“Microsoft is launching a cheaper ‘Personal’ Office 365 subscription that will give you access to the cloud services and mobile apps for $69/year or $6.99/month opposed to the $99/year Home subscription,” Jordan Kahn reports for 9to5Mac.
“The new Personal subscription only provides access for one Mac (or PC) and iPad (or tablet) instead of the 5 PC or Macs and 5 tablets you get with a Home subscription,” Kahn reports. “You might want to hold off on the new subscription, however, as Amazon is currently selling the full Home subscription for just $63 (37% off).”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: No thanks. At this point, Microsoft would have to pay us $69/year just to bother launching an Office app, much less actually using one.
Related articles:
Business owners beware: What CIOs need to know about Office 365 and Office for iPad – April 2, 2014
We can live without Office for iPad – March 31, 2014
Ihnatko: Office for iPad a boon for compatibility with business, but costs $100 a year forever – March 28, 2014
Microsoft’s Nadella to Apple’s Cook on Office revenue sharing: Drop dead – March 28, 2014
Apple takes their usual 30% cut of Microsoft’s Office for iPad subscriptions – March 27, 2014
Microsoft releases hobbled Office for iPad; requires $100/year subscription to create/edit documents – March 27, 2014
Microsoft CEO Nadella to use his first press conference to talk a lot about Apple – March 27, 2014
Microsoft Office for iPad: 5 big questions – March 26, 2014
Microsoft CEO Nadella expected to finally admit holding Office for iPad hostage a failed strategy – March 26, 2014
Microsoft Office on iPad: Too little too late? – March 23, 2014
iPad generation shuns Microsoft Office; one of Microsoft’s biggest squandered opportunities – March 14, 2014
Apple makes the world’s most advanced operating system freeware – October 23, 2013
Apple’s new free OS X for Mac hurts Microsoft and the Windows PC industry in myriad ways – October 22, 2013
Apple exploits Microsoft’s confused hesitation on Office for iPad – October 22, 2013
Apple’s OS X Mavericks available today free from the Mac App Store – October 22, 2013
Apple releases next-gen 64-bit iWork and iLife apps for OS X and iOS; free with new Macs and iOS devices – October 22, 2013
How thrilling! I almost wet myself with excitement!
Finally! Word processing on iPad! And it’s only $70 per year!!
/s
If it was $7, I might think about it – it is MS after all.
I find myself wondering where Microsoft will be earning it’s future profits from ?
If Apple were forced into a corner where it had to reduce the prices of it’s core products to such an extent, Wall Street would go berserk, but they don’t seem overly concerned that Microsoft’s future revenue streams are drying up.
Apple is finally getting them back (see Pirates of Silicon Valley, Jobs, et al) by taking Microsoft’s bread and butter, software, and making better competing products available for free. So now Microsoft is irrelevant, because it’s primary form of revenue is now found elsewhere for free and in better quality.
And they certainly aren’t going anywhere with hardware either: just look at the Surface. I think xbox may be their only bet, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some other company eventually buys out that part of them as the rest dies off.
From existing and government approve monopoly from years ago. MS will continue to own the business world which really accounts for 90% of Windows works market monopoly.
If you’ve been around the computer scene since the mid 1970’s you would have seen any number of invincible monopolies come and go. The surprising thing is just how fast the de-facto standard can vanish into obscurity.
How many years has Microsoft surpassed these within the computer, business PC industry? MS really is still continuing to dominate. This allows them to blow billions upon billions in trying to dominate the consumer space. Any other company would have gone bankrupt with these losses.
Why pay money for a virus that requires an anti-virus that’s as bad as a virus?
Oh!…in THAT case…it’s still no.
Still too much. I paid less than this for iWork on iPad and that includes free updates, and iWork is now free for new device owners, with no annual fee.
Unless Microsoft has an amazing cloud integration, and offers a price cheaper than iWork (or might as well be free now), and drops the annual fee and includes free updates, they’ve screwed themselves.
They waited so long that now they won’t even be able to recoup the costs of development.
And if that’s not already the best example: I actually have a subscription to Office 365 I received for free from my school, and I never use it, and haven’t even bothered installing the iPad software. So good luck getting people to pay for something that I don’t even use when it’s completely free.
Desperation.
Next level of desperation:
Student subscription.
$50
My thought exactly. this reeks of desperation. They just launched it and they’re already offering lower prices.
Soon you’ll be able to get subscription cards in the 2 for 1 bin at Walmart!
I love making fun of MS just as much as the next guy, but I just ran into one of many Apple sillinesses too. I have a new MBP (yeah) and wanted to authorise this machine on iTunes. Without the current access to the previous computer, I could not de-authorise the previous one from the iTunes menu. So I went into the store, manage and all I could choose is de-authorise all. Now THAT is silly! Why not select 1 and de-authorise 1? As long as Apple does silly things like that, people will find reasons to avoid it.
When it comes to iTunes Store and Mac App Store glitches, Apple does a face plant. Gawd help anyone who has to actually contact the WORTHLESS iTunes Store staff for help. Gawd help them!
I’ve had to go direct to Apple Customer Support in Cupertino about the idiot staff at iTunes and App Store. And then nothing changed. They’re minimum wage worthy morons, including their management. OMFG.
No thanks. I’m already forced to use MS POS JUNK and associated products because of the Monopoly on businesses.
The world has passed them by.
Customers don’t appreciate being forced to subscribe to software with no option to actually purchase it. Microsoft is guiding themselves towards obscurity with that sales model.
Only $69 a year? That’s a steal! Let’s take up a collection and pay MDNs subscription to load and run Microsoft Office apps every day for a year. Now, that’s entertainment!
That’s not entertainment, that’s cruel and unusual punishment.
MDN readers, me included, react with disgust whenever software is offered in only subscription form. Many of us need the flexibility of a one-time-purchase software licenses and the ability to be fully operation offline. There are also many of us who will refuse to use any adware and other shoddy “online docs”, which are also highly limited in capability and frustratingly useless for more than one person to use offline & attempt to sync later.
Sadly, we also know that MDN will suddenly change its tune when Apple forces all its users into “the cloud”. Sure, Timmy will give away all the flat gray dumbed-down software for free, it’s just that the only way you can practically use it is if you buy iCloud subscription, submit to the limitations thereof, and allow Apple to datamine all your data for future iAds. But it will all be wonderful because there will be an Apple brand name attached to it, right, MDN ?!?!?!
This is actually a smart move on Microsoft’s part, here is why: the one tablet, one computer rule is designed for a business to buy it for an employee, for his laptop and iPad. The desktop in the office needs another license. The other thing is IT departments don’t like buying a license for “Junior’s” or “Mom’s” iPad that is part of the 5/5 license. They probably complained to Microsoft. The problem is that the 1 plus 1 license now adds complexity to the process. IT idiots try to rule the world, and for me, I can see right through their foolishness.
Let me be clearer:
IT departments are foolish because the 1 and 1 license plus a desktop in the office license will be more expensive and complicated then the 5 plus 5 license.
The license is for ONE Mac and one iPad. That means if you have an iMac and a MacBook Pro, it will cost extra. It certainly doesn’t meet my needs. I’ll just turn over and go back to sleep.
Why when I can get it for free with iWork. I don’t like spending money over and over again on subscription based software. They can’t improve the product that much to make it worth double the price the next year and the year after and so on.
No thanks. I am happy with read-only Office documents in meetings for free. I will never buy Office 365 until it is fully enabled to my extensive repository of documents in Dropbox. I do not support every vendor forcing me to embrace a different cloud storage solution. That goes for you too, Apple. Make your apps open to the cloud of my choice. Then we’ll talk.
If it was a one time fee of $69 dollars per app I would buy it. Otherwise, not enough need.
Wait. This isn’t an April Fool’s story?