Microsoft Is Readying a Consumer Microsoft 365 Subscription Bundle

I have an Office 365 subscription. I have kids in school that use Office and my wife works in the education world - this made having it home a no-brainer. I'm not a fan of paying for a subscription, but at least OneDrive makes it better for me. I've trained them all to save everything to it. This will hopefully make my life easier when they screw something up.
I do not want to pay a service fee for Windows. I already have legal licenses to the OS (either I bought them or it was an upgrade).
 
Seems recently that all Microsoft users, be it win10 or office365 or whatever, clearly ARE beta testers. Why on earth would you PAY monthly for that privilege??
 
it is, iirc there was an interview with B.Gates where he regretted not converting windows to a subscription model.

I'll bet he is. Software was brand new and Microsoft was the first company to commercially develop software as a thing unto itself I don't think the whole software has to be maintained/bug fixed forever more didn't occur to them. Especially in a networked environment in the post-Internet era. You couldn't even conceive the long term support implications for software back then.

Before Microsoft, software just came with the machine or bundled as a service. Before PC's there were mini-computers and mainframe, and most computer owners wrote their own applications. Microsoft truly created an entire industry for COTS (commercial off the shelf) software where you bought a program from someone else ready to use, and I think that often get's overlooked since it's hard to even remember what that was like before today (for those of us old enough to have been doing this before the PC even!).

Anyway long term for everyone's heath, software is going to have to go to a subscription model for COTS or in Open Source there are going to have to be paid developers that maintain the code - there are multiple models to pay for them, but it's going to have to get formalized.

Software has to be maintained. It's not fine wine; it doesn't get better with age - it's the exact opposite. And maintaining software takes money. Even with open source it takes someone's time, and time = money.

The days of having ad-hoc shit running loose in your environment without any eyes on it are past over; just look at the data breaches that are continuing to happen. Every one of the major ones that I can think of started with some unpatched or unsupported code that should have been updated or mitigated long ago. This also means people are going to have to get a lot better about tracking what crap is running in their environment: what version it is, if it's patched or not, who's maintaining (or hell, is anyone even using it any more?), etc.

Computer science? Ha! It would be nice if there were some rigor applied to IT environments. As critical as IT is to the world and how it works, as much as I generally loathe regulation I think this is one case where it's past time for principles such as those that surround professional engineering of buildings, infrastructure, aircraft, etc. to be applied to computers and software since hardware/software failures can and do kill people, just like building collapses and plane crashes can.
 
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Personally, I finally broke down and purchased a Business Office 365 plan for $12.50 a month. Works like a charm for my needs.

FOr the school I work for as IT director, we have used Office 365 for three years now. Works amazing not having to maintain a damned Exchange server all the time and let Microsoft do it for you. Our software costs are actually cheaper. We used to pya $4500 a year for Windows (Client and server), CALS, exchange version, office version of the time, Sharepoint and other items. We now pay $2200 a year for Office 365, exchange, sharepoint online (which all of our software shares have moved too from our local file server except for pictures, music and videos and other large files) as well as Microsoft Education and Microsoft Intune for all device security. We were able to retire out SCCM 2012 R2 server as well. We now just have a File/print server for legacy issues (Pics, Vids and Music) and three domain controllers: two local (VMs) and one (soon to be two) in MS-Azure running Server 2016. Using GPOs now are so easy and I have less to maintain. Makes my job easier as the only support person there.

Our big issue this year software cost wise has been Adobe CC since we still own 30 CS6 licenses for one of our Mac/PC labs. Adobe wants to charge us $4000 a year for 150 licenses on hardware that can't support it but we still need it because we find more students want to use Adobe products than we have CS6 licenses for in addition to the Apple iLife products still around: Garageband and Imovie.
 
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I'll bet he is. Software was brand new and Microsoft was the first company to commercially develop software as a thing unto itself I don't think the whole software has to be maintained/bug fixed forever more didn't occur to them. Especially in a networked environment in the post-Internet era. You couldn't even conceive the long term support implications for software back then.

Before Microsoft, software just came with the machine or bundled as a service. Before PC's there were mini-computers and mainframe, and most computer owners wrote their own applications. Microsoft truly created an entire industry for COTS (commercial off the shelf) software where you bought a program from someone else ready to use, and I think that often get's overlooked since it's hard to even remember what that was like before today (for those of us old enough to have been doing this before the PC even!).

Anyway long term for everyone's heath, software is going to have to go to a subscription model for COTS or in Open Source there are going to have to be paid developers that maintain the code - there are multiple models to pay for them, but it's going to have to get formalized.

Software has to be maintained. It's not fine wine; it doesn't get better with age - it's the exact opposite. And maintaining software takes money. Even with open source it takes someone's time, and time = money.

The days of having ad-hoc shit running loose in your environment without any eyes on it are past over; just look at the data breaches that are continuing to happen. Every one of the major ones that I can think of started with some unpatched or unsupported code that should have been updated or mitigated long ago. This also means people are going to have to get a lot better about tracking what crap is running in their environment: what version it is, if it's patched or not, who's maintaining (or hell, is anyone even using it any more?), etc.

Computer science? Ha! It would be nice if there were some rigor applied to IT environments. As critical as IT is to the world and how it works, as much as I generally loathe regulation I think this is one case where it's past time for principles such as those that surround professional engineering of buildings, infrastructure, aircraft, etc. to be applied to computers and software since hardware/software failures can and do kill people, just like building collapses and plane crashes can.

Have you never heard of Digital Research or Seattle Computer Products? Microsoft basically purchased the OS from Seattle Computer Products and modified to run on the new IBM PC. The Seattle Computer Products OS was mostly an 8086 based clone of Digital Researches CP/M OS. Digital Research was pretty much the first large software company in the microcomputer world.
 
Our big issue this year software cost wise has been Adobe CC since we still own 30 CS6 licenses for one of our Mac/PC labs. Adobe wants to charge us $4000 a year for 150 licenses on hardware that can't support it but we still need it because we find more students want to use Adobe products than we have CS6 licenses for in addition to the Apple iLife products still around: Garageband and Imovie.

have you bumped into the issue where CC2019 is requiring Adobe cloud accounts? (removing the serialized licensing option)
 
Eh, not a single thing in their package would be worth the subscription price to me. At home, I use Libre Office for my 'very' limited documentation needs. I think in the last year I use Libre Office 3 times and it was just to fill in some PDF forms.
 
I think you're right. I use the Adobe Suite (for now) but I don't delve deep enough into any of it to make it irreplaceable for me but I can easily see how for professionals it's hard to beat.
You may be able to find comparatively inexpensive programs that can match or closely match the abilities of any single Adobe offering but making them work together as they would through the Adobe Suite I'd imagine would be difficult at best.
I also didn't realize just how massive the Suite actually is. The number and quality of programs available makes it pretty much a no-brainer for those who use it to earn income imo.

It would cost thousands (upfront) a few years ago to get all these apps while now you have access with 50 Euros / month for the latest and greatest - and they DO improve with each release I have to say. I really don't know why all the hate. I am using these apps daily and have no issues at all. On the contrary the produce consistent results all the time.

I reckon I'd make it work as opposed to paying the rip off subscription for their products at a price that just keeps increasing.

Eh? It still at 50 euros / month for the last 4 years for me (without VAT - since it is a business expense)

it is, iirc there was an interview with B.Gates where he regretted not converting windows to a subscription model.
I am not surprised that MS are pushing this ... Office is actually pretty good and if they made it linux-native I would actually subscribe because typically there isn't any real issues and those that do exist are fixed fast.
Office is what keeps people on windows ... butbutbut the games, hate to burst a few ego's but gamers are such a small percentage of desktop users. butbutbut professional cad applications, they pretty much are OS agnostic because again they are such a tiny market if someone pushing that they use linux they will make it for linux

So why did MS push Win10 for free? to wipe the slate of all the old, poor patched machines to make their life easier? probably. But they just replaced it with forced patches that have poor quality.
Only a fool would subscribe to windows (outside of business) as the quality is crap. Paying for BSoD is just insult to injury, but as a platform to keep office existing it makes sense

I never had a single BSOD or a crash since I built my PC about 9 months ago with Windows 10 and it is also overclocked and running Virtual Machines with CAD apps very often.
 
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I think it's going to be a hard sell for basically anyone, but especially non-business users. I don't personally know of anyone currently paying for Office 365 outside of a business environment. Paying a subscription for Windows is going to be a pretty big shock for most people.
 
I thought when they first announced the "Home" version of Office 365 that they said then this was coming? In like 2015?
 
I think it's going to be a hard sell for basically anyone, but especially non-business users. I don't personally know of anyone currently paying for Office 365 outside of a business environment. Paying a subscription for Windows is going to be a pretty big shock for most people.

O365 the cloud based hosting solution I don't see regular consumers paying for, but Office 365 the subscription based office suite is extremely popular as a product.

Pushing Windows to a subscription won't be a hard sell at all, you either suck it up or you use something else, or Windows 10 runs in a limited sense. Microsoft make money out of the cloud now, they don't care what the average Windows user thinks anymore.
 
So it appears that Microsoft is advertising for someone to fill the position as project manager regarding their spanking new 'Microsoft 365' subscription based service:

https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en...Consumer-Subscription-Modern-Life-Devices-MLD

The evidence just keeps piling up in favor of Windows as a subscription service. At least then the Windows team would get the funding they need to release updates that don't crash and burn.
 
Have you never heard of Digital Research or Seattle Computer Products? Microsoft basically purchased the OS from Seattle Computer Products and modified to run on the new IBM PC. The Seattle Computer Products OS was mostly an 8086 based clone of Digital Researches CP/M OS. Digital Research was pretty much the first large software company in the microcomputer world.

Yup - but that was small potatoes compared to what the PC eventually blew up into. You had the Altair's, Apple II's, and other 8 bit machines - but all those were hardware/software bundles. The duo of Microsoft for software and IBM for hardware was a paradigm shift in how people thought about computers that literally changed the world.
 
Yup - but that was small potatoes compared to what the PC eventually blew up into. You had the Altair's, Apple II's, and other 8 bit machines - but all those were hardware/software bundles. The duo of Microsoft for software and IBM for hardware was a paradigm shift in how people thought about computers that literally changed the world.

Which had nothing to do with MS or IBM, it had everything to do with the fact that clever individuals worked out how to reverse engineer and clone the IBM PC and start producing it in mass quantities far cheaper then the exact same product direct from IBM. It could have been running a direct port of CP/M, the outcome would have been the same.

Up until the release of DOOM, the PC was nothing more than business machine, fairly awkward to use and still expensive for most. It wasn't until the release of DOOM that all the kids wanted one of those IBM clones and decent graphics and sound products really started to be developed for the platform for the first time.
 
I never thought I would buy into Office 365 either, but most people need MS office for work or school or ... and given that one 365 account gives you 5 PCs + some devices , that can cover most if not an entire family (or one guy with alot of PCs / devices). The 1TB cloud storage per person is also handy and the fact that OneDrive comes on every windows PC install, makes it easy to setup as well. If you are using the account by yourself, I guess you could create 4 other sub accounts and have 5x 1TB of cloud storage (maybe a main account, then Pictures, then Music, then Videos and maybe porn, errr ... I mean game save files? :-D)

I like working at the office. Then going home and if needed, opening up Word or Excel and picking up right where I left off. No USB thumbdrives or external hard drives or lugging the laptop back and fourth if you don't want to.

My one caveat though is I really don't understand the licensing Windows / OS though ... but if that means cheaper computers or something, who knows?
 
Can't you just use one primary account for all of them?

Not anymore according to my vendor that I deal with when purchasing new licenses. A unique user must be created for each install of CC2019 instead of licensing per device as they have been doing up until recently.
 
Subscriptions for consumers make little sense. [snip] There isn't a signicant advantage that I can see, any advantage really.. for home users.

There isn't MEANT to be an advantage for the consumer; just the supplier.
 
When Adobe first started to push CC, we would get 250 education licenses for $1000. Now that deal is pretty much gone.
 
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