Microsoft Launches 'Office 365 Personal' Plan for One Mac and One iPad at $69/Year

[KUguardgrl13]

I hope they do something for students! I only need licenses for one Mac and one iPad! I have 2011 currently, but having the most up to date version that's also on my iPad would be nice. But at the same time my 2011 license was $12 for a single license through my school... Hard to beat that good deal!!

 

[AppleWarMachine]

as others have said , $69 is still to high

 

[Renzatic]

But I have to wonder: once a substantial number of people get locked in to a subscription model, doesn't MS's incentive to come out with useful new features go down? They'll no longer have to convince you to buy a new version based on how great it is. (You'll have paird for it already anyway.) They just have to keep from sucking so much that you finally decide to endure the distruption of switching to something else.

Depends on how many people pay month to month, or on a yearly basis. When you're subscribing to something, you begin to work under the assumption that you're getting your moneys worth on a month to month basis. If they only continue to provide it as-is and never update it for years on end, or if they never fix any bugs that might arise, people will quit subscribing to it.

Remember, subscribing to something is nearly the total opposite of being locked in. An SAAS setup has to provide something worthwhile to you, and continually provide it to you over an extended period of time to keep you subscribing.

 

[Woyzeck]

I don't think that 7$ per month is expensive for what you get. Considering the included cloud storage plan (compare that to the less-usable iCloud data plan which costs 40$ annually) it's really competitively priced.

If you're doing real-life business outside of the media-world there's no way to survive without MS Office.

 

[Old Muley]

Quite frankly, I don't know that O365 does anything that would justify my move away from my fully-paid-for version of Office 11. For the little bit of writing I do on my iPad, it almost always done out of convenience; the real work still gets done on my desktop/laptop.

 

[SmileyBlast!]

I can't really see a scenario where I will need to do more than view a MicroSoft Office Document on my iPad. If I need to work with a Word or Excel document can't I just import them into Pages and Numbers?

And then can they exported into the formats?

The free Office Apps are just fine. I don't ever think I will have to pay that yearly fee.

But I do have access to lots of PC's with Windows MS Office on them...

 

[santaliqueur]

Do they all do the same? No not 100%.

For home, personal, school stuff do they all provide enough functionality to get it done? Yes, absolutely.

For work, if you do pivot tables and VB scripting in Excel will Google or Apple work for you? No way, but you represent only 1% of the user base.

Do I think that interviewing myself is a good way to get my point across? Yes I do.

 

[Woyzeck]

Having to use OneDrive for files on the iPad is a deal killer. Yet another data silo

At least you're allowed to store files there. Apple's iCloud (which sells for 40$ for a whopping 20GB per year) is almost useless for many users.

 

[JAT]

Ok Microsoft. Now give me the chance of purchasing a lifetime license, like in past years...

Because i'd rather pay 99-199 bucks one time, than 69 bucks every mf year.

They do still offer this. Student Edition, what, $130?

 

[iisdan]

Pages/keynote is better and cheaper...

 

[nikaru]

$7/mo with no commitment is pretty good.

Good? 84$ a year is good for a office suit? For a lifetime use, it may be cool, but not for a year. And again, its a office suit, not a professional bad@ass video editing software or something like that. 30$ its what its worth it, the full bundle, for a lifetime use. More that that, its a robery.

 

[Stella]

I can't really see a scenario where I will need to do more than view a MicroSoft Office Document on my iPad. If I need to work with a Word or Excel document can't I just import them into Pages and Numbers?

Depending on the complexity of document, the conversion is not 100%, especially between excel -> numbers - where numbers does not support all Excel's formulas.

 

[KanosWRX]

Still way to expensive!! After 5 years its $350 dollars!! People don't upgrade office that often to justify the price, and MS knows that. Hence this new pricing model. It's a shame they are killing off Office this way as people are going to start looking for alternatives.

 

[Renzatic]

They do still offer this. Student Edition, what, $130?

They have a student edition subscription, which is around $20 for 4 years access.

 

[dysamoria]

No. As i said on the AA article: I will not pay subscription fees to use anyone's software, ever.

 

[everything-i]

You can score O365 licenses at a decent discount on Amazon, or via an educational purchase.

I’m assuming we’ll see the personal product discounted as well through the same channels, so maybe in the $45-49 range.

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Funny, I just had to revise some _ancient_ Visio diagrams, didn’t want to redo them from scratch and I no longer had an active license.

Downloaded Libre Office, near perfect import, made my changes, exported to HTML and PDF. Done.

... and FREE

Visio sucks big time, and free options getting better and better all the time.

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Depending on the complexity of document, the conversion is not 100%, especially between excel -> numbers - where numbers does not support all Excel's formulas.

Import into Libre Office is far better, and that's free too.

 

[Scootir2]

Sounds about $69.00 too expensive...

Now that there is good compatibility between the free Apple apps and google's offerings, I think MS needs to come to terms with the fact their days of milking their customers for basic (and now horribly bloated) applications are numbered.

 

[csjcsj]

It was with much sadness that I said goodbye to Adobe when they instituted a subscription plan for their software, and it will be not-so-sad saying goodby to Microsoft. I'm not going to spend that much money for software I don't own. I'm happy to skip one the newest (and not necessarily better) version for one I know can stay on my computer.

 

[crsh1976]

The fabled subscription-for-everything model gone adrift, it doesn't work. Trust MS to not only be years late to the game, but coming up with the less sensible plan possible - and that's from a company that owns a business standard most people would prefer to stick to if it made sense for them,

 

[Larry-K]

I don't like buying in the first place, but I'm sure not paying for it every month.

Take a hike Microsoft.

 

[ironpw]

software is now overpriced like a cable bill

Subscription model is a huge gouge to the consumer.

 

[JAT]

Typical Microsoft with lots of different prices and versions to confuse customers.

I really wish they'd offer a simple one subscription to rule them all at a fair price.

And I wish the truck I'm shopping cost the same as a Civic. But it doesn't.

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They have a student edition subscription, which is around $20 for 4 years access.

Right, but I was answering a Q about a non-subscription version.

 

[dannyyankou]

I'll pass.

 

[dugbug]

No new office suite
Rental model

*slaps forehead*

well at least they are thinking about us

 

[Michael Goff]

No one likes this, and M$ doesn't really seem to care.

They did an AMA on Reddit last week and they got roasted.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/22iu9n/we_are_the_microsoft_office_for_ipad_team_ask_us/

"Nobody likes it, my proof is the fact that some people on reddit didn't like it."

That's not proof.

Exactly. Not aure why I would pay for MS office on a Mac when I can use Libre Office for free.

If LO does what you need it to do, you're not going to use Skype minutes or the storage, I guess it's a good deal for LO.

as others have said , $69 is still to high

It really shouldn't be, but some people seem think you shouldn't have to pay for software.

At least you're allowed to store files there. Apple's iCloud (which sells for 40$ for a whopping 20GB per year) is almost useless for many users.

And don't forget the extra 20GB you get per year in OneDrive space in Office365.

Now that there is good compatibility between the free Apple apps and google's offerings, I think MS needs to come to terms with the fact their days of milking their customers for basic (and now horribly bloated) applications are numbered.

Milking? They're charging 69$ a year for 2 programs, 60 minutes of Skype time per month, and 20gb worth of space.

Subscription model is a huge gouge to the consumer.

Once again, no it isn't.

I don't like buying in the first place, but I'm sure not paying for it every month.

Take a hike Microsoft.

So you think software makers should work for free? Or should they all be like Google and do advertising?

Hint: That wouldn't work anyway.