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Microsoft Will Block Desktop 'Office' Apps From 'Office 365' Services In 2020 (techradar.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
Microsoft is still encouraging businesses to rent their Office software, according to TechRadar. "In a bid to further persuade users of the standalone versions of Office to shift over to a cloud subscription (Office 365), Microsoft has announced that those who made a one-off purchase of an Office product will no longer get access to the business flavours of OneDrive and Skype come the end of the decade." PC World explains that in reality this affects very few users. "If you've been saving all of your Excel spreadsheets into your OneDrive for Business cloud, you'll need to download and move them over to a personal subscription -- or pony up for Office 365, as Microsoft really wants you to do."
Microsoft is claiming that when customers connect to Office 365 services using a legacy version of Office, "they're not enjoying all that the service has to offer. The IT security and reliability benefits and end user experiences in the apps is limited to the features shipped at a point in time. To ensure that customers are getting the most out of their Office 365 subscription, we are updating our system requirements." And in another blog post, they're almost daring people to switch to Linux. "Providing over three years advance notice for this change to Office 365 system requirements for client connectivity gives you time to review your long-term desktop strategy, budget and plan for any change to your environment."
In a follow-up comment, Microsoft's Alistair Speirs explained that "There is still an option to get monthly desktop updates, but we are changing the 3x a year update channel to be 2x a year to align closer to Windows 10 update model. We are trying to strike the right balance between agile, ship-when-ready updates and enterprise needs of predictability, reliability and advanced notice to validate and prepare."
Microsoft is claiming that when customers connect to Office 365 services using a legacy version of Office, "they're not enjoying all that the service has to offer. The IT security and reliability benefits and end user experiences in the apps is limited to the features shipped at a point in time. To ensure that customers are getting the most out of their Office 365 subscription, we are updating our system requirements." And in another blog post, they're almost daring people to switch to Linux. "Providing over three years advance notice for this change to Office 365 system requirements for client connectivity gives you time to review your long-term desktop strategy, budget and plan for any change to your environment."
In a follow-up comment, Microsoft's Alistair Speirs explained that "There is still an option to get monthly desktop updates, but we are changing the 3x a year update channel to be 2x a year to align closer to Windows 10 update model. We are trying to strike the right balance between agile, ship-when-ready updates and enterprise needs of predictability, reliability and advanced notice to validate and prepare."
free too.
lose != loose
Why? If you have a desktop version of Office that you've already purchased you already have an office suite. It's the cloud storage you need to switch. Google Drive or Dropbox will happily take your money and cost a lot less than 365 to boot. Well, Google drive will, Dropbox seems to have missed the whole "I need more storage than the free version but don't want to pay $100 a year for this crap when I won't use 90% of it" boat...
Read the real story, not some stupid 3rd party blog.
Firstly, this is ONLY commercial Office 365 cloud services -- essentially, OneDrive For Business (effectively hosted SharePoint) - not to be confused with OneDrive for consumer (completely different) and hosted exchange. CONSUMER SERVICES ARE UNAFFECTED.
If I am understanding this correctly, the ONLY people affected are companies that [a] paying for Office 365 subscriptions (otherwise they would have no access to Office 365's hosted services); but also [b] not using the Office 365 included distribution of the Office software.
The push here is to get enterprises moving and use the Office 365 version of Office instead of whatever old version they bought as a one off -- you don't get to use Outlook 2013 to talk to Office365 exchange, you use the 'evergreen' Office 365 version of Outlook. Any enterprise that's simply using the 'current click to run' version of Office 365 is unaffected.
Consumers and people not using Office 365 services are NOT AFFECTED. People with Office 365 subscriptions using the Office 365 software are not affected. This is absolutely no different to any other service with a dedicated client that insists your client software is kept up to date. Netflix makes the exact same demand, for example, and nobody complains about THAT.
Absolutely nobody is required to pay any money for this -- you are either already paying for the new version (with your office 365 subscription) or you can't access the services you're not paying for ANYWAY. The only people affected are those paying for Office 365 but not using Office 365 version of the software that they are already paying for. That is literally IT.
I can think of several Fortune 500 companies that use Office 365 based on info from friends and family that work there. I wouldn't be surprised if OneDrive was disabled for some of those users but many big companies have bought into renting Office, hosted Exchange, and hosted Skype for Business.Office 365 Enterprise E5 tops out at $35 per person per month and I am guessing gets much cheaper for large enterprises. That is dirt cheap for the value you are getting. My company was recently acquired and we went from Office 365 everything back to on-premise because that is the way the acquiring company runs their business and every single person complains about the capabilities and reliability that we lost in the transition.
SOON: The Windows OS will be rented, not sold, apparently. That would be one more abuse, of many.
This is being accepted: Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. Quote: "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC."
So, I'm guessing Microsoft managers think, "That worked. We will try another abuse."
One thing I've learned over the years is that Slashdot commenters are generally not good at reacting to abuse. Slashdot commenters make excuses, or react to abuse weakly. Also, for many Slashdot commenters there is a conflict of interest: They make more money if Windows is more difficult to administer and use.
Slowly increasing the number and severity of abuses causes many people to make multiple excuses, effectively accepting Microsoft's abusiveness.
However, Microsoft managers seem to lack social ability. The abusiveness of many of the features of Windows 10 are like a multi-billion-dollar advertising campaign that very effectively says, "Dislike Microsoft products". One of the many examples: Trying to imitate Google and sell "Apps", but to business users that don't want employees distracted.
One possible solution: All countries could support ReactOS so that the Windows OS can be eliminated.
No company should be allowed to have a virtual monopoly! Companies that are routinely abusive should be re-organized or eliminated.
Quote from the parent comment: "I've been using a combination of Google Apps and LibreOffice for years, never looked back and don't miss MS at all. Several of the businesses I consult for have switched entirely to Google Apps..."
Several years ago, I spent several hours writing something in Microsoft Word. Later I discovered that Microsoft Word was not able to open its own file! Luckily, I could open the file in Libre Office.
The parent comment is correct. Let's find other methods of doing our work. Don't rely on a habitual abuser.
Let's have a multi-national effort to improve Libre Office, especially the somewhat sloppy and limited user interface.
Why should all the countries in the world pay the Microsoft tax? The United States was founded because of refusing to pay an abusive tax.
This arrogance will be all people need to make them figure out Office's extra features aren't worth paying for. Libreoffice and AbiWord offer what 99% of people actually use.
Office365 costs at most $40 per month. For a small business, it is more like $15 to $20 per month. What kind of business are you running where you can't afford that? Honestly, most small businesses SAVE a great deal of money with Office 365 because they don't need bumbling administrators.
Volume licensing for Office 365 is a lot cheaper per seat than simply multiplying the list price by number of employees. It also has a much simpler licensing model than previous Microsoft volume licensing, which makes compliance easier (you get all of the desktop apps for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android included). The latter point alone is worth it to a lot of big companies.
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