I hope Microsoft is paying them a lot. Have you seen how much Microsoft makes from office. So easy for them as it is a monopoly.
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Microsoft to Stop Supporting Office 2016 for Mac in October
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I hope Microsoft is paying them a lot. Have you seen how much Microsoft makes from office. So easy for them as it is a monopoly.
Apple_Robert
Contributor
No, I haven’t seen how much profit Microsoft is making off Office. What is the percentage?
I don’t think Microsoft is a monopoly but, they do have a good going with Office 365.
I don't like it either, but it's in their best interest to have subscription models verses one time buy.
That is likely why Microsoft chose to bundle all of it into a single subscription service. You are not getting just Office anymore, but also OneDrive storage space. Given how unreasonably expensive the standalone licences are in direct comparison and that Microsoft is not selling those licences for mobile devices at all, it is obvious that is what Microsoft is betting on. Office is effectively free if you just need the OneDrive storage, especially if you choose a family subscription.
It is the same thing with iWork and Google Docs. I would never recommend Office to anyone anymore for this reason alone, unless they specifically need interoperability with Office formats (which is still a problem for other programs or services) or require advanced functionality that only Office has, such as in Excel or more generally Visual Basic support.
LibreOffice is such a mixed bag though. The user experience and interface are still rubbish after all these years. It works on some level, but it is not a pleasant experience.
TheOldChevy
macrumors 6502a
I remember when an office suite (Microsoft or Lotus) was $600. So paying $70 per year for a maintained and security updated office suite... 25 years later, it's not a bad deal.
Libre Office is better than any of them. Add Thunderbird as your Outlook alternative too. All free.
oneMadRssn
macrumors 603
I agree with you, but I don't think Microsoft will ever admit it like that directly. It's essentially saying they're bundling cloud storage to their Office monopoly to unfairly disadvantage other cloud storage competitors. That's flying awfully close to antitrust violations. Their only saving grace is they don't have a monopoly in the mobile market, and they still offer standalone Office in the laptop/desktop market; though I'm sure motivated regulators can see it differently too.
Hastings101
macrumors 68020
Lucky. I’ve been stuck with it most of my life beginning in university then into the freelancing scene and now working in education. Office compatibility apparently makes the world go ‘round. At least there’s the online version for free now, but it doesn’t even work with headers and footers.
Michael Scrip
macrumors G3
Exactly.
It's like I'm paying Microsoft $100/year for OneDrive... but I also get the entire Office Suite as a bonus.
Plus I can install Office on multiple machines... which is great because I need Powerpoint on a couple laptops for live video production.
And I can share my Microsoft subscription with friends... giving them 1TB of OneDrive and all the Office apps too.
Or..... I can pay Dropbox $100/year and only get Dropbox. And only for me... not anyone else.
I know some people hate the idea of subscriptions... but Microsoft is doing it right, in my opinion. 👍
jamie0610
macrumors member
I will likely upgrade. Not because I think any new features are of use to me but because I value the security updates and the importance they bring to the rest of my data. What does frustrate/confuse me is:
1) I bought in 2017 Office Home/Student in 2016 for £42. In 2018 it went up in price to £92. It looks like today Office 2019 will cost £83. So it has doubled in price in the last 3 years
2) Apple have shared Microsoft have a native version of Office running on ARM based Macs. When switching to Arm Macs I would like to run native apps meaning that Office 2019 will likely be superseded by an Office 2020? Is that another £90?
Anyone any advice/thoughts?
1) I bought in 2017 Office Home/Student in 2016 for £42. In 2018 it went up in price to £92. It looks like today Office 2019 will cost £83. So it has doubled in price in the last 3 years
2) Apple have shared Microsoft have a native version of Office running on ARM based Macs. When switching to Arm Macs I would like to run native apps meaning that Office 2019 will likely be superseded by an Office 2020? Is that another £90?
Anyone any advice/thoughts?
LeeW
macrumors 601
Having a family of 5 and all using office it is the one subscription I have zero issues paying £79.99 per year for. Each person can install Office on up to 5 different devices and 1TB of one drive for all. It's a subscription that I do believe provides value.
Nicole1980
Suspended
I seriously wonder if this has caused a jump the amount of people who use torrent sites to download cracked versions of programs like office or the adobe suite, etc.
By going subscription only are they more or less pushing some people to steal their software so they can actually own it and not just rent it?
People that might have otherwise paid a One time fee To own the software legitimately?
the_color_orange
macrumors regular
I'll stop using it once I graduate from the university. Currently, I don't mind this since my tuition pays for it.
ikir
macrumors 68020
It is always better to update for many reason. If you are still on Mojave for Office just use Pages/Numbers/keynote, OpenOffice or buy Microsoft Office for last time.
Rocko99991
macrumors 68000
LibreOffice. Don't touch OpenOffice.
If you're on a Mac then Apple's own suite is also free.
Office is not subscription only. They also still offer it for a one time fee.
Shirasaki
macrumors P6
sracer
macrumors G4
I remember those days too. I also remember that those suites had a long effective life. Although I have O365 and use the latest on my "main" systems, I also have MS Office 2007 Professional that I use on the rest of my Windows 10 systems (because the main part of that suite, Word/Excel/PowerPoint weighs in at under 1GB total). File interchange between the two versions is fine... even for documents with advanced formatting.
One reason for Microsoft discontinuing support for Office 2016 for Mac is to push customers over to their subscription model. It provides Microsoft with a more steady revenue stream (rather than blips periodically when they produce an upgrade), and a more simplified support structure.
No one should be mistaken, subscriptions benefit the company more than they do the consumer.
Maximara
macrumors 68000
I went to OpenOffice and then LibreOffice the moment I could. Have never looked back.
Shirasaki
macrumors P6
I subscribe to Microsoft 365 (business premium, $17 AUD/mo) and uses corporate email address as well as SharePoint etc... Since I’m the single and only user in my “organisation”, 99% of the features are useless to me, except a bit of MDM, corporate email management, a bit of SharePoint stuff and OneDrive, oh, and full fledge office software.
I use office software enough to justify the cost of it as well as all other services. So I still subscribe to it. But for other software, a perpetual license is still my preferred choice as I don’t need to pay for update service again And again. One example is Acronis Backup and Restore, a more advanced version of Acronis True Image, with business level feature support and tape backup support. It is amazing, but paying $100 (before tax btw) per year is too much for me.
I always see subscription as a justification for teenagers to satisfy their “instant gratification” mindset: pay the money, boom, “music/video/games (still need to download lol)/services”. Owning stuff means I get what I like at that moment, with some reasonably long support attached to it.
For this article, Microsoft has all rights to stop supporting software, and they have sent notifications to business subscription administrators (like me) before notifying them the deprecation of older versions. For home users however, I don’t see much point paying for subscription just to use office occasionally. Perpetual license is still a thing, and OneDrive isn’t that necessary for most people. Maybe the added value worths it, but it depends on each users use case.
In summary, I certainly see the world is slowly moving towards full subscription model with a bit of perpetual license thing and a bit of ownership floating around. But as of now, just because Microsoft stops supporting office 2016 doesn’t mean you are forced to jump the subscription ship. That’s not what is happening. And for home users, there’s no need to panic.
needsomecoffee
macrumors 6502a
Very strong second vote for LibreOffice. Funny story: I use an older version of Office on my Mac. Wanted to analyze some education salaries using a dataset our State is required to make public. They did this by providing it as a Microsoft Access db file (not the friendliest of formats for your average Joe). While I had previously done a lot of Access development, I no longer had access to it, and my version of Office would not open the file. LibreOffice did, and I was able to export the data as a properly setup CSV. (Lots of ways that the various string data fields could have been improperly delimited using commas, but LO did it perfectly.)
So big thumbs up for LibreOffice. For 95% of what I did as a financial analyst, and 100% of my less rigorous needs now it is: FANTASTIC, FREE, and FULLY SUPPORTED BY A DEDICATED WW COMMUNITY.
So big thumbs up for LibreOffice. For 95% of what I did as a financial analyst, and 100% of my less rigorous needs now it is: FANTASTIC, FREE, and FULLY SUPPORTED BY A DEDICATED WW COMMUNITY.