Office document editing via Continuum to require subscription

[HEXUS]

Policy will come into effect from 1st April 2016.

Read more.

[lumireleon]

how many millions of dollars will they generate after making such changes?

[Attila the Bun]

how many millions of dollars will they generate after making such changes?

Absolutely zilch from this user...I've had a years free subscription to Office 365 with my tablet and have used it exactly zero times.

[Corky34]

Well they did say "we've got to monetize it differently" And that they had to find new ways to monetize the lifetime of customers on those devices, so i guess this is just one of those ways.

[Wozza63]

hate the subscription model. Let me pay once and keep it for life.

[lumireleon]

how many millions of dollars will they generate after making such changes?

Absolutely zilch from this user...I've had a years free subscription to Office 365 with my tablet and have used it exactly zero times.

nowadays there are many alternatives to MS.office soon Office home for PC will cost $20

[Corky34]

Is that per year or month? If it's per month it seems very bad value.

[loftie]

Can you not just use continuum, open a browser and go to office online? Seems like a daft move IMO.

[LeetyMcLeet]

hate the subscription model. Let me pay once and keep it for life.

You can thank Apple for that

[LSG501]

I too hate the subscription model too but honestly why would MS do this. I would have thought that they might have you know made it a free feature to help sell their phones, it's not like they have a massive marketshare or anything.

It likely stems from the fact they've realised that for a lot of people this could replace the whole windows ecosystem in an office which could hurt their profits from office desktop.

[Saracen]

hate the subscription model. Let me pay once and keep it for life.

Exactly.

I've been using MS products since the days of DOS 2.x, and switched to Office from, IIRC, Wordstar 5 (DOS version).

However, I upgrade both OS and application software on MY timetable, and for reasons that suit my needs, not MS's cash flow needs.

Just as changes to Win10 forced me off the MS train for OSs, and subscription method being required will force me off any upgrades of Office or productivity tools. I'll either lock systems into existing versions, or switch to non-MS variants, as appropriate.

[walibe]

To be honest in my house hold we use 5 licences at £7.99 a month across Windows and OSX and iOS. It's good value for money. Microsoft should make its home OS free then push a subscription model or App Store one off purchases. Microsoft makes the best office applications available and has for some time. Yes there's lots of free alternatives but they don't come particularly close to MS Office.

In this age of piracy we seemingly expect everything for free from our games to OS to films and apps.

[TaintedShirt]

I reckon this is just another nail in the coffin of MS phone offerings.

I think that finally MS have the opportunity to make a go of their phone ecosystem, if they would only offer true integration of mobile/ laptop /desktop OSes. For example, having a word file open on your phone, then going to your desktop and the file is in the word MRU (most recently used).
Charging for this, when they are so far behind Android and Apple seems short sighted as Android can't offer true integration and Apple doesn't do it. This would give them something unique and desirable.

Privacy issues of Win10 and now charging for continuum, it seems that MS are at pains to make life as difficult for themselves as possible.

[Saracen]

To be honest in my house hold we use 5 licences at £7.99 a month across Windows and OSX and iOS. It's good value for money. Microsoft should make its home OS free then push a subscription model or App Store one off purchases. Microsoft makes the best office applications available and has for some time. Yes there's lots of free alternatives but they don't come particularly close to MS Office.

In this age of piracy we seemingly expect everything for free from our games to OS to films and apps.

I certainly don't expect everything for free. If MS did a version of Win10 that addressed my concerns, I'd quite happily buy it .... just like I have been doing for with MS products for 30 years or so. Buy I do mean BUY it, not rent it on subscription, and it's products I'm interested in, not services and certainly not cloud services, which I don't want if they paid me.

As for alternatives to Office, they may not be as good, but for my purposes, they are every bit good enough, as are old versions of MS Office. That's why several of my machines still have existing versions of Office, including two using versions I've had for about 15 years. On those machines, they served my needs then, and still serve them now. When I bought them, I looked at whether the cost was justified and it was. Since then, they've not cost me a penny. Had they been subscriptions, they'd have cost a fortune and I'd struggle to justify the on-going regular cost.

I don't need the latest and greatest version. Old versions are adequate, as indeed are alternatives products.

Subscriptions suit some people. But they don't suit me.