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The Microsoft Office Rental Program
LWATCDR writes "Yes, it looks like Microsoft is going to a rental program for Office.
From the article,
'The software bundle, which also includes Microsoft's Live OneCare computer security software, will be sold at nearly 700 Circuit City stores for $70 per year.'
Well I for one will be happy to stick with OpenOffice for now. From Microsoft's point of view it means a constant flow of money. For the customer it means you only have to pay a little each year instead of a lot every few years. I don't think this will save the average user any money and I wonder about problems with 'activation.'
So will this fly, or will it give a big push to OpenOffice?
The version of Office that is more than enough for most people (Excel/Word/Powerpoint and OneNote... is there an open source equivalent of OneNote that is roughly as good, btw?) is far from a "lot". Its 140-150$ for 3 licenses. (it does have limitations though, so often you'll want open office, but its still not "a lot").
Keep in mind this subscription thing is also that: 70$/year for 3 licenses + support.
before people realize that OpenOffice works just as well AND is free.
Of course so does a pirated copy of MS Office.
I still run Office 97 at home. It works for me and I don't generally like MS's "improvements".
The problem with this model is that not everyone needs constant upgrades. At our office, we still you Office '97 because it does everything we need. If we are forced to pay every year for unnecessary upgrades, I believe that Open Office will be in our future.
"For the customer it means you only have to pay a little each year instead of a lot every few years."
The problem is more along the lines of, "this means MSFT can tax the consumer every year instead of the consumer using the same copy of Office they've been using since 97 or 2000 which still works just fine."
This will make Office more affordable for the average person, even if it is more expensive in the long term. Not so hard to plonk down $70 for a 3-computer license the first year. Cheaper than a mobile phone contract as well.
Shame that OneCare is supposed to be rather awful.
would I want to rent an office in Redmond? I live in Virginia, you insensitive clods!
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Why install anything when you can just use Google Documents? It has most of the things an average user would need and it's easy to access and modify your documents from anywhere.
I'm pretty sure that's me, and I use Google docs. It's a natural since I have never bought my own printer in twenty years. When I need to print something, I do it at work, or the public library or Kinko's. So tell me why I'd pay $70 per year for Word?
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
http://openoffice.org/ has already been mentioned heaps of times. I won't bother saying anything more about it.
This is old news, Microsoft has been wanting to rent software for ages.
Two types of customer. The home user is used to renting software such as Virus Checkers and the like. Yes, it isn't really renting as such, but whatever. Microsoft really just needs to convince them that it's a good deal, and they are done. However, considering that many people don't have access to broadband (yes, not everyone lives in a city, and some people are still too poor to pay even if they can access it), I wonder how they will distribute the updates. Actually, do you get to keep the software when you stop paying? Previously it stopped working (you could only view the documents). Is that such a great thing for home customers?
Business customers would probably love this though. At least some of them. Pay less, always get the latest version. Except they got screwed over with something like this before already, they didn't actually get a new version for ages (I can't remember the details).
Oh yeah, one final thought, what about setting up your own server to pretend to be the MS server and say, "yes, you're a legit copy" to any software that queries it? And/or introduce a crack into the system so that it doesn't shut down?
I wank in the shower.
I see absolutely no reason to update from office 2003.
If Microsoft start down the 'future versions won't open your files' crap then I'll jump ship to OpenOffice. For now though I see no compelling reason to switch. I would imagine this is aimed firmly at corporate customers.
Yeah, I know, its not fashionable to actually like office 2003, but its a good product, I've always liked it. Besides, ever tried writing a doctoral thesis in OpenOffice? I have, it's not easy.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
...and for business there is lot of enterprise licenses from Microsoft. Would work if they would start to offer it as part of their OEM programms.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
I would be worried that OO.o might get overlooked for pirated copies of MS Office. Thankfully, Microsoft has finally stopped using their own pirated software as an advertising expense. The harder they make it to pirate, the more folks will move to OO.o. After all, if all those people who were pirating it in the first place can't pirate (and still don't want to pay), what are they going to use?
Give it a few more years and I'm willing to bet that Microsoft will start offering Word _Basic_ or Excel _Basic_ for free (as in beer), or nearly free to compete with the tidal rise of free (as in beer & speech) office suites.
Who wins? The customer...finally!
Up next: Microsoft Window for Free.
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
If OpenOffice is so good, why do it's advocates always have to say "oh it's just as good" etc? Yet they continue to either ignore or deride the frequent comments made here that it is slow and missing a great deal of the power functionality that a lot of users need. I myself have tried it several times over the years, and compared to my old copy of Office XP and later Office 2003, it just wasn't as functional for my usage.
Either that or Office '97/2K. I'm really not sure why most individuals upgrade from Office 2K, anyway.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Yep, Office 97 is adequate IMO, but when you buy in new machines they often come with newer versions of office, so those with 97 start whining because their interface isn't as shiny, or features like shared email folders are harder to access. Or, worse, they actually need a newer version to cope with the files that those with newer versions are churning out. Yes you can save to older formats, but most people will just regard that as a PITA, especially when it comes to things like PST files..
If someone came up with a good free shared email/calendar alternative to Outlook then that would be awesome. I meant to try out the latest version of thunderbird, still haven't got around to it.. basically Exchange and Outlook are quite a good solution. I definitely don't want to get rid of Exchange right now as it means road warriors can easily access their email through their phones without having to deal with Crapberry network issues all the time etc, but if Outlook was dethroned then OpenOffice would be a very viable solution for a lot of our desktops. And that also means that Linux would be quite viable in some cases too :) I can dream at least..
Thankfully only 2 of our machines have been ordered with Vista so far - one by our MD, and one by an insubordinate IT assistant who needed a multimedia spec machine for presentations, and it doesn't even work for it - why do Dell laptops always seem to have strange problems with projectors??. If MS keep forcing Vista on businesses then I'd make a concerted effort to replace as many of our machines as possible with FOSS alternatives though, rather than having to get Volume licensing stuff for all new machines just so that we can downgrade. And that's only if drivers are even available for the newer stuff - for some new Dells like the one I mentioned, you can't! Perhaps there are some hacked drivers out there that will allow me to 'downgrade' it though..
which is totally what she said
It works out to less than $7 per month--less than what most people are paying to "rent" Netflix or "rent" cable TV. You can find free "open source" equivalents of both Netflix (most public libraries have a selection of videos) and cable TV (over the air). Somehow /.'ers are appalled at paying for software, but think nothing of buying electronics or other toys.
The cost of office for a home user is relatively cheap (about $120 to buy) or $7/month to rent, and the best that can be said for OO is that it's "almost as good" as Office (like over the air TV is "almost as good" as cable).
If the home users want to bring home work, full Office compatibility is really worth a couple of bucks. FYI, most corporate licenses allow home use at no or minimal cost.
If, and only if, Microsoft offers the software both for rent and for purchase. The article didn't say that they were going to a strictly rental model for Office, and I assume they are not ... but, assuming anything with Microsoft is a bad idea.
Anyway, yes, I think that rental for home users can work, but cannot be the only way to get the software. Otherwise, it will work, a little, for a year, after which time people will forget to re-subscribe, Office will stop working, and they'll freak out.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
This has been mentioned before but running on the assumption you aren't trolling I'll update you a bit. OO.o does still have some bloat issues (primarily during launch, once it's running it's very quick). However, you can turn on an option that loads a small TSR on boot-up which eliminates that lag. Admittedly, it's a bit kludgy, but to be honest, I'd wager MS only gets away with a fast start to Office because part of it's core is in the OS so it seems a fair trade.
:)
As a side note, the startup process has improved enough that I don't bother with the TSR on newer machines but for the very impatient it's a nice feature to turn on. Give the latest OO.o a spin and see what you think. It's still not fancy but it's a great workhorse, gets the job done, and is free. What more could you want?
That is you could rend some of the evergrowing number of empty offices in Redmond to host you own business ad a nice address.
What a pity!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
I've had it with your closed, proprietary OS and file formats!
I'm getting an iMac with iWork.
I personally try to avoid using Windows, Office, et al, as often as possible, but I recognize that this is a good business plan.
Microsoft Office still has the (somewhat justifiable) reputation of being the best office productivity suite available, and lowering the barrier to entry (even if the consumer pays more in the long-term) will make it easier for consumers to justify purchasing the software.
OpenOffice has no monetary barrier, but it does have three other barriers that for most people make it worse of an offer than MS Office:
1) Brand Recognition - Sun Microsystems has always focused on the enterprise, not consumers, and so few would even know they are a large multinational corp. and then those few (the geeks) would be split on whether they like or dislike them.
2) Initial Experience - The earlier releases of OpenOffice were painfully slow and did a poor job with MS Office files' formatting. Both of these are improving, but many may have already written the suite off. The formatting issue is even worse than the speed, as many people have to collaborate on documents with others who use MS Office, leading to the third barrier...
3) The Lemming Effect - Some people just want to use whatever is popular, even if they don't really know why they would want to. This psychological barrier is probably the most difficult to remedy, with disillusionment in the big player being the quickest course of action. Office 2007 has disillusioned some of its users -- unfortunately that disillusionment is based on an unwillingness to change.
Office 2007's interface is a creative new way to work on documents, (whether you think its better or worse than before) and trying to attract those who don't want change will only stagnate the OpenOffice suite into an Office 2003 clone with new ideas from other office suites (Office 2007 and KOffice, for instance) either being ignored or shoehorned in poorly when the file format has changed to reflect these new features.
So, by making it easier for end-users to use arguably the one really good piece of software they develop, which only runs on their crappy (to develop on and to use) operating system, they have at least slowed the tide in the transition of the operating system to a commodity product.
(Disclaimer: I don't really like using either Office suite whenever I can get away with it, and prefer to do everything in PDFLaTeX. I mostly just use OpenOffice Impress, which hasn't had much difficulty in reading PowerPoint files correctly.)
I think the rental program will be a big hit with groups that need to open an office and operate for a relatively short period of time. Perfect example: Campaign Offices. The offices are only needed until November, then they will shut down for 3 years and kick it back up in 2012. They can save 50-60% by renting office for one year instead of purchasing it.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
It won't make any difference though.
You frosty piss or the new MSO pricing scheme?
People who go for this will view MSO as a bill, not as an investment or as part of the 'computer' (that includes all hardware and software purchased at the same time, believe it or not many people don't understand the difference). When MSO is a bill, switching to Open Office will be a financial incentive: stop paying those bills! Switching someone who's already paid for MSO to OOo and claiming that OOo is free sure is a funny argument. It also makes MSO look like it has more value, as the user already paid for it. So the user already paid for the valuable item, why would he use the free one?
Lock the wife and the dog in the boot of the car.
Return one hour later.
Who's happy to see you?
Microsoft is doing something smart. The one program most often sold with a new PC is security software. Bundling their own security software and a copy of office makes sense to get users hooked early on. However why would you buy security software from someone who makes such a security hole ridden OS in the first place. While I don't keep a copy of office on my PC, I do use one on my Mac. Still, I fire up open office more than I do any Microsoft program.
...being: home users primarily. It's kinda true that most modern MS Office functionality is aimed at business users (MOSS/Exchange integration), so it's fair to say most home users at least could do just fine with OpenOffice, and thus, seeing as there's only one price-tag, they are getting the lesser value.
Even with that in mind, $70 for a complete office + AV protection system, with support, isn't bad.
throw new NoSignatureException();
3 years subscribing: $210.00
Any questions?
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
The problem with this model is that not everyone needs constant upgrades. At our office, we still you Office '97 because it does everything we need. If we are forced to pay every year for unnecessary upgrades, I believe that Open Office will be in our future.
The question is whether you're paying rent or for upgrades. I know most companies lease assets, rent services and so on instead of buying. Even things that they need all the time, because they got a professional supplier that is good at what they do and charge a reasonable price, it's got nothing to do with upgrades as such. It's the difference between say a company with a leasing agreement for company cars, and you buying a car and saying "Well we still use our '97 model car because it does everything we need." The model has already been used to deliver software as a service and works in some areas.
The reason I think this is a rotten idea is that Microsoft is very dominant in office software. Rental agreements are a very simple way of making sure you get money each and every year as long as people use it, even if there's little to no innovation. The whole advantage to the consumer, and the reason there's usually some premium, is that you're not that committed. End the rental agreement, sign on someone else. In a market completely dominated by Microsoft, where's the advantage?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
While I see that many people are content with MS Office 2003 or earlier, I don't think that OpenOffice and even dream of competing with MS Office 07 unless it steps up its game and improve its UI as Microsoft did with Office and the ribbon.
Will be interesting to see what actually happens since I would bet that more people would want office, and not care about anything else in the package.
At our office, we still you Office '97 because it does everything we need.
Did you use Word 97's grammar check whilst writing this post? :-)
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Latest version is not an asset in business. Stability is number one. My employer still runs Protel 99 despite the availability of numerous upgrades. The cost of upgrade teething issues (file format incompatibilities, new bugs, ...) is too great. We would not be happy if we were regularly forced to regularly change file formats and learn new bugs.
IANAL but isn't bundling their anti-virus with Office a pretty blatant use of their monopoly to take over other markets?
Or has the government not officially ruled/admitted MS has an Office monopoly, only an OS monopoly?
It's Student and Home Office included in the bundle AND that version isn't going away as an option to buy the 'normal' way. This is an attempt to woo people who would normally use Google Apps or something similar. Not all of Office is going to this format.
-EB
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
Shouldn't the Billborg icon be replaced now? Say with a Ballmerborg, or maybe a Ballmerchair. Or even a chairborg.
I think you're absolutely correct.
This move, IMHO, has at least three major drivers:
1. Continuous revenue stream (as noted before). They know that a certain percentage will stay with them no matter what, especially businesses. They'll most likely offer reduced-per-copy licenses for corporations to keep Office as the standard.
2. "Forced" upgrades. Remember, every person who is using an older version of Office is keeping an older file format alive. That older file format being out there gives Open Source applications more time to be compatible, thus deluting MS's hold on the "Office" market.
3. "Bragging rights" What? Yes. Just like Vista's supposed sales popularity (because MS forced OEMs to install only Vista after a certain date) has been used to tout Vista as being wildly successful (even though every person I know who has ever used Vista _hates_ it), I strongly suspect that this will also be used to brag about how the new version of "Office" is so "popular" and so much "better", in an attempt to FUD about Open Office and other free applications that can do the essentials.
Because so many companies are convinced that "Office" is the only way to go, I am afraid that this will work.
As a university professor, I've already started insisting that students not use Office 2007's docx format. It's easy enough for me, because I tell them if I can't read it, I can't grade it. Once newer versions of office can't produce backward-compatible formats, I'll insist on PDFs or other open formats. I'm only one professor, but I suspect that I will not be alone in this. Beside, our university actively encourages the use of Open Office. Once I find a version that actually works on OS X (instead of crashes all of the time) I'll encourage the use of Open Office with my students, too.
I think you'll find ribbon (it's actually called Fluent User Interface) is liked and disliked in fairly equal amounts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent_(user_interface)#Criticism
Microsoft knows that less confident computers users will find it confusing and the staff retraining courses can be quite lucrative.
With this news and the information about DRM on Spore and other games that require authenitcation each time ( or in this case, yearly payments ) where is the tech business going? Why are the people no longer allowed to own and use the programs they paid for as they see fit. If this is how we're moving, I better get a free computer. If I'm not going to own the software installed on my computer, why should I be required to pay for and maintain the hardware that it runs on?
Especially if your still running XP, One care offers a pretty user friendly back up solution (included with vista). Plus a better than garbage virus protection. If you are already a one care customer its only $30 more for Office, Seems fair. I myself use open office and NOD32. So it would not provide savings as I like the protection NOD32 provides. Its still not a bad deal.
Renting software for home users, is simply a tax on people who :
a. failed basic economics
b. failed basic math
c. failed both
Lets do the math:
Case I: Renting: /4 Yrs
-70.00 / Yr
-Assume 'Upgrades' every 4 years [based on Office 2003 - Office 2007]
-280.00
-Resale / Salvage Value: 0.00
-IRR : Negative / Zero
Case II: Purcahsing Software License:
-400.00 [baseed on full purchase price, pessimistic value]
-Upgrades every 4 years [30 % discount on upgrade version, pessimistic value]
-IRR > 0
Salvage Value: 50% of market price [pessimistic value, based partially on ebay estimates for 2007].
It's simple, want to throw money away, and have no resale value, and a negative IRR [internal rate of return]? Also want to have your softwaere potentially deactivated at the drop of a hat, and 'Forced' to upgrade, by all means, lease it.
Want to have something you can resell if you don't like it? Purchase a [perpetual] license. Microsoft may also decide to 'deactivate' your software, but at least you have an outlet where you can resell it.
I think open office will take off like crazy regardless, but this might give it a bit of a push. I switched 100% to Open Office in February, and I haven't missed MS office even once.
/I do still miss Visio, but I am coming to terms with Dia. It is not as good as Visio, but I am getting by with it.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
now factor in anti-virus over three years..
210-150= 60$
$60/3=20
so 20$ a year gets antivirus.. (not my choice of antivirus, but still)
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Now they can prove that the end-user doesn't "own" their software but are licensed, getting around first-sale doctrine and all the rights contained therein. Their lawyers must love it.
Did you use Word 97's grammar check whilst writing this post? :-)
LOL, very clever! If I could, I'd mod you up! I tend to type too fast and sometimes my mind and fingers aren't in synch...
OK, run that last line by me one more time...
MS introduce an alternative licensing model for their customers. Presently, customers choose to buy MS Office even at its current cost. Wise customers in certain circumstances may choose to rent it instead, saving themselves money.
Thus, Office, on the whole, is cheaper than it was. And in specific cases is no more expensive.
These people have chosen MSOffice over OpenOffice, and now it costs them less. And you're suggesting that because MSOffice is cheaper, they'll stop using it?
Office 2K forces all individual documents i na program to open inside a main container window. Offike 2K3 allows each document to be its own, fully independent window. That alone is worth the cost of an upgrade.
When did $70 per year become a small amount per year? Sure it's cheaper than one of their OS licenses, but not even by that much, not to mention its a single piece of mediocre software, instead of an entire operating system. I'll be sticking with the open source versions of office when I'm not getting free MS Office through work anymore.
but I'll stick with LaTeX. Using anything else (besides other TeX flavors) is just masturbation.
Or in sync. /ducks
Shiny. Let's be bad guys...
I think it's a pretty sweet idea. Especially if they do reduced rates for students. I won't *want* MS office at home when I finish my course... so why buy the suite for hundreds when I could pay £15 for 3 years...
While most people here are commenting about whether renting is better than buying Office or using OpenOffice, strategically, this has the effect of getting OneCare onto more machines. I'm not commenting whether McAfee or Symantec is better, but isn't MS up to their old tricks by leveraging Office to get more OneCare sales? Unlike Netscape and Internet Explorer, you can't load two security packages onto the same machine without seriously affecting performance. I expect both companies to start complaining about antitrust implications.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
To figure out if its worth the money, you need to do a simple net-present-value calculation.
At an average return on investment of 8% in the stock market, your actual price for a 70$ a year service is:
NPV year 0 = $70
NPV year 1 = $64.81
NPV year 2 = $60.01
If software lasts on average 3 years between upgrades, this total cost to the user in real dollars is only $194.82. Not much difference from the $210 but for businesses this adds up nicely.
Included in this package is not only Microsoft Office, but also Windows Live OneCare among other services. Let's see how the math breaks down over the next few years:
Traditional Purchase Model
-Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student - $150
-Windows Live OneCare (with one year subscription) - $50
-Next year's OneCare subscription - $50
-Following year's OneCare subscription - $50
-Microsoft Office 2009 Home and Student - $150
Total for three years: $450
Under the new Equipt Model
-Microsoft Equipt (first year) - $70
-Microsoft Equipt (second year) - $70
-Microsoft Equipt (third year, includes upgrade to Office 2009) - $70
Total for three years: $210
Now, this is assuming that the user continues to subscribe to OneCare and eventually would upgrade to Office 2009 - however, assuming they do, the savings are pretty clear. Since this is being offered side-by-side with the traditional purchase model, I think this is a good move by Microsoft. Also, there is no alternative anywhere in the software universe that comes close to OneNote.
"It's a reverse vampire...they....they crave the sun!"
There are loads of SaaS offerings that we gladly pay for regularly. I use goosync, Basecamp, and I am currently researching an online invoicing system for my consulting business. What makes this any different?
Saying that Microsoft is doing it, and they are teh Ev1l!!! isn't a good enough reason to be up in arms.
This is a smart move to entice the SMB market, which doesn't always have the free capital to spend on this kind of software up front. If it doesn't work well, or seems too expensive for the marketplace, alternatives like OOo will gain mind and market share
First, if it's Student/Home versions, then who cares? That's the junk that they bundle with the PC's sold in supermarkets (or, worse, you get Works with a "trial" of Office). Most people who use that are using it against the licensing conditions anyway - I would have put a four-year expiry on "Student" versions of Office if I was Microsoft.
If you're willing to pay for Office because some salesman in PC World tells you that you "need" it, then you shouldn't be buying a PC. Find a friend who bought (or preferably built) their own PC and get them to pick one from mail-order for you. They'll probably get a real copy of Office bundled with it for less than the price of the computer store PC's without it.
Seriously, mail-order actually gets a higher rate of technical people buying the PC's, so you end up getting more for your money but only the bits you NEED. I regularly recommend people to buy PC's, and when they come to me they are of two sorts: 1) "Saw it in PC World, bought it because the salesman said so, very expensive, lots of junk on it, can you do anything with it for me or did I make the wrong decision, oops too late now, I'll struggle along with it", or 2) "Saw this advert on Dell's website - do you think it'll do me?". The first ones literally just buy on the spot. Idiots.
The second category of people end up with cheaper, better PC's. The first category invariably end up replacing the thing next year because they find out it only came with an Office trial, it didn't have DVD playback software, the AV ran out, several dozen windows pop up all the time saying "upgrade this" or "buy that" from all the bundled software. And usually they do exactly the same when they replace it - buy what the salesman wants to sell them.
I usually tell them that I'll take their old PC off their hands if they are just going to throw it away, I wipe it clean, put an old license of "real" Office on it (or OpenOffice if I haven't been to a bootsale recently) and then sell it to the people from the second category at a bargain price. (In fact, most home users just want Word... they are perfectly happy with OpenOffice once they are past the scary "learning" stage, those who "need" Office are usually perfectly happy with just Word 2000 - I've actually had a few people that I've got Word 2000-only install CD's/licenses for and they are over the moon with them. If they insist on the complete Office suite, the exact Office version really doesn't matter, so long as they have the Office Import Filters - you can install that for them).
I can see this whole rental causing major problems next time I go into one of those computer stores, though. Now I'll be able to snigger quietly at the people who bring their PC's back because "Office says I need to pay again this year". Normally I can only snigger at the salesmen ("Dual core, sir, yeah, that means there's twice as much memory so you can save twice as many word documents on it, that's why it comes with a larger hard disk.")
And now, my universal rules of "knowledge about computers for use at home":
- Buy the cheapest machine that has all the bits you know you need.
- Never pay for any "extras" that you don't see yourself using at least once a week (scanners, faxes, webcams, skype phones, etc.).
- Never pay anything more than the base hardware / OS / software price (no warranties, insurance, support, installation etc. except possibly if it's a very expensive laptop).
- Don't sign up with the bundled ISP's, or the first one you see on television. Ask a friendly local expert what they would recommend. They WILL be able to save you time and money with their recommendation in the long run. (PLEASE: No more AOL!)
- In use, never, ever click on any dialog that you don't understand. If it's in your way, learn how to move windows offscreen. Maybe even make a printout and ask your friendly computer expert about it later.
- Never pay for updates, upgrades or "new versions" of anything (you can invariably just carry on with the old v
The only difference between Office '97 it's successors is product activation, and extra fees for PowerPoint.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
...as long as they figure out reasonable, flexible and innovative rental terms that don't end up being way more than buying outright.
I'd love to be able to install $Expensive_Application and then buy blocks of hours that I could use the program. There's no way I can ever pay off the cost of, say, Adobe Design Suite CS3 bought outright, but if $100 would buy me 10 hours of use of the most current version, it'd totally be worth it versus spending $89 on some crippled version or a knockoff that bombs out or doesn't work right.
I could imagine Microsoft, or any company for that matter, charging more for the privilege to rent software in what may seem, to the renter, like an arbitrary fashion. They could terminate your contract if you let your brother remote in to use Word or if you let your wife/husband/partner/children/stepchildren/etc. use Excel. Why should I, a single guy, pay the same for a license to use software I occasionally use as a family of holy-rolling breeders pays for software used by their biblically-named children to write book reports for their creationism classes?
These situations seem similar to a landlord telling you he or she wants more rent, that he dislikes your taking 40 minute showers while paying a flat monthly rate for water, that he doesn't want your fifteen cousins packed like sardines into your place on their way to the American Dream (TM). These situations can lead to the renegotiation or termination of renting contracts out in the real world. It would be a shame, but feasible, that such things could happen in the digital realm.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
I don't care what shape poop is in as long as I can flush it.
Subscription services don't tend to get cheaper over time. In fact if lots of people take this up, demand increases and within a handful of years people will be paying the same amount to rent office for a year that they pay now to buy a non-terminating license.
I hate anything as a service. Another regular bill, and another dependency on another company I probably don't like, because my alternative is to go without. Fuck that for a bag of chips.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
From version 1 of the gimp user manual
http://www.flickr.com/photos/80821046@N00/2633127801/
So the user already paid for the valuable item, why would he use the free one?
This may seem like a silly argument (the money's already lost so you should just stop suffering with MSO and switch to OOo) but when I was doing PC repair in university, many people didn't want their Norton/McAffee/MSO/Other crapware swapped for better free alternatives because they "already paid for it." I know that doesn't make one lick of sense but that's the Average Joe's thinking. Nowadays Ubuntu is dead reliable and easier to use than Windows (especially Vista), and even though the "AAAAHH scary Linux! Only geeks can use that!" feeling is wearing off, I bet if I tried to switch people to it they'd say something along the same lines, and continue catching (or if I've already fixed up their Windows installation with proper security, intentionally installing) spyware, suffering total operating system breakdowns and clicking allow/deny once every 15 seconds. Because they "already paid for it."
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I think you answered your own question. The advantage (to Microsoft) is a constant stream of revenue with little to no innovation. As many other posters have mentioned, lots of users are satisfied with Office 2003 (or even Office 97). Microsoft's biggest competition in the office suite space is not Open Office, it's their own previous versions of Office. The upgrade treadmill is no longer adequate to generate continuing revenue, and it's very expensive (those developers could be more profitably used on other MS products). Having users pay year after year for the same product (with maybe a few minor improvements/bug-fixes) keeps the cash flow up with minimal expenses.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
But surely even novice users know the difference between renting virus software ("need to keep it up to date because there are new viruses coming out all the time") and office software ("Office 97 still works fine").
Perhaps I give too much credit ...
Why would I rent software to produce documents in a proprietary format I can't access without continuing to rent the software?
That's like renting a steam roller to produce a drive way that you can't use without continuing to rent the steam roller.
OO.org has really improved, and MSO has really gone downhill. The MSO 2007 ribbon system is a train wreck, I think it was designed to help the visually impaired, or people who are really bad with a mouse. Also some obscure but useful features have actually been removed along the way. OO.org will load quickly with the quickstarter (memory-hogging pre-loader) running - MSO installs one by default, but IIRC the OO.org quickstarter is off by default. Once it loads one way or another, OO.org is definitely faster in operation, especially when you can work faster because it still has a good ol' menu system.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
. Stupid MSOffice.
My Blog | Badsh
Open Office FTW. It was pretty bad paying an arm and a leg for their proprietary software before, now you can't even own the software it seems, but only "borrow" it. Boo.
The problem with this model is that not everyone needs constant upgrades. At our office, we still you Office '97 because it does everything we need. If we are forced to pay every year for unnecessary upgrades, I believe that Open Office will be in our future.
Maybe you should have read the story, because nowhere does it say that everyone is going to be on this rental program. If anything, it just gives consumers and business one more way to purchase their products and will likely increase the appeal of office to some users. Besides, as another poster noted, offices frequently rent things that they could have easily bought. Furniture is a great example, so I don't think this is a bad model to implement at all.
Clippy disappeared between 97 and 2k7, that alone is worth upgrading for.
I've recently checked out the online Google apps offerings and found them to have some great potential as a replacement for Office. I only used the spreadsheet application, but it worked pretty well under Mac OS X & Firefox. It's also handy that it saves your documents in an online repository where I can access them from any other computer.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
This only means my company will be sticking with MS Office 2000 for even longer period of time, while migrating to OpenOffice and using both.
Bearded Dragon
$150 so you can ALT-TAB instead of CTRL-TAB? Yikes.
;-)
I was given Office2007 at a Office/Vista kick-off seminar. It appears to be locked to an IP address (installed it on a couple machines on my home router, installing from my wife's (then girlfriend's) apartment denied me) once you start it up.
I've had it on my machine for a year now and I'm still hunting for features on that damn ribbon. I really got to customize those things.
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in the mud. After a while, you realize the engineer enjoys it.
Its just another part of the creeping trend towards your computer not being your computer anymore. The big boys love how you can use it to buy crap off them, but the fact you can also do your own thing with it annoys them, because it wastes time you could be buying crap.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I understand the Excel/Word/Powerpoint combo; I see them often. I find it interesting that the other application you need is the one I have NEVER seen in a commercial/business setting, not even as a personal copy. As a consultant, I have access to a variety of clients' systems in the course of my work and as a geek, I discuss software with many people; I've never seen anyone using Onenote. I played with an early trial version and found an okay app. On Windows, it is easily surpassed by Evernote. As previously mentioned, Zoho and Google have on-line notebooks that serve well. Notescribe is another low cost (time-limited) shareware alternative, and there are several freeware programs that I've seen that are similar. Personally, I simply extract the information I need and put it into Palm Desktop, which I've used for twelve years; that way, the info is also available to me when 'out and about'. I don't want to deal with the data in the original format; if I did, I'd keep a copy of the original file! Others have mentioned the Linux apps.
BTW, the pricing you give is WAY out of line from reality for many of us; the license is for "qualified Educational Software and Educational computer/pc games users only". Guess what; Adults need not apply.
If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?
How much do you trust Microsoft?
Enough to keep your information in a program you can't use without paying Microsoft an annual fee?
Can they secure it? I am not so sure. After reading the Bill Gates letter about installing Movie Maker on his own PC that is making the rounds lately I am not so sure they can. You have to wonder why businesses, who have lost millions of dollars because of Windows viri, have not sued Microsoft for the loss. Simply typing in my password in Unix or MacOS X keeps them pretty viri free. Despite people buying Windows and Security programs from whomever they choose they still think malware, viri and the like are just normal things that happen when you use computers. If Microsoft has done anything that is evil it is brainwashing people into thinking this is a normal part of everyday computer use......even the businesses buy into it.
Off the shelf software like MS Office is not considered a capital good which must be depreciated. Rather, such software can be "expensed", i.e. the entire cost of the software can be deducted in the year it is incurred. As such there is no tax incentive to lease/rent software.
This is a great package for the majority of Windows users. Especially if you are someone who is paying 40-50 dollars a year for an antivirus subscription already.
Great value.
Microsoft has been selling this to application service providers for a long time now under the Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA). It's designed to let ASPs host office apps for clients in a variety of ways (i.e. locally installed, via Citrix, via RDP, via web app, etc). They recognized that traditional retail licenses were not going to work, and volume licensing wasn't going to be quite right either, since ASPs tout turning initial capital expenditures into recurring operational costs as a big plus.
So, they started the SPLA nearly a decade ago I think, which is a rental model just like the one listed in the article. You get to run the most current version (or an old one if you need to), you get support and the like, all for a monthly fee. It makes a lot of sense for certain business models where upgrades are a requirement to an extent.
Now as a consumer, I don't know that I would follow suit. I think I'd be happy to purchase it outright and use the same version since the savings are really on the upgrade front. If you plan on using the same version for more than ~3 years, it makes more sense to buy it.
BTW - The cost of Office Standard via SPLA is about $125 a year. However, there are more rights available than the one they are mass marketing.
{Begin Troll} No I don't work for Microsoft, but I do spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with their horrific license programs. Any company that has to develop a certification program around how to buy their own products has serious problems. {/ Troll}
Now with 100% more spyware!
(for your protection/convenience/whatever, of course!)
But you'll need constant updates in order to be able to read documents saved in the ever changing Microsoft format. (The one they released version 1.0 specs to the EU this week, to try of avoid a lawsuit.)
As to them having difficulties with getting into tech support:
Personally, I haven't had any trouble with Microsoft tech support in years. Every time I called, they couldn't answer the question, so I stopped calling. That is one reason I moved to using more OpenSource software.
MS has been trying to sell subscriptions to software for over a decade, but have largely been unsuccessful to date. Perhaps a few donations to the right politicians and a law can be passed requiring software subscription purchases in the US?
Office 2007 shot itself in the foot with its default ugly, ginormous, take-up-half-your-screen toolbars. Just my opinion...
Somebody needs to tell MS that not everybody runs at 1600x1200 resolution (hell, not everyone runs at even 1280x1024... even if it's their flatscreen's native resolution...). Even if they do they don't necessarily want toolbars that are over 100 pixels high...
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Simply because OpenOffice is more bloated than Windows itself.
I prefer to use MS Office, but I'll not be renting software in this lifetime. When the time comes, I'll switch back to OpenOffice.
The idea creeps me out. I'd rather save my dough, buy it, and stick with the version for a while. I don't like the idea of external control on that level.
I'd be surprised if [legitimate] home installs of MS Office equals 10% of the market.
Are you counting Microsoft Office Home and Student? What about copies installed on home PCs of telecommuters, provided by their employers?
I've tried saving my resume in MSWord 97 format but when I bring it up in the real MSWord it doesn't look as it did in OO.
Are employers concerned about the look of the resume or the content? In what way did the document's look change? Either way, if you do have a working copy of Windows or Wine, you can use the Word Viewer to preview saved .doc files.
This begs the question... should OO.o investigate putting their software on a DVD in nice packaging, and put it on CC/BB shelves for $5? (Just enough $ to cover the packaging/distribution) Honestly, everyone I know is shocked and pleased to learn that they could have "Office for free!" when I tell them about OO.o. If it were on store shelves, it would really take off.
You can find free "open source" equivalents of both Netflix (most public libraries have a selection of videos) and cable TV (over the air).
Most videos at most public libraries are still not free. Most programs aired on cable TV are likewise non-free. What definition of "open source" are you using?
the best that can be said for OO is that it's "almost as good" as Office (like over the air TV is "almost as good" as cable).
Though LGPL doesn't do anything directly for a home user, there is still an advantage of LGPL over a proprietary freeware license for users who develop plug-ins. Or are the major networks broadcasting GFDL or CC-BY works now?
This makes sense to accountants and CEOs. Believe it or not, when a company purchases a copy Office it goes into the asset pile. The asset pile means that the copy of Office has some sort of value. While it has value to the company, it does not have a market value. This is because that copy of Office cannot be easily sold. It's market value essentially goes to zero immediately after it's bought.
By renting Office, the bean counters can get the copies of Office out of the asset pile and put it into the expense pile. Even better, should the company require cutbacks, it can reduce the number of subscriptions (probably with a reduction of staff), to "save money."
It doesn't actually save money, but to people outside the company, people on Wall Street, it appears that way.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Most programs aired on cable TV are likewise non-free.
I meant "aired on over-the-air TV", but those are cable channels too thanks to must-carry.
It appears to be locked to an IP address ...
Huh? How can it possibly be IP address locked when most home users have dynamic IP addresses?
One of the Open Office mantras is that, "people don't need all the features of Office" Pray tell, what is it in Excel or Word that people don't need? I could see ejecting the scripting, but, then, people that pick up add on macro sheets for budgeting don't have that option. I could see getting rid of some of the formatting, except that people who want their stuff to look better don't have that option. I could see getting rid of database integration, but then, small businesses suddenly lose that option.
What exactly is it, that people do not "need"? I would have thought that Microsoft would not have allocated capital to build the feature, unless someone had not requested it?
This is my sig.
I think the rental program will be a big hit with groups that need to open an office and operate for a relatively short period of time.
When I read your comment, I first thought, "What do highly seasonal businesses have to do with OpenOffice.org"?
They can save 50-60% by renting office for one year instead of purchasing it.
And they can save even more by renting OpenOffice.org ;-)
Yes. Duh.
It's ironic that Outlook by now is the best selling point for upgrading off Office 97 - mainly because Outlook 97 is obsolete. I still support about 15 instances of 97 for people that need to write a page a month, but I had to switch them all to Thunderbird. What by now is so poorly supported that I might finally get permission to upgrade Office for everyone. And pray it gives me another 10 year upgrade cycle. ...
$70 a year is actually not too bad if it replaces a commercial AV/SW client too. Don't forget that a lot of "free" AV software costs money for commercial licenses. And yes, companies actually prefer to pay that over potential legal issues, the cost per year being less than a single hour of lawyer. It also eliminates the hassle of license activations etc every time someone gets a new machine. So I currently would calculate my cost at about $50 a year; $350/10 years for office and $15 for the AV/SW licenses. Maybe there's a small business volume discount
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
Yep, this is the final straw that will finally push OpenOffice to ubiquity over Microsoft. Just like the "ribbon" fiasco was the last straw. Or the new file specifications with every new version of MS Office. Yep, this one really is the last straw. In related news, did anyone hear that Osama is dying of kidney disease?
However why would you buy security software from someone who makes such a security hole ridden OS in the first place.
Because the biggest security hole is always the end user. People still open executable attachments, for one thing. The GNU OS isn't without its own malware either.
All this does is give companies an incentive to shift to a new platform every year rather than reconsider it every three years.
This might just give me the motivation that I need to switch back to ClarisWorks..... ahhhh the good days.
--------
I don't know what that smell is, but I know it's not the body that I buried in the basement.
/. zealot whinage alert
give it a break, if the open crap would do the job, had support, had liability, then businesses would be all over it, but it lacks what is needed legally.
bullshit claims of pirating makes it free are crap.
I tell you what, when all of the slashdot zealots and wannabes work for free, then I might listen to your tired FUD about the open crap being better...
I don't know how the slashdot zealots plan to live though, work for free, support for free, code for free....wtf are you going to live on?
...a bricks-and-mortar retailer that is in deep trouble, and this is supposed to indicate something good? Wake me up when they do offer a web-based version, rather than just switch to obfuscated pricing.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=06/04/01/1439207
Neither does OOo.
IT managers will eat this up once it's proven a viable option (read: no bugs or denial of access). Being able to budget the same amount (though bound to increase) year after year, and not needing to worry about managing user licenses or decisions about whether or not to buy an OEM version with that next laptop--I think business will swallow this one whole. Consumers, on the other hand? It will be a split. Those who know little about their PCs and just want something to work may just go out and shell up the dough. Those who are more knowledgeable, like those who download free anti-virus and firewall tools vs. paying the subscription game, are likely to find alternatives like OO.
To me, that's where the eventual subscription model will break down. When consumers finally realize that they are paying $X per year (or, eventually, per month or per use) when their neighbors are getting comparable (or, hopefully, better) functionality for FREE, then they will leave the subscription services in droves.
All you OO contributors and developers, prepare yourselves for a few more years of famine. Build the product consumers will want, at the price they can't resist (FREE), and you'll have knocked a big hole in Microsoft's thick hide.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Some quick sums suggest to me that this is excellent value for money. Of course by the time it hits us in the UK it will probably be £70 using the wonderful MS currency exchange system!
The article doesn't say what sort of licence it is though. Traditionally MS charge a lot more for commercial use than they do for personal use. Sigh.
Or, worse, they actually need a newer version to cope with the files that those with newer versions are churning out.
Not true. Microsoft releases "Compatibility Packs" that you install to let old versions read new documents. I doesn't work with '97 but I think it works for 2000.
its not.
unless of course you purchase said software pre-installed upon a server (with OS and Database programs as well)
in which case your accountant will deduct all of it via lease payments for the term of the lease.
Of course so does a pirated copy of MS Office.
I hear this mantra repeated endlessly on Slashdot.
Then I look at numbers like these:
Over two-thirds of the dollar volume growth in the U.S. retail PC software market in 2007 can be attributed to Microsoft Office. In other words, the ratio of Office dollar growth to total PC software growth is 67 percent. The Year of Office 2007.
The July 3 Amazon.com Software Best Sellers:
1. MS Office Home and Student 2007
3. MS Office Home and Student 2008 - OSX
7. MS Outlook 2007
21. Apple iWork 08
28. MS Office Standard - Full Version $315
29. MS Office Pro 2003 $170 [10 AM ET Updated Hourly]
In Windows Office Suites, the Spanish MS Office Home & Student 2007 [at #13] outsells OpenOffice.org 2.4 on CD for $2.
OLPC couldn't hold the line against Windows XP and Word.
SharePoint - which is part of the MS Office eco-system - rockets to a billion dollars in sales.
Microsoft does very well in markets where piracy is not a factor and the geek has no excuse.
Sun's investment in Star Office is worth a ranking of 3,600 in Amazon software sales, a ranking of 65 in Amazon office suite sales for Windows, and 9 in business and office software sales for Linux.
The general consensus seems to be that Star Office sucks rocks.
Tell me why OpenOffice,org should be ranked any higher.
Actually, Microsoft is not making this change for any reason other than for their target audience; business users. They probably couldn't care less if home users went one way or the other; home users don't hire out people to set up their stuff.
On the other hand, Microsoft has a huge amount of money invested in a network of people to train and support users on their software. They want to make it easy for businesses to buy 'the complete solution' from them. They want the revenue stream over many years from these businesses. Further, they want that subscription to push a constant upgrade cycle. Business users are fine with this because they don't have to pay for additional support staff.
This isn't about home users. It's about business customers and how Microsoft can best monetize them.
[Ego]out
yeah, software costs money, blah blah. I prefer to get it over with all at once, like on my Mac (included in the price,) or on my PCs (bought at the time.) when the machine is dead and the stuff won't reload on the replacement system/os, I move on.
paying over and over again for the same thing with the buttons moved and one feature gone per revision, with more eye candy to slow the machine down, is not my motivator to write big checks. I'll leave that to big businesses that have been suckered into the "update or die" syndrome for the good of somebody else's stockholders.if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Well, I didn't know that, and some file formats stay compatible between releases (I just checked the PST file versioning and it was the same from Office 97 to Office 2002/XP) - but the guy who used to complain just about his interface not being as fancy had 97. I hate when people want to upgrade just because there is a newer version out. Especially when new versions aren't even any better (for example I said that nobody in the office is allowed to purchase a Vista machine, and I was even going to disallow Office 2007, but MS were pretty quick with cutting off stock of 2003..).
BTW I'm not being a hypocrite when I talk about upgrading either - I stuck with Windows 98 until games I like started *requiring* XP (and I still prefer the original Quake deathmatch to the others in the series, hehe :P). I even just used hand-me-down machines with old versions of office and Windows etc here at work until last year when I decided I may as well buy a new machine for myself. So admittedly I do have Office 2003, but I certainly don't want or need Office 2007. We've had annoying issues with Outlook 2007 not being able to perform certain calendar functions (that work fine on earlier versions of Office even for the same account), or client upgrades from Outlook 2003->2007 generating a lot of synch errors when connecting to the Exchange server. The second problem was fairly easily sorted by simply copying the Outlook profile, which sorted whatever was causing the problem, but it just shows poor testing on MS's part, and it was a needless waste of my time searching for solutions to the problem. When MS can't even get their software interoperating properly, what chance do the rest of the world have? The sad thing is that people put up with it with Office because it's authentic Office, and it's new so it must be awesome. If I installed the latest version of OpenOffice and some feature wasn't working, I'd get people whining for MS Office.
which is totally what she said
Only to install it, from what he said... maybe it's a promotional version, he did say he got it at a seminar.
The easy way to circumvent that would be to move her computer to your network to do the install, but then if you have a dynamic IP you're still sort of screwed...
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means, what you think it means.
Inigo Montoya
In most places I've worked, purchased capital is typically billed against yearly budgets, while leased or rented capital is billed against monthly. These are typically allocated separately, and people will sometimes rent items which would be cheaper to purchase due to poor budget allocation.
> I don't think this will save the average user any money
many posters above mentioned Open Office. The problem (for Open Office) is that you can't put "average user" and Open Office in one sentence. If you ever talked to average user - then you know. People can hardly type...they don't know what is "download" and how to install things. They don't know how to "save files as" and deal with computability issues.
They buy computer (or get one in case of office situation) and use it. If it doesn't work - they call someone.
Open Office as the rest of Open Source stuff including Linux is still for Geeks... not trying to bash, just an observation...
Good point. It definitely expands possible horizons. I know there are a number of serious 3-d applications that I'd love to have access to but cannot afford.
On the other hand, you mentioned CS3. The suite is such an integral part of my business that I cringe at the prospect of not having ultimate control over it (despite the fact that I've only purchased a 'license', not the software itself..)
I guess I have a hard time letting go..
Seriously, this is another development that pushes up against the limits of the First Sale Doctrine. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Productivity software that comes in a box just isn't rented.
An update service is one thing; but in this case the use of the product relies solely on the customer's own resources. Legally I don't see how it can fly.
Oh, it's rental. So I guess that once the time is up, I should send the program back to MS via e-mail, right?
Actually, with the new Office apps it's not. We're almost entirely WinXP but a few Vista machines have crept in lately - mine is one of them. By default of course Office saves to the new format - but I've only had to tell Excel once, and now every new workbook is created in 'Compatibility Mode', and saved as such when I hit Ctrl-S. It won't even let me go beyond the 65,535 row limit. It's not like in the past when you had to remember to do 'Save As' and pick the right version every time, which really was a pain.
As a matter of fact I really like the new Office. I'm not usually an MS apologist, but here they've done a good job. Redesigning the interface on Word might have made many people scream, but seriously: it's made my mother start using layout properly. It's exactly what all us LaTeX geeks have been complaining about for decades, and it's fixed. That deserves applause.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Hmmm. How much does the supported Open Office (Star Office) cost?
Plus-- bundling with OneCare. Onecare hasn't gotten much attention in comparison to McAfee & Norton. Bundling it with a cheap Office will. Note that the price undercuts both Star Office & McAfee/Norton Suites.
Sounds like good marketing to me.
It's a bit more than that. Now that people increasingly use dual or widescreen monitors, exclusive MDI is becoming more trouble than it's worth. What if I want to have three documents visible at once? Some MDI implementations will let me do it by making the parent window really big and then de-maximising the documents inside it, but then I can't mix and match windows between applications. It's inconvenient.
Optional MDI, as in an application that lets me separate or combine windows as I see fit, is nice, but the old-style Office approach is horrible.
True, but OOo doesn't lull you into a false sense of security by pretending that it's checked your grammar.
Why doesn't $company just rebrand OO.o/KOffice/whatever and sell it as their own, maybe incorporating grammar check? Wouldn't selling that for 70$, and thus 69.95$ profit, make more sense than selling MS's and getting significantly less? I mean, would support be so much of an issue? I know Source in Canada pre-installs WordPerfect on all their computers; why not sell OO.o as their own in-store brand but have WordPerfect or Office as an option? (hopefully a more expensive one)
And if they pull it off well, think about all the co,puters that CAN run OO.o as opposed to those that can't.
The only reason (in my eyes) why Microsoft is doing this is because they are loosing so many users over to apple, which is making them have to look at alternate sources of revenue to maintain a large yearly budget. But you know what... just switch to apple. Iworks doesn't cost that much and you can actually do more things with it then Office, and the best part is it is only a one time purchase!!!! Go Apple!!!!
Living in Seattle, I was looking forward to a new office on a pretty campus in Redmond.
I could take the MS shuttle, have lunch at Canyons or CJ, etc.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
I can understand that - way to steal my zinger with a logical argument ;-)
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in the mud. After a while, you realize the engineer enjoys it.
> The home user is used to renting software such as Virus Checkers and the like.
That sounds like an awesome game. Where can I rent a copy?
"MS is going to be in the support business big time and needs to find ways to profit from support that are simple, easy and cheap for the end user."
They should outsource some of it to Psychic friends
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Office "rental" is bad bad news. Stop renting after a few years and what happens? Yes you can "view" your files (maybe!) but no way can you edit them, since (of course) they will all be saved in some dodgy MS proprietary format. So no downloading Open Office and opening/editing your files. Solution? Print them? If they are smart they will disable that too. Expect a market for third-party apps that will crack the file and at least extract the text for you, unformatted. Of course this will be illegal and will just encourage MS lawyers.
Rent software and MS has you by the balls for life. Renting software sucks BIG TIME.
From Microsoft's point of view, the problem is that hardware is getting so cheap that software is starting to look really expensive.
If they can get the "cost" down low enough that people will actually buy it with their new PC, then all is well in Redmond-land. (Remember, the marketer are now in control - the boss geek just quit).
What they really want to do is lease the OS *and* Office. This means a lower purchase price for a PC with software, and annual income. I don't think people are that good at looking past the purchase price (at least, I have no other explanation for the success of McDonalds, but I digress)
First year free, perhaps? (Traditionally, the first hit is always free. Isn't it?)
"Cats like plain crisps"
From a big business point of view, I think they would be more likely to just buy the licence for their existing Office version outright and settle on one version (or at least as few versions as possible), for as long as possible, rather than allow Microsoft introduce instability into their Office environment.
Wanted: A better sig than this one. I have neither the wit nor motivation...
hmm, why would a person write in office and then copy/paste into a browser.. (just wondering).
With Microsoft's EULA, aren't we ALREADY renting software from them? This is the same thing, but just a fancy, marketed lay-away plan.