an occasional sales poster. Let's see the benefits of the magnificent MS Office Live RX over the OpenOffice, or Symphony...
Stupidass Microsoft... (And stupidass people paying for that crap...)
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Actually, let's just think about this for a second.
You currently pay $300 for the standard Microsoft Office 2007.
If all they're doing is spreading out the payment over 3-4 years, with a small premium thrown in, that's not such a bad deal. I'd happily pay a $25-50 premium on software like Office in order to receive constant updates. So if what they want is $115 annually instead of 300 at once, that's fine by me. These products don't usually have more than a 3-4 year life-cycle anyway, and this way instead of being stuck with a single version, you get something which improves over time.
Obviously, the question of how they implement it, what they charge, and how good the "free upgrades" really are will determine uptake of this product. But if you take off your microsoft-bashing hat for a second, this isn't as stupid as it looks.
I can't think I'm the only one getting tired of the subscription model for everything. I remember thinking at one point that I'm going to need to start figuring out what I can afford to have and not, simply because everything seems to be moving in that direction.
Cable, phone, utilities all seems standard to us at this point, but now we have music subscriptions (stop paying, lose your music), radio subscriptions (love that satellite radio), game subscriptions (WoW addicts unite), and now more and more software subscriptions (I'm sorry, licensing).
I can perhaps forgive it for something like antivirus software where you are constantly downloading updates (glad my Mac doesn't need that yet), but Office? When do they slip Windows into that model? Would you like to boot today? Your subscription has expired, please enter a valid credit card.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
Well you (people who paid for Office) gave the cash which helped to fund OOXML and the possible destruction of ISO
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I think Linux will compete by snagging more disgruntled ex-Microsoft users.
Microsoft has really screwed up and doesn't seem to know where to go or what to do now that Vista crashed and burned. It will be hard for them to overcome the bad rap they earned on that one.
And Linux being free means that anyone that wants to try it out just needs to download it or copy CDs from someone else. They can try it whenever they want and if they like it, they keep right on using it.
Microsoft's days are numbered. Probably with big numbers right now, but numbered nonetheless.
I must admit I appreciate Microsoft making it even easier for me to sell the higher-ups on the advantages of using OpenOffice.
Too bad this isn't like a software maintenance plan. In those cases, you at least own whatever the current version is if you stop paying the licensing.
I don't even have to read the details to bet that you need an internet connection open every single time you open Office so it can contact the licensing server. If the time limit was kept locally, that'd be too hackable. So what about laptops? I guess you can't open your word documents if there's no wifi in your hotel. That'll go over great. Btw this whole process is about 10x more hackable than what they use now.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
There is a certain amount of historical evidence on the "value for money" issue :)
I'd hope that law is really clear about what "access" to the data is. Because Microsoft ships free "viewers" that allow you to read the data, at which point you could copy and paste it to something else. Not sure if that meets the legal terms in that law, but it sure might. I'd prefer that "access" meant you could read and write, but since copy/paste/write would "work" it may be all that is required.
You save all your files in what ever form and end your subscription. Now you can't open your files and you don't have an office suite.
renting software always fails. It has no purpose and MSFT is going to charge some obscene amount so that a year of renting you can buy a full version.
Personally for me it doesn't matter. My documents are in ODF, and I can use any numerous applications to open the data, from Open Office, to abi word, to google docs. I can get 100% portable versions of those to stick on a thumb drive, and OS agnostic.
It doesn't matter where I am I can get MY data. Can you do the same with MSFT rentals?
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
You have to like getting fucked by a monopoly to BUY any kind of microsoft product.
You have to be incredebly stupid, and still a total masochist, to even think about RENTING it.
Jeesus, please save us from all this ignorance.
NO SIG
Correct, that is how they get around it.
Um, no. Technically, Microsoft could try this gambit; I'm not sure whether, legally, it would work or not. But practically, it'd be a death sentence on Office. Rights to Eleroth the Night Elf is one thing. Rights to your personal correspondence, to the data that your business needs to run, to your personal data, that's another. If Microsoft announced that they owned all the data created by subscription Office, nobody would buy it. Ever.
You got it all wrong. You do it by charging a HIGHER price for a comparable Linux / OpenOffice based package.
Pricing it higher will create the impression that this is a more worthwhile package (and vice versa: a lower-priced package will be less worthwhile). And it creates income that can be used to further build up the open source industry.
>"There is a customer segment that really enjoys this always-on,
>always up-to-date aspect of the service," Microsoft group product
> manager Bryson Gordon said.
Indeed we do. We're called Ubuntu users. The little orange icon lets us know when ANY of our programs have updates available and then DOESN'T pester the crap out of us if we don't install them right away.
And our subscriptions are always paid up.
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
Access, in this case, means machine-readable form. In other words, you have to be able to export it, even after any "subscription" expires that allows you to create or modify new data in that format.
Kevin Smith on Prince
Mmmh, no.
Microsoft's current business model is perfect (for them) wrt large corporations: licenses that were bought don't show up on the list of things to axe when business is slow, as it's already been paid for. They just postpone the upgrade, and concentrate on recurring costs (employees, travel, newspapers and so on). Eventually Senior VP #172 gets tired of underlings asking for something their version of Word can read, it's the good end of the cycle, there's money to burn: they buy the new version.
With subscription, software will be right up there at the top of the list of things that can be trimmed. "You mean we can save 1 megabuck *next year* by going OpenOffice? Done."
Why do you thing it's only Office Home and Student?