The new office licensing is interesting. Microsoft opened the Office 365 as an option for using Office, and this is subscription based.
The major kick they make to users’ ass is by removing family package of 3 devices for the Home & Student edition.
The post in Microsoft’s blog post assumed you will use Office on all five devices. Now lets assume a lower number of two/three computers (desktop, notebook and tablet if it’s not Windows RT).
| Edition | 1 year | 2 years | 3 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| 365 Home Premium | $80 | $160 | $240 |
| Home & Student | $220/330 | $220/330 | $220/330 |
| Home & Business | $560/840 | $560/840 | $560/840 |
| Professional | $1000/1500 | $1000/1500 | $1000/1500 |
| Home & Student* | $110 | $110 | $110 |
* Imagining if Home & Students still have 3 licenses
The last one is just a dream. Microsoft used to offer Home & Student in family pack where a single license can be installed on three devices. As you can see, it will easily triumph the 365 Home Premium in 3 years time.
Another scenario is that if you only use two computers, two licenses of Home & Students are $20 cheaper than three years subscription of Office 365.
Home & Student contains the most common set of Word, Excel, Power Point and OneNote. Talking about Office, these are the most often used applications in any Office suites, especially Word and Excel.
Now think of it, do you actually need Outlook, Access and Publishers ? They♠re available from Office 365 and Professional.
Outlook might seem useful, but Windows Phone no longer connect to Outlook like in the days of Windows Mobile, and the built in client in Windows 8 and Windows Phone already integrate with Exchange server (albeit not as beautifully).
If the Office 365 includes installable software like the Office 2013 preview (also for 5 devices per demo license), then there’s no worry about having to depend on network connection like Google Docs.
Anyway, the price is hard to beat except if you limit yourself on using 2 or less computers, for up to three years.
- 1 Year: 365 HP win.
- 2 Years:
- H&S win for 1 licenses.
- 3 Years:
- H&S win for up to 2 licenses ($220 vs $240).
- 4 Years:
- H&S win for up to 2 licenses ($220 vs $320)
- H&S barely win for up to 3 licenses ($330 vs $320)
- H&B win for up to 1 license ($280 vs $320)
- 5 Years:
- H&S win for up to 3 licenses ($330 vs $400)
- H&S barely win for up to 4 licenses ($440 vs $400)
The thing I’d like to know is, how will the system continue. For example, when Office 2015 is out, will the license get upgraded to the new version. Can we move the subscription to the new version ? Seems like this has not been addressed yet.
Microsoft only mentioned that update will be given, but this might be limited to just the patches.
