Monday, December 17th 2018
Future Microsoft Office Versions Look to be Subscription Only
A job listing posted by Microsoft is being hailed as sign of subscription-based times to come to the company's Office 365 and Windows products. Honestly, I believe this to be a matter of time - Subscription services have been increasing at an alarming rate, Microsoft has already tasted the advantages of such a model on their bottom line with their Xbox Live and Games Pass systems, and of course, there're always the ever-giant Spotifys and Netflixes of this world.
Windows and Office as a service is nothing out of the ordinary, really. The job listing for a "Product Manager, M365 Consumer Subscription - Modern Life & Devices (MLD)", which has a job description along the lines of "market a great new Microsoft 365 Consumer Subscription" doesn't come as a surprise. Going from this Office 365 consumer subscription to a Windows one is a bit of a stretch on the basis of the job posting alone, but it is in the foreseeable future for Microsoft's strategy to safeguard Windows and its updates behind a monthly payment, ensuring that one-off purchases are no longer a thing - and guaranteeing a predictable revenue stream.
Of course, enterprises usually prefer to own things instead of having them in a rent model, but Office 365 for businesses has already paved the way for tighter integration of subscription services in the professional world. For users, though... Microsoft would just love to put their hands in a steady revenue stream from the OEM market - licenses for Microsoft's OS could ship with one or two years in-box, with subsequent version updates (outside the usual security updates, we'd guess and hope) would be locked behind a monthly payment. There's no way this model would leave users better off than before - Microsoft wouldn't change a model to one that would bring them less revenue, and the OEM market is a huge source of untapped, renewable revenue. We'll see how this shakes up.
Sources:
Microsoft, PCgamesHardware.de
Windows and Office as a service is nothing out of the ordinary, really. The job listing for a "Product Manager, M365 Consumer Subscription - Modern Life & Devices (MLD)", which has a job description along the lines of "market a great new Microsoft 365 Consumer Subscription" doesn't come as a surprise. Going from this Office 365 consumer subscription to a Windows one is a bit of a stretch on the basis of the job posting alone, but it is in the foreseeable future for Microsoft's strategy to safeguard Windows and its updates behind a monthly payment, ensuring that one-off purchases are no longer a thing - and guaranteeing a predictable revenue stream.
62 Comments on Future Microsoft Office Versions Look to be Subscription Only
Whether this is even related to Office is just guesswork in the first place, and I honestly don't see why it would be. They already have that going. You can also find permanent Office 2016 and 2019 keys online for as little as 5~15 bucks. My care factor is just about zero to be honest.
Whether WaaS (Windows as a Service :D, in Dutch Waas means 'haze') is going to take off soon or ever, I'll see it when that happens. Won't be overnight anyway, more than enough time to adjust. But when it does, I'm out. They can put their cloud where the sun don't shine :)True. And who are leading in tech these days?
The owners. Take some time to think about that :) In many cases not owning anything is a question of penny wise / pound foolish. It just takes time to realize that, and when you do, its actually to late to turn back. You've lost all the ingredients to make ownership a success by then (mostly people and loyalty). It happens in governance too, putting more and more critical assets on the 'free market' with some misplaced illusion that will create profit. In Europe we are now slowly waking up from that dream. Very slowly. Healthcare is a great example.
Plus that KMS thing... I've heard there is something that can be done about that.
Especially if it's going to be €9,99 a month.
Here’s a much more down to Earth writing about the job announcement, and seconds what I have been saying that there is no indication or clue anywhere that and subscription would involve the OS.
www.pcworld.com/article/3328098/windows/microsoft-365-subscription-for-consumers-without-or-without-xbox.amp.html
Nice knowing you M$.
This is because from the perspective of a business, when a product is sold on a rental model, the consumer is assumed to be part of a single nebulous mass of users who ebb and flow. Many are trialling the product and never returning. Some are longterm users who make no demands on the product at all. Most are in some small way unhappy with the product but not enough to look for an alternative.
Compare that to a person who is buying a single product, once, at a higher price - You have to convince this person to pay the initial entry fee, so trial versions become a high expense item that drives retention at a cost - rather than a short term subscription, which makes you money even if the customer leaves immediately.
Also, in a subscription model, your only impetus to provide a useful upgrade to your product would be to prevent a competitor from stealing your subscribers. If there's no realistic competition, then you can continue to make bank while doing nothing. Compare that to a purchase and ownership model, where to continue making money, even without competition, you either have to find people who don't already own your software and sell it to them, or you have to find ways to convince existing owners to upgrade. That's hard to do when you're selling a product like Office, that already does THOUSANDS of complex and useful things that 99% of users simply don't require.
He's phrasing it weirdly, I agree, but he's right in spirit - Subscription models rather than purchase models, dehumanise the consumers of your product and reduce their power of choice while reducing your costs as a business.
Thx for the link
P.S.
Enterprises prefers to rent nowadays, OPEX vs CAPEX, etc.
M365 may become a different total package for consumer. A package where obviously Office is only part of the deal. Which makes sense, because why sub something you barely use (most avg consumers).
There are plenty of good reasons to criticise Microsoft, but honestly, blind hate is silly.
I want telemetry gone too. I want proper package management to become the norm and the registry to be better managed. I want updates to be optional, I want less disconnect between the new settings panels and the old control panel, and less duplication of functionality. I want there to be better support for VPN within the OS, instead of the gimped support the OS presently has. I want to be able to use Linux-esque workspaces, I want them to return proper user management to sub-pro SKUs of windows, so that families with disabled children fan properly limit the damage said children can do to the OS with errant clicking - Win10 home is awful for this. I could even request that windows restore were made capable of booting a static snapshot of a single user's account so that no matter what, that disabled user always has the same experience when logging in - do you have any idea how helpful that would be for autistic children who have that need for routine?
But ultimately, the alternatives I could have instead of windows either don't address these shortcomings either, or they come with huge drawbacks that prevent me from recommending them either. Fedora Linux for example, is a great OS - but compared to windows, it is in the STONE AGE when it comes to installing GPU drivers, and its installer wont run on my system unless I unplug 3 of my hard drives first. Is that a very niche issue? Yes. But it's one that Windows has never had and Fedora does.
If that changes then fine, but until it does, I have two choices - I either use MS products to do what I want to do - or I don't do what I want to do.
That's strange, since your profile, recent posts, and every thread you've submitted to this forum all confirm you're a windows user. Not only that but you don't seem to have ever posted anything about Linux and your system specs say "Fuck OS X too".
Sounds to me like all you're doing is trying to justify piracy instead of even looking into whether there are other options for what you want to do. I didn't know that "fighting the status quo" meant "never talking about alternatives to it"
I mean hey, far be it from me to suggest that piracy isn't a valid form of protest against a corrupt or exploitative industry, but would it kill you to at least pay lip service to some of the alternatives available so that you don't seem like such a colossal hypocrite?
Edit: I would also absolutely love to hear your rationale for MS being the downfall of PC Gaming. That's just gotta be some grade A moon logic considering there are fewer console exclusives this generation than in any previous one, yet more games released than any previous generation.