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For the First Time, Microsoft Got More Revenue From Office 365 Subscriptions Than From Traditional Office Software Licensing (axios.com)
Ina Fried, reporting for Axios: Shares of Microsoft hit record territory in after-hours trading on Thursday, topping $75 a share, after the software giant's better-than-expected financial results. As has been the case for the last several quarters, strength in Microsoft's cloud business, including Office 365 and Windows Azure, was the key to the company's growth. Of note, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood told analysts that, for the first time, Microsoft got more revenue from Office 365 subscriptions than from traditional Office software licensing. Why it matters: Microsoft has shown an ability to grow its business even as the PC market has stalled, reflecting moves the company made in the cloud both since Satya Nadella took over as CEO as well as some that were in place before he took over the top spot.
Because they practically force MS-Cloud down your throat. They know you need MS-Office to be compatible with all your existing MS documents, yet you can't go to another vendor if you want reasonable desktop pricing.
Table-ized A.I.
98% of the people who use office simply type letters and notes, maybe make a simple spreadsheet or two. Openoffice is entirely up to the task.
I really have to give Microsoft credit, figuring out a way to make people pay rent on something as simple as a word processor.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
It is precisely THAT kind of thinking that is going to possibly eventually *doom* us all to perpetual, rental of software, rather than ownership (perpetual license if you're picky)...and that is NOT a good thing for consumers.
Once the companies have you trapped in rental..they really have no incentive to improve and innovate now do they?
We've seen it with Adobe's Creative Cloud rental system....you haven't seen any truly breakthrough improvements to date. Yes, they roll out some nice things here and there, but nothing that is earthshaking. I've certainly not found I miss anything by still using my CS6 apps I bought.
And we've seen problems with Adobe CC...they will roll stuff out that breaks on peoples systems, and well....you're SOL till they can get an online fix out, meanwhile, you lose business.
There are also people who've lost out by having their registration get lost in the system or broken, and again...they are SOL till customer service can help, and well, I think with most of these places we know the terms "customer service" and "help" are mutually exclusive terms.
I can see it going this way with ANY software rental.
The best way to avoid this is to pay with your wallet.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
We switched to Office365 this month from 2010, and our end users are sick of it. They complain about re-authentication, along with bugs and other issues. Many people are switching back to our Google webmail instead.
For us, the price point is higher than where we want to be, given all the SaaS crap we are stuck with. I expect a defection inside a year.
Okay. I bought a retail boxed copy of Office 2010 Home some years ago. Let's say 2012, since otherwise it would be Office 2013. It specifically allows me to install it on multiple computers (three to five, I can't remember; I only have it one two). I don't remember exactly what I paid anymore, but let's pretend it was $150 (that's what a standalone copy costs now). That means I've had use of this software for five years at an amortized cost of $30/year. That cost per year continues going down every year that I still use 2010--and I will, because at the moment, I don't perceive that there have been any great advances in word processing technology in the last 7 years. The cost of Office 365 Home is $100 per year. That really doesn't sound like a better deal to me.
And if you want to be a smart grown up, you don't pay more for things than you need to, especially by paying over and over again for things you can just pay for once.
If we want good, open, free alternatives, it helps a lot to donate to the projects.
I donate to Debian, KDE, LibreOffice, GnuPG, and more.
Even for OSS projects, being able to fund developers makes a big difference. Put your money where your mouth is. Stop giving money to Microsoft, start giving money to OSS. At least the latter will respect your rights (*) and not treat you as the enemy.
(*) insert systemd joke here.
I explicitly convert everything down to a common standard.
Last time a legal department sent me a Signed PDF which wanted to open some JavaScript and talk to Adobe servers and then I should create an account with Adobe while Adobe held onto my public/private key for signing.
I opened the PDF in a non-Adobe product, saved and signed it with a copy of my real signature (which the app happily took from the camera), sent it back. It thoroughly broke their automatic processing but they went on with it (insert Johnny Tables reference here) because nobody at the office understood why it wasn't working (it looked like I signed it after all).
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
and is equal or less in cost when amortized against one-off purchases of boxed software
Maybe if you're upgrading every year? Which we all know is completely unnecessary. Office 2016 Home & Student is $149 and Office 365 Personal is $6.99/mo. That means if you keep your office version for two years, it is cheaper to buy a boxed copy than pay for a subscription. No one would argue you could easily use the same version of Office for TWICE that period of time.
This is rent seeking, plain and simple. They're trying to structure it in such a way to increase your cost unnecessarily and force you to make purchases you wouldn't have otherwise needed.
What happens if you miss a payment or stop all-together? Does the program stop working? I'm guessing the cloud storage might stop allowing new files but who knows