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has tried to bully and cajole users into getting aboard the subscription train, but the large number of users with out-of-date anti-viral protection suggests users are resisting.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.'"

Comments

Re:Good news for Libre Office!

[countach74]

Here's the thing: LibreOffice is by far best when you use its native formats. Weird, huh?

Re:Support for Access databases on Linux.

[PRMan]

Open Office Base is an alternative to Access. I even used it at work to open an Access 2007 file (we didn't have Access with our version of Office) and it opened it well enough for me to read it into a spreadsheet.

Re:Good news for Libre Office!

[Anonymous Coward]

In real work we use Libre Office to convert old WordPerfect and Microsoft Office files to a newer version. It handles old Microsoft Office files better than the recent versions of Microsoft Office.

( I work as digital archivist / documentalist )

Re:Good news for Libre Office!

[smpoole7]

> In the real world

... with a bad economy, with money tight, most businesses are looking for a way to trim a buck. Just because your particular firm isn't willing to spend the (minimal, in most cases) effort on a migration that will literally save your company tons of money, don't think that all of us think that way. We certainly don't.

Look: that argument was compelling up until just a few years ago. I'll grant you that, especially back in the old StarOffice days (gack, gag), then on to OpenOffice.org. But speaking for myself -- freely admitting that your mileage will vary -- I haven't had trouble opening anything in LibreOffice for a couple of years now. Including some fairly sweet PPT presentations.

Besides, Microsoft has tried to introduce the "subscription" model before. They'll probably back off of it after they get deluged with complaints. Again.

(Or -- this is my real fear -- they'll go after things like Libre and KOffice with the patent hammer.)