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Office 2016 for Mac Now Available as One-Time $150 Purchase
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That's pretty true. I would go as far to say that a solid 95% of people don't need MS Office if they use Google apps OR Open Office (or any of the other free productivity suites).
If MS Office had all of the Windows versions of their software, it might be worth buying and paying what the Windows users pay.
I use Office 2013 at Work on my Windows machine and I like it a lot. Excel has a lot of great and very helpful automation for charts.
Unless it's no longer free then this package is sort of a rip off at $149. Office Home and Student comes with One Note, but One Note is free for Mac. So the $149 is going to Word, PPT and Excel. Come on Microsoft! Don't throw in stuff that's already free and make the consumer think they got a great package for $149.
The 'Home Tier' has always come with OneNote on PC. The purpose is not to artificially increase the value of the offering, it is that OneNote is a part of Office. It used to not be free, too.
Bit rude that. It's not a stupid post at all. Just cos it doesn't suit you. You don't know there may be an upgrade price next year for say $50... Failing that they might not care about updates. I didn't update office in 5 years. So $20 a year is a freaking bargain.
The 150 tier may be all that person needs. I don't need Skype mins or a tablet access. Nor Publisher, outlook or Access.
Also you are completely missing that fact that some people may be able to deduct the one time payment as a tax benefit where subs may not work.
Point is, you are not the only customer type they are aiming at, so you can't judge someone that needs something different. I have adobe suite subs and love it but it's just me buying it. It's crippling for a small company and only makes sense when you get to multi seat discounts above 20 people.
Not good. Hmmm. I use Google apps a bit. I wonder if the MS online 365 terms of service? Any different?
It's free... stop there.No subscription. That's nice. But.... Google Apps is free and just as good.
And the next version comes out the year after that and the next version comes out ...............
So, when is somebody supposed to upgrade from a forgotten program?
Wouldn't hold my breath about MS making regular desktop Office upgrades for the MAC since tasting the subscription model.
One has to buy sometime and Office 2016 replaces a five year old version I use, so $ 229 is nothing over 5 years.
As a non power user the program is just familiar enough for me to not want to change anything, just become current.
Hoping they do away with all the nonsense versions, like home and student, business etc.
While what you're saying makes sense on a certain level, the point is Home & Student has always cost $149 for the Mac version and it never came with One Note. To applaud MS for throwing in a piece of software that they already give for free isn't sitting too well with me. How about not including it and lowering the price by say $20. The fact that Mac Office has always cost the same as the Windows version with a less packaged feature set, I feel it's time for Microsoft to offer Mac users a better price. All these years they've made more money off Mac users by not including the same package as the Windows version.
Completely. Apple and MS are selling a product not giving away a 'service' to data mine.
Apple's apps are free BUT they are selling you Hardware to actually use it. Microsoft are selling software ( and some hardware ). Google are free but at a massive hidden cost.
Apple and MS do not touch nor look at your stored data. Google do.
Like they say, You pay for what you get!
This is pretending to be very smart but the post is not. The $150 only seem to be cheap until you find out that a lot of the functionality is missing. In addition there is a good chance to you have to upgrade in two years when a new version comes out that is necessary for a lot of the review/collaborative functions. I don't like subscription models at all but in this case the subscription is the better option for many users. Pretending you are the only one able to "budget" while everyone else is not is stupid.
The reason MS Office is needed by most people is to work with existing files with minimal formatting loss.
Unfortunately Google, Apple and all other free tool I've used fail this test for all but the most simplistic documents. (I admit that the blame for this is as much MS's fault as anyone else).
And utterly evil T&Cs. Might want to read my precious posts. I really do find it insane that anyone uses it other than to do a shopping list.
Well if you are on a mac - Pages and numbers is pretty damn good and also free. And online.
No subscription. That's nice. But.... Google Apps is free and just as good.
I'm not a fan of using web apps for productivity. But iWork is also cheaper than Office and is good enough for me.
Still, it's nice to have the option to buy it outright. I would never consider subscribing to Office 365, but $150 isn't bad (especially considering that it used to cost $400).
I am happy that M$ is releasing this as standalone. I do personally hate the software as a service / subscription model. Thats why I ruled out Lightroom for me.
With very limited exceptions, purchasing the low-end perpetual version of Office is a mistake. People aren't going to be able to get away with sticking to older versions either; Microsoft will not update Office 2016 to make it compatible with OS X Weed (2018).
I do understand, but depending where you are from subscription applications are completely tax deductible. Whereas Bought applications are written off over 3 years or so.
Some people have no choice. If you joint author documents with people on windows Pages and Numbers are simply not an option. Sure you can save as docx or something but causes problems that take time to fix. Better to just use Word
First, what you makes you think the "next version" is going to be out next year? It's been 5 years since the last version. The one before that had a 3 year gap. The one before that had a 4 year gap.
Second, any changes in the coming year are going to mostly efficiency and security patches. So what used to be free now requires a paid subscription. This is not in any way a good thing for consumers.