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Microsoft Will Sell Office, Windows as a Bundle (axios.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft announced plans on Monday to start offering Windows 10 and Office together in a single subscription service. Microsoft 365, as the service is known, will also include security and management tools and come in two flavors: one for large enterprises and the other for small-to-medium businesses. The company didn't say how much it will charge for either version of the service.
HELL FUCKING NO!
I am NOT going to rent my OS from Microsoft. Not now. Not EVER.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
"Microsoft will offer security" reads like "the oven will produce ice cubes" or "the ocean will give dry towels".
Nice ... now I only have one bundle to avoid buying
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
Microsoft has been trying for the subscription model for years now, and still haven't figured out that people don't want to keep paying for a one time purchase.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Just because it makes sense for large enterprises, it doesn't mean it always makes sense for home/small businesses, or worse individuals.
Now, the big question is will this bundle include the Solitaire subscription as well or is that gonna be another $10/y per seat?
sell is NOT the same thing as a subscription rental.
I still use Office 2010. After that version, Microsoft ended the contract that it had with the local company that provided the proofreading tools for Brazilian Portuguese and decided to build a new grammar/style checker from scratch, which as of Word 2016 still is extremely inferior. It has fewer options and misses obvious grammar mistakes. Nevertheless, the LibreOffice checker is even worse.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Is there a source to this? The linked article doesn't link anywhere else or gives a source.
paying a monthly bill to Microsoft for Windows? Feels funky to me. Very funky...
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Here's the announcement at Microsoft. It's for enterprises only, and I think MS previously offered Windows as a sub for them, so bundling Office makes sense.
Which recommended explicitly to split MS into two companies - an OS company and an applications company- specifically to stop this kind of bundling from taking place and disadvantaging competitive companies.
Oh well.
Deport the whole company back to India, where people build shit, eat shit and are shit.
Oblig XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1656/
I guess it's been coming for a while. From their perspective it makes total sense - keep everyone on a single version of Windows and Office, force all the consumer users to accept every OS and application update, etc. The average consumer is used to the subscription model now - many are on Office 365 and almost everyone pays for their mobile phone every month. I can't say I'm too happy about the idea of having to rent the operating system as well as the office software running on top of it, but hopefully they'll realize they can't trap everyone in that cycle.
This seems to be the ultimate desired state -- collect revenue on a permanent basis little by little, rather than rely on enterprise agreements and one-off software purchases. It's going to be a big shift though, Windows client licenses have been sold to OEMs for ages, and buying a new computer means it comes pre-licensed for the life of the machine. Windows Server licenses have been either one-off purchases or covered under much bigger enterprise agreements. If you shift to a monthly fee, who pays it, and what happens if you don't pay?
Being in the IT industry for a while gives an interesting perspective...this is officially the point where we start swinging back toward an IBM mainframe style model. IBM still rakes in massive amounts of money by selling companies a mainframe, keeping it fed with parts and software, and charging monthly for the use of computing power. They used to be pretty much the only game in town, and the PC/x86 ecosystem was the break from that. Microsoft's got this going on the Azure side, and now will have another revenue stream on the device side, so we're back to central control of everything. I guess it makes sense because consumers are used to locked-down phones. But, I wonder if as PCs become a niche product for doing actual work rather than consuming entertainment, how many businesses will be happy with having to buy the same software over and over for eternity?
I fondly remember the days I was writing a 400+ page technical book, and in the middle of it Clippy would pop up and say "It looks like you're writing a personal letter! Can I be of assistance?"
And bullet points: they would continue of the last set of bullet points, even it they were tens or hundreds of pages apart!
And don't get me started on the idiocy that is MS Words HTML generation! I worked some place (breifly) where they actually used the steaming pile of crap the Word would produce!
>Microsoft announced plans on Monday to start offering Windows 10 and Office together in a single subscription service.
AS A SUBSCRIOTION SERVICE! They promised not to do that, remember?
Microsoft said "Oh noes Win10 not subscription. You confused & reading incorrextly, it free!".
Maybe they only meant 'at this exact moment'. Because it sure was predicted & bemoaned by customers for a long time... and now it's here.
I get lifetime upgrades for my OS, full support, full office, straight up professional support for $10/mo or $99/yr? I'm in. It's a small price to pay to keep all my PC's going strong and not have to worry about going EOL and buying a new OS license every 2-3 years.
It'll come down to the price and if it's feasible on the wallet.
Wheel of Time: Book by Book and Sumview (summary review) Bigdady92 style: http://bigdady92.blogspot.com/
We're not dorks, we're nerds. Big difference.
No we don't have anything better to do with ours lives, working with computers is our job.
I've never bought a computer that came with either Windows or Office.
We are doing something productive with our lives that probably also affect your life as well, you're just too stupid to know it.
As for this "outside" you speak of, it's a myth.
#DeleteFacebook
The real question is going to be, how long before this becomes a requirement on new PC purchases for consumers with Windows pre-loaded? And will consumers cough up the 10 bucks a month or so in addition to the cost of the computer?
Portugal OWNS Brasil? Get your own language and you wouldn't have so many problems. This is why it is third world.
dont work hard, work smart.
As much as I hate MS and dislike the "subscription" model, it's not really a horrible idea in a corporate environment.
I've been stuck behind budgeting concerns which left XP *still* being installed on a sizable portion of our workstations. I'm not even going to talk about the archaic version of office we're rocking.
For home use; bullshit. For corporate/government, it's got it's appeal.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Will both versions include Candy Crush? I don't know how businesses will be productive without it as part of the default installation. Sarcasm.
is that rented software has a significant change of relationship between the buyer (renter) and the developer. In products that you buy, there is some assurance of the product works so you can manage expectations of using the product.
Our current way of dealing with Windows is to adopt to each major release, and this drives a lot of updates to internal applications that have issues with each new OS version. With rented operating systems, changes will be much more frequent, similar to Azure. This makes our jobs as IT professionals much more difficult in managing expectations.
The irony is that Office holds a larger chunk of the market than Windows does, and most of the competition is effectively free (Mac OS licenses have no upgrade fee anymore, just the hardware link).
This is just MS trying to directly monetize their OS licensing, and clean up licensing issues for the business market (who in general love the SaaS idea, as it allows easy license reconciliations and tracking)
Everyone laughed when 10 came out and I predicted windows was going to turn into a subscription service.
Is it still funny?
When they stop offering it NOT bundled, you might have a point.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I guess it's been coming for a while. From their perspective it makes total sense - keep everyone on a single version of Windows and Office, force all the consumer users to accept every OS and application update, etc. The average consumer is used to the subscription model now - many are on Office 365 and almost everyone pays for their mobile phone every month. I can't say I'm too happy about the idea of having to rent the operating system as well as the office software running on top of it, but hopefully they'll realize they can't trap everyone in that cycle.
This seems to be the ultimate desired state -- collect revenue on a permanent basis little by little, rather than rely on enterprise agreements and one-off software purchases. It's going to be a big shift though, Windows client licenses have been sold to OEMs for ages, and buying a new computer means it comes pre-licensed for the life of the machine. Windows Server licenses have been either one-off purchases or covered under much bigger enterprise agreements. If you shift to a monthly fee, who pays it, and what happens if you don't pay?
Being in the IT industry for a while gives an interesting perspective...this is officially the point where we start swinging back toward an IBM mainframe style model. IBM still rakes in massive amounts of money by selling companies a mainframe, keeping it fed with parts and software, and charging monthly for the use of computing power. They used to be pretty much the only game in town, and the PC/x86 ecosystem was the break from that. Microsoft's got this going on the Azure side, and now will have another revenue stream on the device side, so we're back to central control of everything. I guess it makes sense because consumers are used to locked-down phones. But, I wonder if as PCs become a niche product for doing actual work rather than consuming entertainment, how many businesses will be happy with having to buy the same software over and over for eternity?
I think in many ways Office 360 was one of the best things done by MS. It lowers the price for home users, and it allows businesses (specially small ones) to turn their MS Office expense from a capex into a opex.
It does sound funky, and it does remove some freedoms from end users. But on the other hand, it allows more people to use the software (it is cheaper to pay a monthly fee than to fork money for a permanent license at once.)
It's all about trade-ins. Many costumers will have legitimate objections towards such a subscription model. Others customers will actually find it advantageous. c'est la effing vie.
Pest AND cholera in a neat package. What more could you ask for?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They can't seem to make much of an inroad with hardware, unlike Apple - so they have to make their money somewhere.
#DeleteChrome
specifically to stop this kind of bundling from taking place
Why? I mean it's a 100% optional choice. Actually it's far more optional than say buying a copy of Windows with frigging Norton or Mcafee or some similar shit bundled.
Works great for me.
I already rent Windows and Office for $0.00/Mo, I'll gladly pay 0.00/Mo for Office and Windows.
Activation period expired? Wipe the virtual machine, reinstall. As a bonus, I'd get new updated versions too!
I have not activated Windows ever, nor do I intend to. I treat as a series of 30-day evaluations. I understand that every few weeks they patch it, so I use that as a new eval period.
Shame that Windows never meets my expectations, so I can never justify a purchase or rental fee.
Headline says "sell", actuality is "rent".
How about $0/mo and $0/year. It's called Linux. My octogenarian father and septuagenarian in-laws have used it daily for over 10 years.
The benefits are that I seldom have to perform home service calls, and have never had to defrag, remove viruses, or perform any of the time-wasting crap that keep many Windows technicians employed.
I can't help but laugh at the (l)users signing up for this (just read one) while rising a certain finger. Feels well not to be threatened by these companies, which can go and have coitus with themselves.
As far as I know (without Googling), there really is no options other than MS Office (for those willing to pay) or Libre Office (for open source fans) left. I suppose Lotus/IBM might still have something left (or maybe even whoever bought out Borland's office suite), but that's pretty much the landscape these days.
Anyone who did not see this coming is blind. Your OS as a 'service' is coming and the second you stop paying you loose access to your data. Call me Chicken Little if you want, but the sky will fall.
Businesses using Enterprise (or, more recently, the small-business variant) and Office have been on a subscription model for years. This looks like it just consolidates all the payments into one convenient monthly debit, plus, In The Cloud (O365). Don't forget, it's a business expense and therefore tax-deductible.
If a business really wants to use Linux, it can get THAT (including LO or even MSOffice under Wine) in a similar package from a local consultant (or even Red Hat?) who packages and maintains it for them. May or may not cost less than the MS scheme; that depends on how good the business is at negotiation and what exactly they want.
Nothing in the announcement says that this will expand, or apply to previously-granted Windows & Office licenses. Sure, you can worry about that, but it isn't here (yet, anyway).
If Linux users are vegans, and Mac users are vegetarians, and Windows/Office users are red-blooded meat eaters, then what am I? Windows (so I can run a couple of things that just don't like Linux - yes, I've tested them - and don't have any alternatives that are as easy to use and complete) but mostly open source (or at least free) apps (LO, FF, TBird, etc.)? Ah, that's right, saw it this morning: reducatarian.
You pay zero and use the product zero days. Its the best deal from Microsoft ever!
And be a container for Office. Really, I think it's heading that way.
Guys, just relax and read : it's replacing SPE witch is already sold to enterprise customers for like a year now. Nothing new except for the name.
Where's my steak dinner?
It's not mac.
It's not linux.
It's not *BSD.
It's not windows.
Where is my steak dinner?
On another note: If we're not getting a veritable storm of antitrust and racketeering lawsuits against redmond I'll declare the "justice" department asleep at the wheel. (Not that we haven't known for ages they just don't have what it takes to take on big "tech". They'll pile up charges against gullible starry-eyed college kids until they suicide, no sweat, though. About all the justice department is good for. And the SEC is even weaker. But anyway.)
I wouldn't fall for that subscription shtick since redmond tried to sell it by promising at least one major update over XP before the subscription ran out... then didn't deliver. And when they did finally deliver they graced the world with vista. Fool me once, etc. But anyway.
You know, it's not exactly hard for a knowledgeable techie to take a FOSS OS[0] and drop openoffice[1] on it. Various companies have tried[3], and not all of them are failures or very publicly contested hot potatoes[4]. Do the imagining thing with it that you should do anyway, regardless of OS, but moreso with clickibunti things because GUI-administered anything is impossible to keep uniform, so you can do a quick re-install on a box and get reasonably uniform results.
Plenty of the "warm body" type luser might not even notice the difference. Seems worth a shot (but a careful one, please) since you're that up for budget. But maybe you as an IT manager don't have knowledgeable techies at your disposal?
Or do as IBM does (o irony), and throw macs at the office until saturated. Since macs generate less support calls, it's an overall win, despite the up-front investment in spendier hardware.
[0] I would've said FreeBSD before I lost faith in them, so I'd probably pick some systemd-free linux or other, though I still consider the *BSD code not b0rked by the current bunch of idiots superior to what you find in "the linux ecosystem", in the main. Before they went retarded, tiny core linux was quite the interesting little thing. And why not boot off USB sticks if those'll hold the approved OS-and-software and all the user output is supposed to be stored on the file server anyway?
[1] Or libreoffice or what have you[2]. In fact, there do exist commercial office suites that'll run on linux, mac, freebsd, and windows. Some german outfit at least, so if experimenting, might give them a shot.
[2] Personally I use (n)vi and troff for my letters, with a handy macro set that packs up and conveys my letterhead and style nicely, and curse the idiots that're "rewriting" the manpage system with a nonfunctional troff replacement. But of course that lacks clickibunti and is therefore deepest black-backgrounded arcane magic these days. Much more nicely typeset results than redmond's finest offers, though. And it doesn't look like computer modern. For me that's a plus too.
[3] Don't forget that deviating from the status quo is news, with lots of "told you so" should it fail, but failures inside the status quo are not news at all. They're just ignored.
[4] The thing that gets "LiMux" in the news time and again is that redmond has an "innovation center" in the city, so lots of pro-redmond lobbyists running around trying to kill LiMux stone dead. So far they've managed some good solid backstabbing and added a few high profile people to their pocket but no real results. So far.
Yes, it's still funny :)
In other news, Linux desktop market share doubled lately.
aaaaaaa
on leap days?
you suckers...
Sounds like another monopoly lawsuit.
you can buy the 2014 mini at the 2014 price today!
With an 1.4 GHz cpu / 4GB ram / and an 500 GB 5400 rpm for only $499
Sure they fixed things and added new things, but if things worked for you, you could stay where you were OS-level wise. Hell, I know someone who still has XP machines on an airgapped network that do what they need and it works fine - and they paid their one-time ticket to ride per machine, no additional costs ongoing to MS.
This new model? Why buy an OS license one time for $129 (OEM) when you can pay us every month and give us more money after month 14 than if you bought it outright!
cell phones / tablets are one off and don't need to be paid for each mouth
but the app store on windows is too locked down / sandboxes for games to be any thing like steam and forcing paid subscription only for non store apps will be seen as anti trust.
Censorship in App Stores is an big issue as well that can be fixed by having an adults only and open politics areas in them.
no modding / no sli / no CrossFire / no Fraps / no turning off V-Sync with games on windows store do you want to know more?
http://www.pcworld.com/article...
Which recommended explicitly to split MS into two companies - an OS company and an applications company- specifically to stop this kind of bundling from taking place and disadvantaging competitive companies.
On the bright side, this is no longer disadvantaging competitive companies.
On the dark side, the reason it is no longer anti-competitive is that there are no more competing companies.
On the even darker side, had you not started your comment in the subject and then continued it in the body, the words quoted above would look more sensible... but you go with your badass self. Everyone else just sucks for wanting subject lines to contain... well, subjects. I know it is utterly astounding to you that the subject line might be for subjects. We are hackers here. We repurpose stuff all the time. What is the problem with repurposing the subject line? Nothing. No problem.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Dual-core 1.4GHz in 2017 (or even 2014) is a joke.
4GB RAM is nowhere near enough except for extremely basic users, 8GB should be the minimum. Since you cannot add RAM in a 2014 Mac mini, it's even worst.
5400 RPM or not, spinning disks in a Mac is not an option anymore, mac OS is clearly designed for SSD.
#DeleteFacebook
Because they exposed Windows features early to Office, and also allowed them to use private APIs. This gave MS Office an advantage over Joe Schmo Office that could never be pulled back. Not a problem in a non-monopoly situation, however Microsoft were, and indeed still are, in a monopoly situation. It was an abuse of that monopoly.
You say that as if the two were mutually exclusive.
Ha, I was still using Office Pro 2000 SR3 until 10/22/2016 due to a nasty HDD crash. So, I installed new 64-bit Windows 7 HPE SP1 and its Office 2003 Pro SR3. And then, I got a free copy of Office 2007 Pro SR3. I also have LibreOffice just in case. I don't like the newer Office versions too.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...
It looks like Business pricing starts at $12.50 per user and up to $20/Month if you want the admin console for up to 300 users. Enterprise pricing is not been explicitly announced but price probably depends on users like most of their products.
Pretty much if you're on office 365 business premium, it's a no brainer to go to this since you essentially get the same thing but get windows 10 as well. The $20 version may be useful if you don't have or want a Windows Server at your business for app deployment and policies but not sure if it's really worth the extra $7.50/Month until I see what you can actually do from the console, especially when it comes to virus mitigation and RMM Options (ie: Remote desktop, Patch Deployment, ticketing, ETC)
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Where are all the accusers regarding Microsoft monopolizing the Windows Desktop.
U.S. V. MICROSOFT CORPORATION, (D.D.C. 1998)
Who didn't see THAT coming! Windows will eventually become a subscription based OS. MS had to see how Adobe is doing with their cloud based setup, and probably figured it would be easier. Just think from a business standpoint. Instead of getting an influx of cash every couple years when a new version comes out, you get a lower, but sustained model, which makes it easier to plan for this or that, if you know the capital you have on hand. Hey, I held off on photoshop cloud but switched about 6 months ago. I've had 2-3 major updates, and that means I didn't have to "buy" a new version. 10 bucks a month, for a "normal" retail package of photoshop, selling for anywhere from 500-1000 dollars, I'd have to use it a long time to make up that, at 10 bucks a month, plus I get to run it on TWO computers (home/laptop), so it's kind of 5 dollars a month per computer (and yes it's legal, before I made the switch, I sent them an email to inquire about it).
so...... RENT not SELL.
If you are running somebode else's software on your computer as part of a RENTAL agreement which they can cancel at any time,
and if you are storing your data on somebody else's servers (no mattery how white and fluffy and cloud-like),
then YOU DO NOT OWN YOUR DATA and YOU HAVE NO SECURITY AT ALL.
Stop being stupid gillible reckless idiots with your data, your business data, and your customer data!
Because they exposed Windows features early to Office, and also allowed them to use private APIs.
The test for this is how it affected the end consumer. The reality is, it didn't. The APIs were worthless.
This gave MS Office an advantage over Joe Schmo Office
Examples?
Sorry - I'm not rerunning a 17 year-old court case for you. It's all in the documents - really not sure why the aggression.
going to make my gamez run better?
because thats the only real reason the majority of the individual people still run windows, i havent used their aplications since last century, they are all inferior to some randome shareware you can download for free from the net, and i have no use for office whatsoever
lol u fukkin nerd
So no examples. Thought so. Just yet more hyperbole which is why the anti-trust suits based on this actually never went anywhere.
"This isn't like car airbags because Windows is not safety-critical. Your life is not threatened if your Windows PC stops working." That statement assumes a lot, i.e. that your computer is not used to run critical systems that could be controlling things like traffic lights, industrial processes, or medical equipment. You can not know to which use a computer may be tasked.
PlaynBass
If Windows is being used for safety-critical things, whoever made that decision should be jailed, and would certainly be exposed to a huge amount of liability. The Windows EULA clearly states that it is not suitable for safety-critical applications.
That said, some of those things aren't necessarily safety-critical; medical equipment in particular is frequently not. You're not going to die because your GP's blood-pressure and pulse machine blue-screened. (You could die if your infuser pump crapped out in the middle of the night though.) However, I've worked with that kind of equipment and it all runs on small RTOSes.
I hear you. But then, who actually reads the EULAs? LOL!
PlaynBass
No one, but that doesn't keep you from being legally bound by them in case you get into a legal dispute with the vendor. That's the beauty of EULAs: they're great for screwing people over, and even better, no one bothers to read them until it's too late.