would you pay a per month subscription fee for MS Office?

[deadrats]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=22023

[pandy]

no, i will use free Open Office or one of the Open Office forks like LibreOffice.

[yoda313]

I don't have a need for an office application for home use. For 72.00 a year (6.00 a month plan) you would pay for a full copy inside of two years. Aren't the student copies of office just over a 100.00? The student ones don't have any restrictions on who can buy them right? I'm not sure what the advantage would be.

Unless they have tiered packages like they do for windows. If there are home, premium, and ultimate editions of office I could see the potential benefit of a subscription package. You could get the full on suite without a hefty entry fee.

I wonder if they have true monthly fees or if you have to do longer term contracts? It would be nice to do a test run for 6.00 for a month before deciding to buy the full deal.

[AlanHK]

I've got Office 2000 and it's still running fine. Bought it for a couple of dollars used long ago. I don't user a tenth of its features, so no intention to upgrade.

[usually_quiet]

I don't have a need for an office application for home use. For 72.00 a year (6.00 a month plan) you would pay for a full copy inside of two years. Aren't the student copies of office just over a 100.00? The student ones don't have any restrictions on who can buy them right? I'm not sure what the advantage would be.

Unless they have tiered packages like they do for windows. If there are home, premium, and ultimate editions of office I could see the potential benefit of a subscription package. You could get the full on suite without a hefty entry fee.

I wonder if they have true monthly fees or if you have to do longer term contracts? It would be nice to do a test run for 6.00 for a month before deciding to buy the full deal.

The Home and Student version lacks some of the features that the Home and Business or Professional versions have. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/office-2010-which-suite-is-right-for-you-FX101825640.aspx

Academic or employee discounts might bring down the price of a non-upgrade version of MS Office to $100, but you must prove that you qualify for the reduced price.

[yoda313]

Thanks Usually_quiet. I did not know the particulars about the student version.

[rcubed]

NO!

rcubed

[jagabo]

No. I can live with my old version of Office. Or Open/Libre Office.

[intracube]

What's to stop them hiking up the subscription six months down the line?

But even if the price stayed the same, no. The free alternatives are fine for my needs.

[redwudz]

It seems some companies have the dream of eventually having all their software operating on their own servers and nothing on your PC. I suppose they think that will help against pirating. But needing internet access every time you type a document seems ridiculous to me. Besides, I don't want any of my documents on their servers.

I have MS Office 2003, and don't like the newer versions, and Sun's Open Office seems to do just as well as MS Office. And it's free and runs on most all OS's, unlike the MS programs. I wonder how long it will last before MS finds a way to kill it.

I will never subscribe. I'll dig out my old Underwood typewriter first.

[paulw]

No. I can live with my current version Office 2010. I can't see any point in upgrading it. I was on Office 2003 for years and Office 1997 before that..

[Backpain]

That would be a "Hell No"

[Bjs]

Nope ...

A similar method, although not payware, employed by MYOB where you have to phone them to get new passwords to your account database every 3 months ... a pain in ? if your a book keeper with many client databases to maintain.

Looks like ms is developing ransom-ware.

[sambat]

Only at gunpoint.

[aedipuss]

kind of like the nonsense that's a "chromebook". everything's in the "cloud" or to misquote an old joke - all your data is belong to us.

[jan5678]

No, i use a different office packet http://www.softmaker.com
I bought it with a student license for my daugter and it allows to install on 3 pc's for home use. it works perfectly well and cost not only far less but it is one time payment only. You do have to pay again for a new year release however

[Joe The Dude]

What does MS Office have that Open Office doesn't?
I've never used an MS Office program before, but I do use Open Office all of the time, so I honestly wanna know. ~

[Constant Gardener]

No. I am frequently away from the internet, and need to be standalone. Cloud-based computing does not work unless your head is in it.

[rcubed]

NO!

rcubed

I side with backpain, I was just trying to be polite

HELL NO!

The business model for most companies these days is to get you on a plan where you pay, pay, pay.......... and once you are really locked in, start raising the price each month. $MS has always had the "five year" business model where you are "encouraged" (forced) to update to a newer version at least every five years. I too wouldn't trust them with my data. Let alone my credit card number. Some time I'll tell you what I really think

rcubed

[poisondeathray]

I personally wouldn't either , but other companies seem are offering similar subscription based schemes

Adobe has this type of plan available for CS 5.5

[usually_quiet]

No, but then I don't run a business.

Did anyone read the linked article? This subscription plan is aimed at businesses not individuals. Some business love the cloud computing concept. It is similar to what I remember in the 1980's (dumb terminals connected to a mainframe) but without the on-site mainframes and the associated costs of owning one.

[classfour]

The only issue with Open Office is that it won't open Office 2007 or 2010 files with the added "x" (i.e. xlsx or docx) extension of the file.

For compatibility between the machine at work and my desktop, I save in office 97-2003 format.

[Joe The Dude]

The only issue with Open Office is that it won't open Office 2007 or 2010 files with the added "x" (i.e. xlsx or docx) extension of the file.

For compatibility between the machine at work and my desktop, I save in office 97-2003 format.

Are you sure?
I have Open Office ver 3.3.0, and haven't had any issues opening any docX files.
Then again, I can't say for sure what version of MS Office were authored with.

[Seeker47]

would you pay a per month subscription fee for MS Office?



Not when Open Office does the job, and is FREE.

[Seeker47]

The only issue with Open Office is that it won't open Office 2007 or 2010 files with the added "x" (i.e. xlsx or docx) extension of the file.

For compatibility between the machine at work and my desktop, I save in office 97-2003 format.

Are you sure?
I have Open Office ver 3.3.0, and haven't had any issues opening any docX files.
Then again, I can't say for sure what version of MS Office were authored with.

I've run into that problem also, but think you just need 3.2.0 or later, and then you're in business.

[Joe The Dude]

The only issue with Open Office is that it won't open Office 2007 or 2010 files with the added "x" (i.e. xlsx or docx) extension of the file.

For compatibility between the machine at work and my desktop, I save in office 97-2003 format.

Are you sure?
I have Open Office ver 3.3.0, and haven't had any issues opening any docX files.
Then again, I can't say for sure what version of MS Office were authored with.

I've run into that problem also, but think you just need 3.2.0 or later, and then you're in business.

Ah, thats's good.
I was afraid for a while there that perhaps open office couldn't open those 2 types mentioned, due to some kind of trademark or patent issue or something.