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

Great deal, although it was a good deal at $99. This has much better value. Just the storage alone is almost the entire amount. Apple charges $40 for 20gb, which is included in Microsofts $69, essentially making Office $29 and that's even before you value the Skype minutes.

Anyone griping about $29, or $2.41/month is just bellyaching over nothing IMO.
 
pubwvj said:
Good job Microsoft. Adobe needs to do the same thing. Their software is way, way too expensive for the occasional user.
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Adobe's software isn't for the occasional user, unless you count Photoshop Elements or something.
 
Razeus said:
Please don't ever start a business with this line of thinking.

You see, business have to give what people want combined with how the business plans to stay in business - a balancing act.

But of course if MS offered this for free, they would have to data mine your documents to sell ads. And we know how you all feel about that (unless it's Apple).
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I basically second that, as this wasn't my main point. Payment models like this emerged (again) lately, same with the freemium app model.

People don't really like it. If these are users that are not well informed I cannot judge basically. But download in contrast to revenue statistics do point to this fact.

As a bottom line, I'm happy to see competition again.
 
Michael Goff said:
Yes, we know you think Office sucks. You come into every thread that has to do with iWork, Office, Google Docs, or anything else to proclaim at the tuop of your lungs that Office sucks.
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I have never mentioned Google Docs even once. But nice try with the insult thing. It isn't an argument, but if it makes you feel better, knock yourself out.
 
I doubt very many people will buy a subscription just to have Office on their iPad. The applications are necessarily watered-down to accommodate the touch UI. I am not saying this is a bad thing......just a necessity to be touch first. However, if you are going to use an Office app that is not full featured, then why not just use iWorks for free? The answer, of course, is that you have other devices and you want compatibility with documents on those devices. Ergo, the subscription pricing model was implemented. Very simple. Now, we can argue price, but I get the logic behind the pricing model.
 
For those of you complaining about the cost, or offering work arounds such as Libre Office or iWork, please take your blinders off for a moment.

MS Office is the standard for business use. Period. This cannot be argued. Of course there are work arounds, and potential methods to assuring formatting is maintained (such as printing to a PDF vs sending a DOC). But they are workarounds. And those workarounds cost time to implement, and therefore cost money.

Further, if you are attempting to compare the cost of the subscription, be it $69, $99, whatever, and you cannot justify that cost, then use a work around. If that works for you, so be it.

The vast majority of business people, not home users or individuals, must have MS Office. As such, the subscription is a "cost of doing business". Whether you think it is too much, that's opinion. However, for people that must use the software, it is relatively inexpensive compared to the daily and mandatory use.
 
teknikal90 said:
how does it suck though? other than price.
i have to say that i cant think of many pieces of software, outside of safari that is more stable than MS office, on Mac os X

even itunes is not as reliable to me (iphone sync, itunes store connection etc etc)
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I am mainly talking about Word here, because I have to look at Word documents all the time. They are almost 100% clueless and would look no worse if they'd been written on a typewriter. My takeaway is that the vast majority of people are intimidated by Word. Lots of features, poorly implemented. They'd be better off using a word processor with fewer features better implemented. Power spreadsheet users aren't going to settle for anything less than Excel. I totally get that. But what percentage of Excel owners are power users? Not many. I haven't heard anyone champion PowerPoint over Keynote. Maybe someone wants take up that difficult case.
 
iSee said:
you're always going to need the latest version of Office anyway and you assume Microsoft will make frequent useful updates.
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what on earth has been improved in office in the last couple of years? what kind of marvellous new features have been added?
the only thing i noticed was to put a useless round button in the middle of nothing, hide all standard menus, and produce an ever-changing set of hard-to-decode franken-menu-tabs, a UI nightmare. yeah, and boost file sizes.

change tracking is still present and still useless. most of the time it just shows that someone replaced the font with a bigger font, or changed normal to bold. come on.

am i the only one around here who cries out for a real change tracker? at least there could be an option to show changes which affect the content, and not only the formatting?

i hate subscriptions modell, as adobe and ms uses it. iWork was not a free app. i bought '06. then i needed more, so i bought '08. i could have been using this for the rest of my life, but i had the desire to own '09... so i made a decision and bought it. but i still could be using the first one version if it satisfies my needs. no one is forcing me to upgrade.

i could imagine a subscription model for the same pricing where i receive updates, like once a year, and i could quit anytime i want, and keep whatever i had ad the certain point of time. no more free updates, whatever.
it's not like car leasing, where you pay a monthly/yearly fee which can't really be compared to the car's original price. but $99 was the retail price of ms office, right? basically i could be buying the sw each year for $99.

but wait, how does it look like with mac and office? what was the last version? 2007 or was it 2011? no "new versions" for 3 years for the platform = no sales for the platform by the current customers...
 
nikaru said:
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.
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If you haven't noticed, most major software makers are moving to subscription. That kick-butt video editor like an Adobe CC is $50/month. So $7 for an office suite isn't unreasonable.
 
JAT said:
What they really mean is "not a user".
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Seems about right.

IJ Reilly said:
Trolling? No. But whenever I suggest that Office shouldn't be stapled onto our foreheads the moment we are born, somebody always gets angry and defensive.
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That isn't even what your posts seem to suggest you're saying. You come in, say Office is worth NOTHING TO YOU, then continue on about how iWork does everything you need it to. It's like you're saying, which you probably will deny, that there's no point in using Office period.

And you do this in every single thread.
 
Michael Goff said:
That isn't even what your posts seem to suggest you're saying. You come in, say Office is worth NOTHING TO YOU, then continue on about how iWork does everything you need it to. It's like you're saying, which you probably will deny, that there's no point in using Office period.

And you do this in every single thread.
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I can easily "deny" things I've never said, but it would be redundant, and should be completely unnecessary. Of course you could read any of my posts on this topic for my actual opinion, including the last one. That should help you understand what I am saying, which is quite different than what it "seems to suggest" to you. This assumes some degree of interest and open-mindedness on your part, neither of which am I assuming.
 
IJ Reilly said:
I am mainly talking about Word here, because I have to look at Word documents all the time. They are almost 100% clueless and would look no worse if they'd been written on a typewriter. My takeaway is that the vast majority of people are intimidated by Word. Lots of features, poorly implemented. They'd be better off using a word processor with fewer features better implemented. Power spreadsheet users aren't going to settle for anything less than Excel. I totally get that. But what percentage of Excel owners are power users? Not many. I haven't heard anyone champion PowerPoint over Keynote. Maybe someone wants take up that difficult case.
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Hmm...I'm no fan of Word, and barely have to use it in my life, or any word processor. But this entire comment is about users, not software. And that type of user can't handle any software, IME.
 
Ish

I don't mind subscription music, but I do despise subscription software because it feels like they are holding my data hostage. I had a flickr account and other cloud based accounts and the minute you stop paying you lose all your data. No thanks.
 
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