$69.99/year sounds pretty high for home use. Most people don't even need office at home, OpenOffice, LibreOffice or Google Docs is good enough for most uses. The bundled extras are OK, but can be had for significantly less elsewhere.
I mean $69.99, is about what I paid for a perpetual license of Office 2013 Home I bought 5 years ago, but you're paying yearly. How much do you have to use Office to make this worthwhile? And remember, this is for non-commercial use. You can't even use it for your home business.
Thats why the "home" or family plan is so attractive. When you add the cloud storage and Skype minutes to it, its quite a deal for a household. You also get Outlook and Publisher which doesnt come with the home perpetual licenses.
How is this "attractive"? Many of us have absolutely zero use for applications like Publisher and Outlook or the bundled Skype minutes.
I for one am glad FOSS alternatives provide literally everything I ever need (word processing with export to PDF/A, a random spreadsheet or presentation here and there, browsing and IMAP/POP3 email) and it has been this way for many years now. I've been using OOo before the LibreOffice fork (am on LibreOffice now) and Firefox/Thunderbird as Netscape Navigator replacement - all for $0.00 per year.
The problem is that FOSS alternatives like LibreOffice don't play well on Windows tablets because the icons and UI are tiny. I end up making presentations in Libreoffice and exporting pptx files to view in the PowerPoint mobile app which has proper touch support. The Office mobile apps for Windows have a weird bug that allow you to edit and create files even without an Office 365 subscription, simply by signing in and viewing the subscription page. The edit functionality is enabled for a few days before you have to log in again.
Thunderbird's last stable release was on August 6, 2018. That was 24 days ago. You should try research before calling someone else out as lacking in knowledge. ;)
I think it’s attractive as long as corporations stay tightly linked to office. No matter how tech literate I may be, I have zero desire to come home and learn a new suite when I have only a few things to do. If I take this a step further the same issues apply to schools. It provides no value to put a different suite in front of my son than what’s being taught at school.
People do seem to forget to add the long terms cost of Software as service and just look at upfront cost and compare it to initial cost of owning perpetual license. Sure there are some benefit to software as service but costs do outweigh those for most home users. One of the reasons why people hate Adobe is for going exclusively as rental model and killing option to buy standalone license.
A lot of that hate is misplaced, though - especially in the case of Adobe. I had to buy a new version of Lightroom every 2-3 years in order to get RAW updates; the subscription came out as a similar cost year-on-year and gave me Photoshop too.
I tried switching to alternative packages and nothing quite worked out. YMMV!
True. We are talking $1,000 over 10 years. Vast majority of people wouldn't need to upgrade Office but once every 5-10 years depending on new computers/OS'es over that time. I'm surprised they haven't made an excel/word only version of these plans for like $2 a month.
Also, this is something I may consider if they built a really nice integrated backup into Windows 10 that could use this OneDrive storage. A proper client side encrypted full/incremental type backup.
I don't think Microsoft wants those casual home users who just get on their computers (or phones) for watching cat videos on YouTube. Office is quickly becoming "premium only". Your kid will go to college and get a license through their school. You'll get one through your business. Really, how many people have serious "OFFICE" needs at home, whose costs won't be covered by the office they work at?
Your perpetual license didn't come with 1TB of cloud storage though. That's the true value in this package: Competitive pricing for a ton of remote, always backed up storage, with essentially a free Office suite thrown in, along with phone support.
That being said, I don't use OneDrive or Office at home, so I'm not a target customer either way. But I can recognize the value of the total package.
How many licences did you get? Last time I bought Office was 2007, which got me licenced perpetually for 2 systems. It cost £120. The subscription gives you more applications (dubiously useful), regular updates (less-so), a decent whack of cloud storage (handy for backups) and enough licences to cover a decently sized household. For me that's quite a good offer.
100 USD, having only worked in Microsoft Office for 20+ years, I started using LibreOffice a couple of years ago. It's close enough in functionality to avoid an eternal subscription to Microsoft.
Alternatives in LibreOffice and Google's Drive. Both require a somewhat modified work flow, but considering the savings of almost $100 a year, they are more attractive propositions than Office 365.
Still can't get me to pay that much for it. It's a different age. They can try all they want. They'd be lucky to get a one time payment of $69.99, let alone for a year. This isn't the year 2000.
Yes exactly... If i want to try one cloud service I'd rather get free office along with it.. Plus its about 8$ here for me per month.. Excellent to do my work in a flow between my laptop, ipad and then quickly download it to my phone and send to my professor through whatsapp
Unless you are using some specific piece of microsoft's software most are better served by using Libre Office. Free to download and works great for what most people use office for.
Yup, pretty much this stuff. I don't see a reason for MS Office to exist at this point beyond the fact that LibreOffice is rather obscure in the US so not enough people know they can get a good office suite at no cost.
The $99 a year for Office 365 is a steal considering that you get 1 TB of OneDrive storage for six users. Other cloud storage providers charge more for that kind of storage. Getting the Office part of it is just the cherry on top of the OneDrive sundae.
It does still have formatting issues crossing over from MS Office. I'd never, for instance, use it to write a resume unless I was exporting it as a PDF so the format wouldn't change when a MS Office user opened it. However for casual use where the formatting doesn't matrer, it does a really good job. It's also widely used outside of the US as a standard office suite. Check the wikipedia page in the users section and you'll see a number of governments and businesses have switched over.
That said, there's nothing wrong with MS Office. It simply costs a bit more and accomplishes essentially the same tasks so cheaper alternatives are sometimes worth the trouble.
LibreOffice saves documents in ODF file format by default so any modern office suite will open these documents without breaking the formatting. Word on the other hand uses a non compliant version of Microsoft's own OOXML format by default. Meaning Microsoft created an open interoperable standard in it's OOXML format then used a version of OOXML that doesn't comply with the standard that they themselves created. Plus Microsoft uses proprietary fonts for the sole purpose of making Word documents only open correctly in Word. Always save your docs as an ODF in Word and then anyone can open them without breaking the formatting.
Unfortunately, I deleted the email. But my point is - I have Office 365 Personal, and my email said that as of October 2, 2018, I will be able to install it on up to 5 computers. So it's almost as good as the old "Home" plan! But I don't see that reflected in the chart above.
"And the Personal subscription limits users to only one PC or Mac and one tablet. However, subscribers will be able to install Office on an unlimited number of devices and be signed into their accounts across up to five devices at the same time starting October 2nd."
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trparky - Monday, September 3, 2018 - link
Good, this makes Office 365 for home users even more of an attractive offer.Flunk - Monday, September 3, 2018 - link
$69.99/year sounds pretty high for home use. Most people don't even need office at home, OpenOffice, LibreOffice or Google Docs is good enough for most uses. The bundled extras are OK, but can be had for significantly less elsewhere.I mean $69.99, is about what I paid for a perpetual license of Office 2013 Home I bought 5 years ago, but you're paying yearly. How much do you have to use Office to make this worthwhile? And remember, this is for non-commercial use. You can't even use it for your home business.
danielfranklin - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
Thats why the "home" or family plan is so attractive.When you add the cloud storage and Skype minutes to it, its quite a deal for a household.
You also get Outlook and Publisher which doesnt come with the home perpetual licenses.
Arnulf - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
How is this "attractive"? Many of us have absolutely zero use for applications like Publisher and Outlook or the bundled Skype minutes.I for one am glad FOSS alternatives provide literally everything I ever need (word processing with export to PDF/A, a random spreadsheet or presentation here and there, browsing and IMAP/POP3 email) and it has been this way for many years now. I've been using OOo before the LibreOffice fork (am on LibreOffice now) and Firefox/Thunderbird as Netscape Navigator replacement - all for $0.00 per year.
CSMR - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
IMAP/POP email has been obsolete for 15 years and comes nowhere near activesync in functionality.sadsteve - Wednesday, September 5, 2018 - link
"IMAP/POP email has been obsolete for 15 years and comes nowhere near activesync in functionality."I guess I'll need to inform all my email providers. They seem to support both. And for home use, either one seems completely adequate.
serendip - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
The problem is that FOSS alternatives like LibreOffice don't play well on Windows tablets because the icons and UI are tiny. I end up making presentations in Libreoffice and exporting pptx files to view in the PowerPoint mobile app which has proper touch support. The Office mobile apps for Windows have a weird bug that allow you to edit and create files even without an Office 365 subscription, simply by signing in and viewing the subscription page. The edit functionality is enabled for a few days before you have to log in again.baka_toroi - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
Libreoffice is shit and you suggesting it as an alternative to MS Office is proof that you don't have any idea of what you're talking about.Thunderbird has been abandoned years ago. What the fuck is wrong with you?
PeachNCream - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
Thunderbird's last stable release was on August 6, 2018. That was 24 days ago. You should try research before calling someone else out as lacking in knowledge. ;)lothar98 - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
I think it’s attractive as long as corporations stay tightly linked to office. No matter how tech literate I may be, I have zero desire to come home and learn a new suite when I have only a few things to do.If I take this a step further the same issues apply to schools. It provides no value to put a different suite in front of my son than what’s being taught at school.
Chaitanya - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
People do seem to forget to add the long terms cost of Software as service and just look at upfront cost and compare it to initial cost of owning perpetual license. Sure there are some benefit to software as service but costs do outweigh those for most home users. One of the reasons why people hate Adobe is for going exclusively as rental model and killing option to buy standalone license.Spunjji - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
A lot of that hate is misplaced, though - especially in the case of Adobe. I had to buy a new version of Lightroom every 2-3 years in order to get RAW updates; the subscription came out as a similar cost year-on-year and gave me Photoshop too.I tried switching to alternative packages and nothing quite worked out. YMMV!
FreckledTrout - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
True. We are talking $1,000 over 10 years. Vast majority of people wouldn't need to upgrade Office but once every 5-10 years depending on new computers/OS'es over that time. I'm surprised they haven't made an excel/word only version of these plans for like $2 a month.Also, this is something I may consider if they built a really nice integrated backup into Windows 10 that could use this OneDrive storage. A proper client side encrypted full/incremental type backup.
jabber - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
1TB of Google Drive space costs £80 a year in the UK so with world standard Office thrown in it sounds a pretty good deal.Yuriman - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
I don't think Microsoft wants those casual home users who just get on their computers (or phones) for watching cat videos on YouTube. Office is quickly becoming "premium only". Your kid will go to college and get a license through their school. You'll get one through your business. Really, how many people have serious "OFFICE" needs at home, whose costs won't be covered by the office they work at?shabby - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
No one does.kaidenshi - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
Your perpetual license didn't come with 1TB of cloud storage though. That's the true value in this package: Competitive pricing for a ton of remote, always backed up storage, with essentially a free Office suite thrown in, along with phone support.That being said, I don't use OneDrive or Office at home, so I'm not a target customer either way. But I can recognize the value of the total package.
Spunjji - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
How many licences did you get? Last time I bought Office was 2007, which got me licenced perpetually for 2 systems. It cost £120. The subscription gives you more applications (dubiously useful), regular updates (less-so), a decent whack of cloud storage (handy for backups) and enough licences to cover a decently sized household. For me that's quite a good offer.Gadgety - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
100 USD, having only worked in Microsoft Office for 20+ years, I started using LibreOffice a couple of years ago. It's close enough in functionality to avoid an eternal subscription to Microsoft.milkywayer - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
I've been hoping for a lower priced single user option from MS for a while. Glad to see it. Might use it in the future.Gadgety - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
Alternatives in LibreOffice and Google's Drive. Both require a somewhat modified work flow, but considering the savings of almost $100 a year, they are more attractive propositions than Office 365.bigboxes - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
Still can't get me to pay that much for it. It's a different age. They can try all they want. They'd be lucky to get a one time payment of $69.99, let alone for a year. This isn't the year 2000.Drazick - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
I like to see this offer as that - 5 of us are paying 2$ / Month per 1TB of Online Storage and we get Office for free!For 2$ / Month on Google Drive / iCloud / Dropbox you get a lot less storage.
vivekvs1992 - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
Yes exactly... If i want to try one cloud service I'd rather get free office along with it.. Plus its about 8$ here for me per month.. Excellent to do my work in a flow between my laptop, ipad and then quickly download it to my phone and send to my professor through whatsappSpunjji - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
This. For some people it's a great deal, for everyone else they can just buy perpetual licences / use FOSS.Marlin1975 - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
Unless you are using some specific piece of microsoft's software most are better served by using Libre Office. Free to download and works great for what most people use office for.https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/
PeachNCream - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
Yup, pretty much this stuff. I don't see a reason for MS Office to exist at this point beyond the fact that LibreOffice is rather obscure in the US so not enough people know they can get a good office suite at no cost.trparky - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
I've seen LibreOffice completely mangle a Word document that I had, it had special formatting that even Office 2013 had trouble with.baka_toroi - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
Careful, trparky. You're smashing Marlin1975's idyllic world!trparky - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
The $99 a year for Office 365 is a steal considering that you get 1 TB of OneDrive storage for six users. Other cloud storage providers charge more for that kind of storage. Getting the Office part of it is just the cherry on top of the OneDrive sundae.PeachNCream - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
It does still have formatting issues crossing over from MS Office. I'd never, for instance, use it to write a resume unless I was exporting it as a PDF so the format wouldn't change when a MS Office user opened it. However for casual use where the formatting doesn't matrer, it does a really good job. It's also widely used outside of the US as a standard office suite. Check the wikipedia page in the users section and you'll see a number of governments and businesses have switched over.That said, there's nothing wrong with MS Office. It simply costs a bit more and accomplishes essentially the same tasks so cheaper alternatives are sometimes worth the trouble.
SquarePeg - Wednesday, September 5, 2018 - link
LibreOffice saves documents in ODF file format by default so any modern office suite will open these documents without breaking the formatting. Word on the other hand uses a non compliant version of Microsoft's own OOXML format by default. Meaning Microsoft created an open interoperable standard in it's OOXML format then used a version of OOXML that doesn't comply with the standard that they themselves created. Plus Microsoft uses proprietary fonts for the sole purpose of making Word documents only open correctly in Word. Always save your docs as an ODF in Word and then anyone can open them without breaking the formatting.neogodless - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
Unfortunately, I deleted the email. But my point is - I have Office 365 Personal, and my email said that as of October 2, 2018, I will be able to install it on up to 5 computers. So it's almost as good as the old "Home" plan! But I don't see that reflected in the chart above.See this update - https://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2018/09/...
"And the Personal subscription limits users to only one PC or Mac and one tablet. However, subscribers will be able to install Office on an unlimited number of devices and be signed into their accounts across up to five devices at the same time starting October 2nd."
heffeque - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
It's not almost as good as "Home".Home is 5 devices + 1 TB multiplied by 6 people = 30 devices + 6 TB. It's a steal IMO.
trparky - Wednesday, September 5, 2018 - link
Yep, you can't that much cloud storage for that much cash from others.