Can Microsoft Really Convince People To Subscribe To Software?

curtwoodward writes "For most consumers, monthly subscriptions are still something for magazines and cable TV. With Office 365, Microsoft is about to embark on a huge social experiment to see if they'll also pay that way for basic software. But in doing so, Microsoft has jacked up prices on its old fee structure to make subscriptions seem like a better deal. And that could really leave a bad impression with financially struggling consumers."

Comments

LibreOffice

[JayRott]

At least for my needs, LibreOffice takes care of everything I have to do. Perhaps if more people were educated about alternatives it would knock some steam out of Microsoft. I understand that enterprise would be a hard sell, but on the consumer level it is doable.

Re:Hope this works. Ad supported is not what I wan

[MightyMartian]

Indeed. We are running up against this with Excel 2003. While with the compatibility pack it can open Excel 2007 and 2010 files, the newer features do not work rendering 2003 little better than a glorified viewer for some of the spreadsheets being sent to some of our staff.

Re:Few consumers use open source.

[mister_playboy]

On the contrary, I'd argue it's nearly impossible to use the Internet without interacting with open source software.