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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
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.
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/
The flip side of this is that people want a one-time payment but not a one-time purchase. They don't want to just buy Windows, they want to buy Windows and a multi-year supply of security and bug fixes. This seems like a better model to me: it hopefully gives Microsoft a financial incentive to keep versions of Windows that people actually want to use supported, rather than killing them and pushing people to buy new ones if they want security updates.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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?
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!
Yes, that's true, but shouldn't I expect bug fixes for my one time payment? They sold me a broken product! As far as security goes, I assume we're talking about viruses and trojans; I suppose it's fair to suggest that people pay for additions to their virus and malware protection to account for new threats, but paying for bug fixes has always been a load of BS.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
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.
When they stop offering it NOT bundled, you might have a point.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
To everyone not using Windows it's a joke that keeps getting better every time it is told.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
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.
More accurately: people want a one-time payment to purchase a quality product. The reason they demand a supply of security and bug fixes is because the initial purchased product is defective - it has bugs and security flaws (often latent ones which are not obvious at time of purchase).
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
They don't want to just buy Windows, they want to buy Windows and a multi-year supply of security and bug fixes
I don't want fixes, I want a system that is secure from the beginning.
And be a container for Office. Really, I think it's heading that way.
"England OWNS the USA ? Get your own language and you wouldn't have so many problems. This is why it is third world."
aaaaaaa
Yes, it's still funny :)
In other news, Linux desktop market share doubled lately.
aaaaaaa
on leap days?
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...
They don't want to just buy Windows, they want to buy Windows and a multi-year supply of security and bug fixes.
Hm. I see Microsoft's campaigns have been effective.
People want to buy Windows. They want it to work. They do NOT want security and bug fixes.
If I buy software, I expect it to fully work in all of the ways that it was advertised to work. The thought of endlessly modifying critical system code without full logging of what is being changed and why is not merely a security nightmare from which you can not awaken, it removes all pretense of control from the ostensible owner of said software.
You are not a youngling. I am surprised you are falling for the "and security updates" line... but meh. Principles are hard to find since very few people stick by theirs.
Oh right. No piece of software more complex than "hello world" has bugs. My response to that is that they should have ironed out enough of the bugs to where they can say that the product is fit for sale as advertised... or not sold the software at all. But, that is just me. I have weird notions that nobody else subscribes to anymore. Any excuse will do.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Yes, that's true, but shouldn't I expect bug fixes for my one time payment? They sold me a broken product!
No product is perfect. If you're not happy with the level of service and quality they're providing, then stop supporting that vendor.
There's plenty of companies out there that do a poor job of handling warranty claims by customers.
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
The EULA for Windows specifically disclaims any warranty. You use it at your own risk. So no, there's no legal precedent at all. If you're not happy with the quality of Windows and you're not happy with the level of service and support from MS when you complain, then find a better vendor.
This isn't like car airbags because Windows is not safety-critical. Your life is not threatened if your Windows PC stops working. For a better car analogy, some car brands use poor-quality materials for their interiors, or poor-quality paint for their bodies, so that these cars look worn-out and beat-up after a short time, with pockmarked paint or interior pieces falling off. Do you think you're going to get very far complaining about this stuff to the automaker or the government? Of course not; if you're not happy with it, find another brand.
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.
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).
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?
Perhaps you have users like that where you work, but it's quite a different story every where I've been. Users are...extremely resistant to change, to put it nicely. Actually had one secretary we did manage to upgrade complain loud enough and long enough that we had to revert her back to xp/xp, and that's as recent as 2 years ago.
Given those constraints, I'm a fan of a subscription model.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
They don't sell software, they license it.
Don't blame me, I didn't make the rules.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
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.
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.
Are you willing to pay for it? The current cost record for a formally verified system is held by the NICTA team behind seL4. Their development methodology costs a mere 30 times as much as a current best-practices QA setup. Would you pay $3,000 for a Windows license? Because that's the absolute minimum that it would cost for a bug-free Windows version (and that's assuming that the verification techniques used by seL4 would scale linearly in cost from a 10KLoC project up to a multi million LoC project like Windows).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Option one, buy an OS that will cost around $3,000 - $10,000 per license if you can get enough people to buy it that the volumes are similar to Windows, more otherwise. You'll get a formally verified system and can be sure that it works as intended.
Option 2, buy a cheap COTS OS, such as Windows, Linux or *BSD, and expect that there are bugs. These will be fixed on a triage basis, with the ones that affect the most people being fixed first. If you want to have more control over which ones are fixed then buy a support contract for an open source system that explicitly states that the bugs that affect you will be prioritised (this will likely cost more than a Windows license, and will be a recurring cost, but at least you'll be affected by fewer bugs).
Option 3, buy a verified but much simpler (no power management, no multicore support, no GPU support, few drivers, trivial filesystem) OS for around the same price as a COTS OS ($0-200ish).
You, and most other people, have chosen option 2. You're not willing to pay the cost of developing correct complex software and you're not willing to put up with the limitations of software that's simple enough to be cost effective to verify.
My response to that is that they should have ironed out enough of the bugs to where they can say that the product is fit for sale as advertised... or not sold the software at all
A number of the security fixes in Windows (and *NIX) over a typical deployment are against attacks that didn't exist when the product first shipped. Are you saying that they should have a QA system that predicts which future attack vectors will exist and protects against them? Other bugs only show up when software does sequences of operations that no software in existence at the time of shipping performed. Some of these can be found with fuzz testing, but that's always a probabilistic approach because the total sequence of possible combinations is infeasible (within the lifetime of the universe) to search exhaustively.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.