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MS Office 2013 Pushing Home Users Toward Subscriptions
An anonymous reader writes "Ars reports that Microsoft has announced pricing plans for Office 2013 that include a subscription-based model for home users. There will be a $100/year Home version that can be shared by up to 5 users and a $150/year Small Business version. 'Subscription software of one form or another has proven popular in the enterprise (whether it be cloud services, like Office 365, or subscriptions to desktop software, such as Microsoft's Software Assurance scheme). But so far it's a rarity in the consumer space. Anti-virus software has tried to bully and cajole users into getting aboard the subscription train, but the large number of users with out-of-date anti-viral protection suggests users are resisting. ... As another incentive to subscribe, and one that might leave a bad taste in the mouth, the company says that subscribers will be given unspecified "updates" to add new features and capabilities over the life of their subscription. Perpetual licensees will only get bug fixes and security updates.'"
I am not paying a leasing fee for software, thanks.
OK, so why wouldn't any home user choose a free LibreOffice download over a $100/year msoffice subscription tax?
Kurt
You knew this was going to happen. Think you bought your software? Microsoft disagrees, and by the way, Microsoft doesn't think you should own your computer either. Anybody so weak kneed as to be afraid to act in their own interest and move to the free and open option gets no sympathy from me.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Libreoffice can open the *.docx format just fine; I just wish there was a way to work on Access databases in Libreoffice as you can in Access. That is my only gripe.
liberare massarum ex ignorantia, clausa descendit molestie.
First an interface that no body likes ...say hello to blocky windows 8 than a screw you charge for Office. Bill come back! The captain is steering into the reefs!
Awww...screw it just go open source, spend half an hour learning the in's and out's and be free!
Word 2003 still works just fine...
Most home users barely use many of the features of these tools to begin with, they won't see the value of paying $100 a year for this. That's a lot of money to many people.
>Here's the thing: LibreOffice is by far best when you use its native formats. Weird, huh?
Here's the thing: Normal people who want documents from you don't use LibreOffice's native formats. Weird, huh?
It is kind of funny how the marketing departments of big software companies think we actually look forward to 'updates' which annoy us and waste our time. Now I actually breath a sigh of relief when my BlueRay player gets past the moment where it may insist I have to spend 5 minutes 'updating' before I can watch my movie. I can't imagine wanting to pay $100 in return for being hassled with updates I don't care about. Apparently, they haven't figured out that people very well might pay $100 to never be bothered with them.
Having animations, color changing, custom fonts, interactive features, and other things will make your presentation unusable. What you write it in doesn't matter at that point.
Sadly I think this will actually work out for microsoft. This is the same sort of thing happened with MMOs. The thing is, you do something like this and drive away 2/3rds of your customers... so what if the remaining 1/3 is paying 10x the price for the same product. And what's going to happen here is people will get windows for "free" with their computer. They'll put all their files and such on it and then after 6 months or so... bam... can't access any of their important documents and the only way to get them back is pay microsoft $100.
If you are doing PPTX at home for work, shouldn't work provide you with a copy of MS Office? Maybe I'm being silly, but I don't do powerpoint at home to impress my friends and family.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is pretty much a textbook example of sour grapes.
Slashdotter #1: "My software can do everything your software can do."
Slashdotter #2: "Your software can't do x."
Slashdotter #1: "Yeah, but... but... doing x is stupid anyway, and only for losers!"
#DeleteChrome
PowerPoint is only one example though. I think the issue is that this "sour grapes" issue is rampant in the Linux/open source world. Heck, I fully understand why certain functionality might be missing in a FOSS program compared to its proprietary equivalent (it might simply be difficult to implement, lack of resources/time, etc), but I can also completely understand why someone might prefer to just throw money at a solution that DOES provide the functionality they want.
Most people are more interested in results and will deal with a bit of financial pain if the free alternatives are too stressful to use for whatever reason. It's better to accept this as an inherent limitation with the nature of open source rather than suggest that the user is at fault. Otherwise you're just setting up a case of the user never bothering with open source again if it's failed them too many times.
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
LO does a fine job producing .pdf files, and a reasonably good job producing HTML. Those are the only two formats any business should be using in any final draft of any communication, internal or external.
Will