Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Office 2016 to 7% more expensive – Computerworld

According to the announcement, Microsoft officially introduced to offer the latest version of MS Office 2016. It is available both within the Office 365 subscription service, as in the classic form of licenses, but it is evident that Microsoft wants to encourage users to use subscriptions, because the prices of classic licenses are 5% to 7% higher than the previous versions of Office.

Despite the introduction of the new package, the prices of all variants of Office 365 remained unchanged. While the standard, single license for the classic version of Office Home & amp; Student in 2016 now costs $ 150 (the price of the previous version of Office this type amounted to $ 140 – an increase of 7%). Also rocketed Office Home & amp; Business in 2016 (under which is available popular email client Microsoft Outlook) – from 220 to 230 USD (ie an increase of 4.5%). There is no change only the price of the most expensive version of Office Professional 2016 – maintained it at $ 400.

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All the above rates are classic, single license – unofficially called because Microsoft itself does not use that term, an agreed term. They are sold mainly in traditional stores and allow you to install the software on one workstation and use it indefinitely.

With Office 365, heavily promoted by Microsoft’s service is completely different. There is no one-time initiation fee and the user pays for use of the software monthly or annual subscription. Home users need to be here to count charges at $ 7 per month or $ 70 annually for a version of Office 365 Personal or 10/100 USD variant of Office 365 Home. For business also provides several options, ranging from 99 to 240 USD per year.

Especially popular option is Office 365 Home – it allows for you to install Office 2016 on up to five machines (PCs or Macs) on the farm home. Moreover, subscribers of all variants of Office 365 (both ‘home’ and business), they also have the ability to use, with no extra charges, Office applications prepared for devices with systems Android and iOS, and their tailored to handle touch devices with Windows 10 (tablet , smartphones or hybrid tablet-notebook).

It is worth noting that the current rise in prices of standard licenses for MS Office is the second such increase in recent years – in January 2013. Prices rose by as much as 17% (in depending on the version). This was, as now, both versions for Windows and for Mac OS (in the latter case, the price has increased despite the fact that no new version of the package).

Microsoft officially does not comment on the case rate hike the company also completely ignored this aspect in the official press release showing new products. However, it seems obvious that the purpose of the changes is to make Office 365 more attractive alternative to perpetual license. This sales model is for corporations much more used that – provides a solid, long-term influence, rather than a single license purchase once every few years.

Version subscription – Office 365 Home – it now seems much more attractive alternative, especially for people having in the home a few computers. Quick calculation shows that in the case of a house with three computers purchase perpetual licenses for Office will be more attractive than the subscription cost after 7 years of use (comparing the cost of buying three separate license versus the cost of a seven-year subscription covering licenses for several posts). Moreover, in the embodiment of classic licensed user still has at its disposal the same (after a few years already somewhat obsolete) version of Office, and in its package subscription option will always be updated to the latest version.

Slightly The situation is different for the cheapest subscription to Office 365 Personal, which can be installed only on one workstation. Even offered by Microsoft additives (eg. 1 TB of space on the site onedrive) is not necessarily seem to be more attractive than the classic license Office Home and Student 2016, which costs $ 150 – so if you use it for longer than 26 months is more attractive than variant subscription. If the old prices this time was slightly shorter – amounted to approx. 24 months.

It should be added that Microsoft was not easy for users to directly compare the subscription and traditional variants of MS Office – requires a bit conversion and in most cases at first sight preferably of an eye always looks variant subscription. The company clearly hopes that it it just will choose users, because Microsoft wants to change its revenue model, and Office 365 has to be one of the tools that will be used to achieve this objective in practice.

More details about the latest version of MS Office and available software versions can be found on the Microsoft site.


 

 The conversion cost of ownership Office, source: Computerworld US.
 

The conversion cost of ownership Office, source: Computerworld US.

 
 
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