office Office 2013 coming to iOS & Android on April as a subscription

[Nazmus Shakib Khandaker]

Paul Thurrott provides some interesting news that we should note. According to him, this is an exclusive story revealed by him, yesterday. He had the following to say:

"I have some exclusive news about Office for iOS and Android...a good source of mine gave me better specifics about general availability: I was told that general availability of Office 2013 is expected in the last week of January or first week of February 2013. Furthermore, if you?ve seen rumors about Office 2013 for iOS and Android, they?re happening, but the products will only be made available via the subscription Office offerings, and hit in April. This will give a user rights to use Office on 5 PCs and/or Macs and 5 devices."

So it seems that not only does your Office 365 subscription cover 5 PCs, they will also cover additional 5 devices. Wow, that's a bargain. What do you think?

Source: http://www.winsupersite.com/article/office-2013-beta2/office-2013-rtm-144488

[Glassed Silver]

Subscription only?

Lost a sale for sure over here.

Glassed Silver:mac

[Nazmus Shakib Khandaker]

Subscription only?

Lost a sale for sure over here.

Glassed Silver:mac

Here's the hard truth: You are not Microsoft's customer focus anymore. As a devices and services company, they care more about subscribtion users. Pretty soon, you will likely only be able to get Office via subscription. Sorry, but that's where the industry is going, and if you don't like it, you can join those who complained about things like the "mouse" or "typewriters" or "color TV replacing black and white ones". You will be left behind. Don't shoot me; I am just a messenger.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

^ yeah no.

it's completely different than any of those examples, why should i(any standard user) have to pay a constant subscription fee just to use word or excel or the likes.

that's a horrible idea. especially when the older versions are a one time fee

sure we're talking iOS and Android, but i don't see people taking likely to having to pay a constant fee just to use an office suite. businesses maybe, average everyday users not so much

[Glassed Silver]

Here's the hard truth: You are not Microsoft's customer focus anymore. As a devices and services company, they care more about subscribtion users. Pretty soon, you will likely only be able to get Office via subscription. Sorry, but that's where the industry is going, and if you don't like it, you can join those who complained about things like the "mouse" or "typewriters" or "color TV replacing black and white ones". You will be left behind. Don't shoot me; I am just a messenger.

Yea, people LOVE subscriptions.

Here's the hard truth to Microsoft and anyone else:

People do NOT love subscriptions.

Stuff would only be cheaper for you if you were so damn keen on staying on the most current version all the fricking time.

I'm fine with running the latest edu version, because I get it for almost nothing and other softwares for zero.

I don't see myself upgrading my full price Office copy everytime a new one gets released though and I can't stand bills, I'm a one-off kind of person, so sure, let them go ahead, enough people think like I do and stick to older versions and/or eventually find alternatives.

Again: subscriptions my a**.

The comparison to mice or typewriters is horribly inadequate, as those things were a necessity in a broad fashion for things to develop further, subscriptions are only a necessity to make revenue expectation charts more reliable and bump their numbers even.

Glassed Silver:mac

[szo]

Yea, people LOVE subscriptions.

Here's the hard truth to Microsoft and anyone else:

People do NOT love subscriptions.

Stuff would only be cheaper for you if you were so damn keen on staying on the most current version all the fricking time.

I'm fine with running the latest edu version, because I get it for almost nothing and other softwares for zero.

I don't see myself upgrading my full price Office copy everytime a new one gets released though and I can't stand bills, I'm a one-off kind of person, so sure, let them go ahead, enough people think like I do and stick to older versions and/or eventually find alternatives.

Again: subscriptions my a**.

The comparison to mice or typewriters is horribly inadequate, as those things were a necessity in a broad fashion for things to develop further, subscriptions are only a necessity to make revenue expectation charts more reliable and bump their numbers even.

Glassed Silver:mac

Guess what? A lot of companies are experimenting with subscription based software. Look at Adobe's Creative Cloud. A lot of the software found via subscription cannot even be bought as standalone apps. This is what most companies eventually will do. And for the price of the subscription for creative cloud, you get so much more. Subscription based software is mostly suited for enterprises and design/development agencies who usually keep their software updated. Furthermore, this also helps to curb piracy. Yes, you can probably run office 2013 on windows 8 now, but maybe 5 or 10 years from now, Microsoft may only go the subscription route for their next editions. Look at many SaaS on the internet such as Basecamp and more,. Many companies continue to pay the monthly costs and there is no piracy even possible with these web apps.

[Glassed Silver]

Well, nothing you said actually convinces me of it being a good model.

I get so much more?

Please... it's in the hands of them what they offer in which flavor.

They could give me a cloud without subscription or as separate plan for example.

Most creative businesses I know roll on latest minus one or two or if they update to the latest version, they usually have skipped one version.

You'd be surprised to see how many people still use CS4 applications.

Yes, I know they all are trying, I wasn't disputing that fact.

Well, a lot of the software that cannot be otherwise bought is a lot of software that average people don't want, so it's quite a bad comparison to software that pretty much any home office or almost any computer in general needs: an office suite.

Most of the advantages are artificial.

Getting new features eventually in between major releases could be an upside, then again, nothing that cannot be done otherwise.

For accounting reasons you have to make sure to not give away big feature for free, as an example you can claim some of the price of a product to go into the development for future feature additions.

Helps curb piracy?

Yeah, good luck lol.

Everything can be cracked.

Webapps are maybe a kind of different story, then again I refuse to invest into them any time or money.

That's my personal opinion, I know average joe is currently drinking the web app kool-aid, well, good for them, for a lot of people they work out fine, not for me, I know I'm "special" here and I know on that regard I will get left behind.

I know that's a personal problem, so no need to go on about that. :p

I know that in future Microsoft might do away with one-off Office packs, I know they won't eventually work anymore, but my point is, at the moment I continue to use what I can sans-subscription, proceeding past that I'll look for alternatives.

So yea, Microsoft lost a sale on the iOS version with me.

That's one number that can officially count as opposed to "piracy figures show we lost n sales" lol

Glassed Silver:mac

[Nazmus Shakib Khandaker]

I have said it earlier, and I will say it again. Subscription is the future, and there is nothing you can do about it. So, deal with it.

[Glassed Silver]

I have said it earlier, and I will say it again. Subscription is the future, and there is nothing you can do about it. So, deal with it.

Well yes I can, I can vote with my wallet :p

Glassed Silver:mac