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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?
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.
The support thing is key. Like it or not, 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. Hell, 90% of the time all they need to do is put someone on the phone that understands how to use the software and that's all. Software can be free but on-demand support will always cost you.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
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.
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.
I know that for some people 150 dollars isn't a lot. Certainly not the 70 dollar rental scheme.
I happen to live in Arkansas, an "economically depressed" area. Wages aren't even a fraction of what you see in New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles.
People raising families think that 150 bucks IS a lot of money.
If that doesn't convince you, consider all the people outside the United States. There are people in this world who don't see 150 dollars in hard cold cash in a MONTH.
That is one of the driving forces behind open source (and piracy too,for that matter), after all. A hundred dollars IS a lot of money to a large majority of the people on this earth.
If I had 150 dollars or more to spend on an OS even before I could consider spending another 150 bucks on an office suite, I would send that money to an open source developer rather than a greedy corporation like Microsoft.