Yeah it is. Google's is free, and Apple's is semi-free. Why pay for software when you don't have to? The alternatives are good enough for most, even if you don't go into how much more stable and clean Docs word processing and Pages and Keynote '09 are compared to Office (but Numbers and Docs spreadsheets still suck).
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Microsoft Launches 'Office 365 Personal' Plan for One Mac and One iPad at $69/Year
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Yeah it is. Google's is free, and Apple's is semi-free. Why pay for software when you don't have to? The alternatives are good enough for most, even if you don't go into how much more stable and clean Docs word processing and Pages and Keynote '09 are compared to Office (but Numbers and Docs spreadsheets still suck).
Yep, 139$ for a single copy of Office for Student/Home. You don't automatically get the next version (another 139$) and you don't get it on a tablet. It's only cheaper if you were only using a single license. In that case, just buy it for your traditional PC and call it a day.
Google's doesn't work offline and Apple's isn't really all that cross-platform. That's the huge difference.
Agreed...never said it was the best...just the business standard. There was also a time when WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 were the standards!
Ultimately, it boils down to your needs. I use Word and Excel every single day. I could scrap Word and use other word processing packages, but there would be formatting issues (somewhat easily corrected). But Excel simply is irreplaceable for some people, including me (PivotTables being main functionality I must have for my job).
Just like a truck driver must deal with gas prices, some people have to deal with software licensing.
Except the next version is worthless once you have the first one. There are simply no new features to add to Office, and Microsoft apparently isn't going to fix the performance problems and bugs.
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Actually, Google Docs does work offline (rarely needed), and iWork is cross-platform enough for a single user. If you need to send someone without a Mac your document, use a PDF. It's a good idea to do that even if it's Word-to-Word anyway. Even TextEdit would be good enough if it didn't feel so "sketchy" to use it.
That's weird. Because I swear when I upgraded from 2003 to 2013 there were a tonne of new features. And a load of bug fixes too. Maybe I just imagined them.
They all do the same thing if you ignore the featureset. iPhones and Windows Phones are 100% identical if you ignore the featureset.
You could easily go 6 years between office, or more. Which makes buying any version even cheaper than office 365. Plus you get 7Gb of onedrive free anyway, or 10Gb if you turn on camera roll backup on on your mobile device (which you can then turn back off). All you're missing then is those very important and crucial Skype minutes each month!
lol.
Microsoft Launches 'Office 365 Personal' Plan for One Mac and One iPad at $69...
Unless you're using it for business, 20Gb is not really necessary for office. It's overkill.
My only complaint about office on iOS, as I have said throughout this thread, is the lack of an option for people that do not wish to conform to the subscription model, as it's unsuitable for us. What's wrong with giving people choice?! If you like the subscription, good for you, but it's not for everyone. If anything, microsoft are denying themselves extra income that they are currently not getting from me and many others who refuse to go the subscription route.
Unless you're using it for business, 20Gb is not really necessary for office. It's overkill.
My only complaint about office on iOS, as I have said throughout this thread, is the lack of an option for people that do not wish to conform to the subscription model, as it's unsuitable for us. What's wrong with giving people choice?! If you like the subscription, good for you, but it's not for everyone. If anything, microsoft are denying themselves extra income that they are currently not getting from me and many others who refuse to go the subscription route.
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Only if you don't shop around. Otherwise $69.84
Oh! I stand corrected. I'm too lazy to be a crafty shopper.
Here's a free tip: use TextEdit to open Word docs. Most of the time this works just fine. In fact I often use TextEdit to clean up Word docs for combining with other documents. Convert the document to text and it strips out all the formatting garbage, including the annoying incidence of the Calibri font that seems to appear in every Word document.
I also use TextEdit for most of my raw writing. It's great for using while researching. The window fits whatever screen real estate you've got left over and it doesn't create any formatting artifacts when you paste the text into your finished document.
really? 69? and they plan to compete it with other apps?
I don't think they really think about it as competing with other apps. Their main bread&butter customers are businesses, and office365 subscriptions make sense for businesses generally. And there is no real competitive app for business customers. (sure there will be exceptions, but you can always find exceptions to a general rule)
I don't think they're really serious about home users for Office anymore - at least not garden variety home users who don't already have to use Office due to their jobs. The free or very cheap apps already available have that market - why compete with them?
They probably figure those home users wouldn't pay unless it's in the single dollar digits, and why would they want to impact the price they can sell it to businesses for?? Why drop your price to $9 when you can sell it for $69?/yr? Do you really think they'd get more than 8 times the number of paying customers? I don't. Maybe they'd get 2 or 3 times the number of customers, but not enough to make up the difference.
Sadly this is how the Innovator's Dilemma happens... when you give up your lower-profit customers to disruptive competitors, but don't see them as real competitors until they keep adding enough features to be on par, and then it's too late.
The only unique advantage Office has is full file format compatibility - it's a huge advantage, but someone will eventually be able to do it. (but no, Pages and Google docs and so on really aren't there yet)
The problem is that TextEdit usually cannot understand Word documents involving images or tables. I use it whenever I can just so I don't have to wait for Word to start up, but it sometimes takes some luck.
As for Calibri, I guess changing the default font to Times New Roman will now be on the list of things schools teach students in computer classes.
Right, it isn't for everything, but it's usually what I try first to view the contents. I wonder how many people even know they can do this.
The Calibri mystery. Every Word doc I open in Pages warns me about the presence of the missing Calibri font. I can even select all, change the font for the entire document to something else, save, reopen, and the warning is still there. Where is it hiding? Not in the headers or footers. I've checked.
Well, actually, it is aimed at consumers, since it's the Home/Personal version, which technically is not for commercial use. There's a Small Business subscription that has Exchange support for $149/year, and enterprises pay based on volume for their version.
Personally, I don't care what software used to cost. We are in an "app" world and pricing has changed. This office suite should be a one time 39.99 expense. The subscription model is not sustainable and completely undesirable!
We're in a Flappy Bird world
everything should be free and covered in ads and suck, but since it's free it's all good
recurring revenues yes. but i think the more applicable term is a more sticky ecosystem.
theyre making it easy for you to rebuy their products year after year.
this is contrast to them having to do the marketting every time they release a new version of windows.
make no mistake, if MS 365 takes away the benefit of unlimited updates, noon will go that route and will instead buy the standalone version.
its essentially the same product and ecosystem, but with different payment system that I think works both ways and with the wasteful marketing in between releases bypassed. they're not leeching money off you without giving anything back.. yes theyre not giving handouts but theyre not sneakily stealing money off you for nothing
ps: the present value of $69 in 35 years is $12.50, assuming a flat effective interest rate of 5%. not really 'insignificant.'