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Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

office365itpros.com

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Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#311

Post by JBits »

quantumwannabe wrote: post #237
Workaccount2 wrote: post #191

Most people using excel and word would be just as functional using office '98. SaaS is largely just a cancer on society. Monthly subscription to pay for features you never use and bug fixes you never should have needed.

They haven't really added anything to Office since 2013, the last pre-subscription version. There were massive changes between Office 98 and 2013, including entirely new programs like OneNote. They just found a way to get their customers to rebuy the same product every year. Same thing happened with Adobe and CS6; feature development slowed to a crawl after the change to a subscription.

Can confirm as someone who was using pre-subscription Office to write/read files while everyone else at work was using the 365 version. Now that I'm using 365 too, I do however appreciate the ability to do shared live editing in the office programs.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#312

Post by JBits »

tombert wrote: post #285
quantumwannabe wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven't really added anything to Office since 2013, the last pre-subscription version. There were massive changes between Office 98 and 2013, including entirely new programs like OneNote. They just found a way to get their customers to rebuy the same product every year. Same thing happened with Adobe and CS6; feature development slowed to a crawl after the change to a subscription.

About three years ago, I had a Macbook and I wanted to play with Flash/Animate again. I went to Adobe's website, and couldn't find a non-subscription version to just buy, so I actually contacted customer support about it, and they said "nope, you have to pay for a subscription". I could have of course sailed the high seas, but I opted to just buy a copy of Toonboom Harmony, which is fairly different than Flash but cl…

People still appear to use Flash these days by downloading an old version and getting a license key from Reddit/YouTube/etc.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#313

Post by pxeboot »

shiroiuma wrote: post #301
rprend wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s plenty of developer talent. You don’t see microsoft office competitors because it’s a bad business to start. “Remake microsoft office suite, but cheaper” won’t work. I’m sure dozens of people have tried.

There's a bunch of competitors to MS Office already: Libre/OpenOffice, Google Docs, Collabora, etc. Some of these are totally free to use, some open-source too. Have people switched en masse to them? Nope. Personally, I think MS needs to massively increase their prices here: they're leaving a lot of money on the table. Companies, especially, (and governments) just aren't going to switch, no matter what. So why not in…

> Have people switched en masse to them? Nope.

Business, sure, but there are millions of consumers who exclusively use Google Docs, iWork, or other Office alternatives.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#314

Post by shiroiuma »

pxeboot wrote: post #313
shiroiuma wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a bunch of competitors to MS Office already: Libre/OpenOffice, Google Docs, Collabora, etc. Some of these are totally free to use, some open-source too. Have people switched en masse to them? Nope. Personally, I think MS needs to massively increase their prices here: they're leaving a lot of money on the table. Companies, especially, (and governments) just aren't going to switch, no matter what. So why not in…

> Have people switched en masse to them? Nope. Business, sure, but there are millions of consumers who exclusively use Google Docs, iWork, or other Office alternatives.

Yeah, but they're already gone, and you can only milk them for so much. Businesses and governments are a totally different matter: they're not going to switch to the alternatives no matter what, so MS could make a lot more profit by jacking up their prices massively. $10,000 per user per year is totally doable I think.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#315

Post by kryogen1c »

quantumwannabe wrote: post #237
Workaccount2 wrote: post #191

Most people using excel and word would be just as functional using office '98. SaaS is largely just a cancer on society. Monthly subscription to pay for features you never use and bug fixes you never should have needed.

They haven't really added anything to Office since 2013, the last pre-subscription version. There were massive changes between Office 98 and 2013, including entirely new programs like OneNote. They just found a way to get their customers to rebuy the same product every year. Same thing happened with Adobe and CS6; feature development slowed to a crawl after the change to a subscription.

> 2013, the last pre-subscription version

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/office-home-...

I found this using my secret inside IT knowledge: searched "buy office perpetual" on the internet.

I know microsoft is the evil soulless megacorp on HN, but the least you could do is attack them for true things instead of totally made up, has-never-ever-been-true things.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#316

Post by esafak »

shiroiuma wrote: post #314
pxeboot wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have people switched en masse to them? Nope. Business, sure, but there are millions of consumers who exclusively use Google Docs, iWork, or other Office alternatives.

Yeah, but they're already gone, and you can only milk them for so much. Businesses and governments are a totally different matter: they're not going to switch to the alternatives no matter what, so MS could make a lot more profit by jacking up their prices massively. $10,000 per user per year is totally doable I think.

Governments in Europe are increasingly ditching Microsoft, goaded by souring relations between the continents.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#317

Post by 6510 »

shiroiuma wrote: post #301
rprend wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s plenty of developer talent. You don’t see microsoft office competitors because it’s a bad business to start. “Remake microsoft office suite, but cheaper” won’t work. I’m sure dozens of people have tried.

There's a bunch of competitors to MS Office already: Libre/OpenOffice, Google Docs, Collabora, etc. Some of these are totally free to use, some open-source too. Have people switched en masse to them? Nope. Personally, I think MS needs to massively increase their prices here: they're leaving a lot of money on the table. Companies, especially, (and governments) just aren't going to switch, no matter what. So why not in…

HarmonyOS is gaining a lot of traction in China and has WPS pre-installed

https://www.wps.com

I've never used it but apparently it comes with ingame purchases.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#318

Post by tombert »

JBits wrote: post #312
tombert wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About three years ago, I had a Macbook and I wanted to play with Flash/Animate again. I went to Adobe's website, and couldn't find a non-subscription version to just buy, so I actually contacted customer support about it, and they said "nope, you have to pay for a subscription". I could have of course sailed the high seas, but I opted to just buy a copy of Toonboom Harmony, which is fairly different than Flash but cl…

People still appear to use Flash these days by downloading an old version and getting a license key from Reddit/YouTube/etc.

I didn't really want to resort to piracy; I think it's stupid that Adobe won't sell a perpetual license.

I got a license to Moho from a Humble Bundle like a year ago, and I think Toonz is open source nowadays, all in addition to the ToonBoom copy I have so I probably don't need the real Adobe Animate anymore.

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#319

Post by 6510 »

esafak wrote: post #316
shiroiuma wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but they're already gone, and you can only milk them for so much. Businesses and governments are a totally different matter: they're not going to switch to the alternatives no matter what, so MS could make a lot more profit by jacking up their prices massively. $10,000 per user per year is totally doable I think.

Governments in Europe are increasingly ditching Microsoft, goaded by souring relations between the continents.

Don't underestimate the rage from citizens who receive important documents and sheets in formats they can't open. Or you can open them but with a warning that some functionality might be lost. (reads like: you might go to prison)

Re: Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices

#320

Post by Glyptodon »

rprend wrote: post #292
dabockster wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody has developed a real alternative. It seems like most companies are more than willing to leave this entire market to Microsoft. I'd say it's more that this is the actual "developer shortage" that was being talked about a decade ago, but everyone mistakenly and stupidly interpreted it to be a shortage of tech workers for the larger firms. The number of humans that are literate enough in business, marketing, co…

There’s plenty of developer talent. You don’t see microsoft office competitors because it’s a bad business to start. “Remake microsoft office suite, but cheaper” won’t work. I’m sure dozens of people have tried.

In all fairness I think Notion and Google have made some level of headway for FWIW.
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