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Microsoft: Everything for a low end price
Microsoft plans to give access to everything (from 365 to your own license for enterprise windows on usb) for the monthly price of 7 $ per user.
It may not be free, but it is starting to look very acceptable. I wonder if they did not strike a deal with NSA for an offsite backup program, this move is a bit unexpected if the price will really be that low.
"Users not already under an Enterprise Agreement can just buy the cloud features directly for a comparable price."
Comments
At least they are sticking to the LET pricing rules!
Sounds great, but don't know if the EU anti-monopoly regulators will like it, might try to force them to debundle it. Remember the browser choice on Windows thing?
Do they still sell Microsoft office for home use without subscriptions? The last MO I bought was 2007. Do they push it to subscriptions base for home users, too?
This seems like a modern spin on the have office for £9 whilst a student.
@Maounique - ebay has loads of 1 year office 365 subscriptions @ 20-25 USD.
I know but this is not only office 365. It includes windows on the go, sort of, you can load it on USB and use on any computer, as well as other goodies.
As I understand it, yes. IMO, this move will make sense more for home users, they would undercut themselves for corporate ones.
My two eurocents: M$ is slowly changing its product policy, from Windows being a product to YOU beign The Product, which resembles The Google Way of making business. Let the data mining begin!
The question is, where can I sign up?
you can do this on any windows 8 anyway (i do it with windows 8 pro)
I am not sure it works yet, but might be something like this:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/microsoft-intune/try.aspx
The idea is not to offer a new product, it is only how licensing and integration will work.
i mean, you can pay one fee for all the goodies, or something like that. No extra license, no separate payments and contracts. I doubt the licenses will be any easier to understand, but at least the payment will.
Great to hear that they're finally starting to think outside of their box. Plenty of companies can get away with high licensing costs, but Windows and Office have been slowly slipping from that pedestal for some time. Alternatives become more viable every day.
i wonder what will happen to the prebuilt market
they are simply copying the way how games used to work, from one time purchase to monthly subscription. Bundle with many micro subscription.
People are no longer accepting to pay a serious premium for windows on laptops, from what i see here, prices are up some 20-30 eur for home versions compared to linux or no OS, this means a few months of that subscription and I bet the OEMs are paying less and less per unit to MS.
The corporate market is already out of this scenario, so, it makes a lot more sense to stop imposing the windows tax on laptops and move to a different licensing model.