Microsoft Paying Apple 30-Percent Cut on In-App Office 365 Subscription Purchases

[JoeRito]

The Office 365 subscription is beyond stupid. Everyone hates it

I loathe it... However, word and excel are significantly BETTER than the iWork equivalents, so far after several hours use anyway. Keynote is still as good or better than PowerPoint. I wish I could buy Excel a la carte and not deal with the other apps and with subscriptions.

 

[scaredpoet]

People have no problem with magazine or newspaper subscription, but cannot accept software subscription.

I'm okay with a magazine or newspaper subscription if I can keep permanent, non expiring copies of the content I subscribed to. If everything goes away the moment I stop paying, then I have a problem with it.

People have no problem of shelving $700+ for a new iPhone annually for the new features, but cannot accept software subscription.

Again, because an iPhone is physical hardware. If I decide to pay Apple a single red cent after buying the hardware, the phone doesn't cease to function.

Seriously, software subscription is not new idea and it is not going away. The entire industry is shift away from old method to subscription method.

There eventually will be a backlash to this. Enterprise groups AND legitimate home users, rare as they may be, don't upgrade every software cycle, but the subscription model forces them to. Many may choose to simply do without, or (dare I say it?) look at open source alternatives.

It's a money grab, plain and simple.

Anyway: MY main problem with Office 365 and Office for iPad is that it's tied to OneDrive. That's nice, but quite a lot of the people I work with are heavily invested in dropbox. And so am I.

Frankly, Microsoft can charge me the same amount and foist OneDrive storage on me that I'll never use. That's perfectly fine. But I'd like to also have the option to use Dropbox as well. Without this capability, I'm still tied to my desktop to transfer files on OneDrive over to dropbox and back.

Between iCloud, dropbox and OneDrive, the cloud is getting siloed and fragmented.

 

[Rogifan]

Apple jumped all over this product as soon as it was released. It's already "featured" in the App Store. What's wrong with Pages, Apple? LOL

And if Apple didn't highlight it people would complain that they're purposely trying to bury it. I'm sure Apple is quite happy to see Office on iPad as it takes away one of Microsoft's advertising points - that iPad is just a toy for consumption, not for productivity and content creation.

 

[Bigsargewaymo7]

This is Ridiculous!

Microsoft loves losing money. They are morons, seriously! Adobe did the same thing. Adobe has more of a leg to stand on but what Microsoft doesn't understand is that nobody likes paying for a subscription. We want a one time fee. $10 a month!?!?!?! Try $10 per Office App you want ie. Excel, Power Point, & Word would be $30. Then, call it good FOR-EVVVV-ERRRR, FORRR -EVVVVV -ERRR (Said like Squintz Paliadorous). F subscriptions. Microsoft is too greedy and their greed is catching up with them. Days of charging $300 for their Operating Systems because businesses relied on your product are over!!!! You are going down Microsoft.... It doesn't have to be like that bub!

 

[Alexjones]

I have a monthly subscription to Adobe CC Photoshop for mac. It works so smooth on the retina Macbook pro. It cost $29.95 a month with the option to cancel at anytime or $19.95/month with a one year commitment. . My point? Subscriptions are not as bad of an idea as one may think. Try it

 

[MisakixMikasa]

I'm okay with a magazine or newspaper subscription if I can keep permanent, non expiring copies of the content I subscribed to. If everything goes away the moment I stop paying, then I have a problem with it.

Your content won't go away. It is stored in One Drive which is not part of Office 365. When your subscription expired, you just loss the ability to edit the documents. You can still access your documents on One Drive and downloaded to your computer.

Again, because an iPhone is physical hardware. If I decide to pay Apple a single red cent after buying the hardware, the phone doesn't cease to function.

Well, it is true. But after few years, your iPhone just as useless.

There eventually will be a backlash to this. Enterprise groups AND legitimate home users, rare as they may be, don't upgrade every software cycle, but the subscription model forces them to. Many may choose to simply do without, or (dare I say it?) look at open source alternatives.

It's a money grab, plain and simple.

Anyway: MY main problem with Office 365 and Office for iPad is that it's tied to OneDrive. That's nice, but quite a lot of the people I work with are heavily invested in dropbox. And so am I.

Frankly, Microsoft can charge me the same amount and foist OneDrive storage on me that I'll never use. That's perfectly fine. But I'd like to also have the option to use Dropbox as well. Without this capability, I'm still tied to my desktop to transfer field on OneDrive over to dropbox and back.

Between iCloud, dropbox and OneDrive, the cloud is getting siloed and fragmented.

How is this money grabbing? I fail to understand that completely. Office 365 is not new nor the price scheme is new. I haven't heard lots of backslash of that. If there is, Microsoft would drop Office 365 completely. If you are the type of person only buying Office 2010 and use it forever, then Office 365 is not really for you. But if you even want use Microsoft Office in different devices without paying multiple copies, Office 365 is perfect.

 

[shandyman]

The office 365 subscription comes with the same apps as Office Pro (which retails for $399 here in the US). So $99 a year vs $399 is cheaper.

You're forgetting that you can install on five machines for $99/year with an Office 365 subscription. For a single user, the subscription model is more expensive. For a small business or a home with multiple computers, it makes sense. So, is it for everyone? No. Is someone "insane" because they think it's a better deal for them? Absolutely not. The math works for some people and doesn't for others.

HUP, which a lot of companies use, allows a laptop and a computer for £8.95 and that's office pro. So yea, office 365 is a rip off.

The average home user doesn't have 5 pcs, so that's a bit superfluous. I'm basing on the casual home user as these are the people who are the main iPad audience. Same reason I pointed out that office 365 is a rip off for the standard home user in comparison to the home version of office. iPad only has word, excel and PowerPoint.

I'm not saying small businesses are not better off with office 365. I'm just saying that the average (and majority of) iPad user is being ripped off if they went for office 365.

 

[JoeRito]

iWork for free or make 30% on Office???

So Apple can spend money on developing iWorks only to give it away for free or..... Make 30% off of MS Office purchases.... Hmmm I think we've seen the last of the development of iWorks.

 

[InfoTime]

I will continue to use Office 2003 for my PC that I got used for $17 for the rest of my life. No need to upgrade, ever.

Did you just upgrade from WordStar and VisiCalc?

 

[Liquorpuki]

Microsoft loves losing money. They are morons, seriously! Adobe did the same thing. Adobe has more of a leg to stand on but what Microsoft doesn't understand is that nobody likes paying for a subscription. We want a one time fee. $10 a month!?!?!?! Try $10 per Office App you want ie. Excel, Power Point, & Word would be $30. Then, call it good FOR-EVVVV-ERRRR, FORRR -EVVVVV -ERRR (Said like Squintz Paliadorous). F subscriptions. Microsoft is too greedy and their greed is catching up with them. Days of charging $300 for their Operating Systems because businesses relied on your product are over!!!! You are going down Microsoft.... It doesn't have to be like that bub!

^--- complains about subscriptions

but I bet he pays $25/yr for iTunes match

probably sub'd to mobileme back in the day too

 

[boast]

About 90% of the software used at my company are licenses we pay each year. And just about every other silicon engineering company does the same. If your company can't fork over the money for an Office subscription, you probably didn't need it and could use a cheaper/free alternative. If office is helping you pull in a couple grand a day at your business, it is well worth the cost.

 

[seanjs]

So where is Outlook? I want a better mail system and for those of us using Exchange, having Outlook on the iPhone would be awesome.

Apple's mail client works fine, but I hate not being able to drag an email into the calendar, for example. I'm sure there are several other power user features they could add (setting up simple Exchange rules, for example).

 

[yourtoys7]

dont care, won't get it even if its free!

 

[iHEARTcartoons]

Nadella is a very smart leader for MS. One might argue that he single handedly, by taking the Office on any device approach, made sure that Office will not be dethroned anytime soon regardless of free alternatives.

 

[exizeo]

Because there's a lot of people who probably expected them not to (and do something similar to the Kindle app for iDevices).

Which is?

 

[leepalisoc]

I think "everyone" is a bit hyperbolic! Office 365 is excellent value for small businesses - I use it for my company and it is very cost effective.

We're talking about the "subscription" here in order to use the software. The software is okay. I like Microsoft Office. But who wants to pay every month/year just to use it? It'll be more okay if they just asked for donation.

 

[QCassidy352]

Not for me. If it were a reasonable one-time fee, maybe. But I'd be using Office for iPad at most as an emergency stand-in (much rather do real work on a desktop OS), and I'm not going to get billed on an ongoing basis for something I'd only use in a pinch. I guess that just means I'm not MS' target customer, but I'm one they could have had with a non-subscription, reasonably-priced standard cost.

 

[HMI]

I can confirm it works with the $79 for four years student subscription.

And, I was able to run the "Office Mobile" (for iPhone) on my iPad, which allows for free document viewing/creation/editing/saving without a Office 365 subscription.

Though, after looking at it for a few minutes, I still prefer iWork, and might just delete it.

Some people might like it for small editing of documents created elsewhere, without the need for any subscriptions, but it's not much of a solution for anything serious.

 

[brianvictor7]

30% for Apple on in-app purchases? That's pwnage.

 

[MisakixMikasa]

HUP, which a lot of companies use, allows a laptop and a computer for £8.95 and that's office pro. So yea, office 365 is a rip off.

The average home user doesn't have 5 pcs, so that's a bit superfluous. I'm basing on the casual home user as these are the people who are the main iPad audience. Same reason I pointed out that office 365 is a rip off for the standard home user in comparison to the home version of office. iPad only has word, excel and PowerPoint.

I'm not saying small businesses are not better off with office 365. I'm just saying that the average (and majority of) iPad user is being ripped off if they went for office 365.

Average home likely have one an one computer. Then Office 365 is better choice instead you buying individual copies of office home and student edition which gives you only one computer for each licensee.

----------

We're talking about the "subscription" here in order to use the software. The software is okay. I like Microsoft Office. But who wants to pay every month/year just to use it? It'll be more okay if they just asked for donation.

Whatever it is, you either paying 300 for single copy with 1 computer or $100 for each year with multiple device. You are paying to use the software anyway. It is just different way if paying.

 

[brdeveloper]

Who really needs paying for an Office suite these days? I'm pretty happy with LibreOffice, it has nearly the same or even more functionality than the MS app.

 

[r3m1]

Who really needs paying for an Office suite these days? I'm pretty happy with LibreOffice, it has nearly the same or even more functionality than the MS app.

Ignorance is bliss

 

[MisakixMikasa]

Who really needs paying for an Office suite these days? I'm pretty happy with LibreOffice, it has nearly the same or even more functionality than the MS app.

LiberOffice has roughly 10% of MS office functionalities

 

[mgreernz]

Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye...

NZ$164.99 every year, just so that I have access to editing documents on my iPad? You’ve gotta be joking. Microsoft, I’m outta here. I’ve been a Mac user of MS Office since 1988, upgrading as and when new versions arrived. But as a small business enterprise, I’m not renting software. Not from you. Not from Adobe. Not from no-one. You’ve just lost a customer. You and Adobe have got a lot to learn. You’re no longer the only game in town. Thanks for the memories.

 

[wingsabre]

$79.99 subscription for 2 computers, and 2 tablets for 4 years in formats that's universally used in institutions.

vs

"free" basic text editing program that may give you formatting errors when you submit them to your professor/boss/employer.

I've been paying for the subscription without any issue, because in the long run, it'll save me from a bunch of headaches. iWorks is ok, but it's still looks funky when you try to export it to a PC or an Android device.