Microsoft introduces 365 Family subscription and Teams for consumers

Discussion in 'Frontpage news' started by Hilbert Hagedoorn, Mar 31, 2020.

  1. Hilbert Hagedoorn

    Hilbert Hagedoorn Don Vito Corleone Staff Member

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  2. reix2x

    reix2x Master Guru

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    i hate all this subscription based software, i know people that is still using their office 2010 copy because that's the one that they bought, and it works pretty ok, sometimes you need office software but you wont need it every day just sometimes, in that way, paying for a subscription is so much expensive.
     
  3. H83

    H83 Ancient Guru

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    Completely agree. I also have a super old Office that still serves me perfectly fine.
     
  4. xnm33

    xnm33 Guest

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    What did you think steam and ultima online were 20+ years ago? Ultima online, everquest and world of warcraft, were the game industry stealing games and making them "client server" and using the internet as the dongle, this has been a long time in coming. They've been trying to kill local apps since the industry was founded.

    Valve is one of the pioneers of software theft with steam, before 2004 most games you got complete local applications before software started to be coded client server, games went first. After microsoft saw what valve and apple did, why wouldn't MS try to do what valve did?

    MS now technically owns your windows 10 machine because they are literally hacking the OS and putting all sort of crap in there, everything the slashdot nerds of the 90's feared. You literally don't own your windows 10 machine.

    We can blow the lid off this software theft by calling the FTC and telling them about the tech industries and game industries theft of software for the last 20 years. The game industry is a haven of theives.

    We all should have called the FTC when steam was being released in 2004 before it grew into the cancer it was today.

    https://www.ftc.gov/
     

  5. Kaarme

    Kaarme Ancient Guru

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    Although you don't own games anymore like you used to, little else has changed. You pay once (unless it's a monthly billed MMO) and it's yours to keep, at least as long as Valve doesn't go bankrupt. The whole small DLC and microtransaction scheme is the real thing that changed for the worse.

    Literally? MS has no claim for your hardware. You can get rid of your Windows any day and install Linux if you want to. I paid once for my Win10 and I will use it for as long as Win11 or 12 comes out, if they are supposed to come out. If MS one day wants me to start paying 6.99 euros a month for Windows, I guess my gaming days will be over and I will be learning Linux. I might be willing to pay 10 euros a year, maybe even 15, if it comes down to it, but it wouldn't be much of a deal for MS.

    I don't want to drag foreign politics into anything, but you will likely need to wait another four years. One of the first things Trump did was to gut consumer protection. He's a former big businessman himself, so he loves big business and corporations. Just look at the FCC and that clown Ajit Pai placed there as a leader by Trump.

    Edit: Wrong word used.
     
    Last edited: Apr 2, 2020
  6. thesebastian

    thesebastian Member Guru

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    I'm currently paying every year for 5 licenses of office, the 5 license pack is not expensive short term, but it is in long term and I'm the only one paying for it --> I just use Outlook, Word and Excel mainly.
    That being said. I would love to have open source office in the future. But the companies I work with use Office 365 and sometimes I just use it from my personal environment/Windows10 and I need this as well.

    Outlook meetings, shared calendar, out of office, synchronization with Skype for business or Teams, office microsoft documents are some examples of the closed ecosystem that jail me into this.
    This is like Apple Messages and many other things.

    On the bright side: Linux is every day much more popular. And many things that cost a lot of many, use Linux every day. I'd love to see games migrating to more OS. I think Vulkan could help a lot on this, if it gets popular
     
    Last edited: Apr 1, 2020
  7. I just finished a contract with a reputable company that circumvented subscription base by deploying pro editions of the older office versions across their domain - volume license; not sure how as I thought MS wasn't issuing those keys anymore nor renewing them? I don't know for sure as I'm just assuming as O365 is current model now for Business almost everywhere I administer. Either way I don't think we were using the right grade enterprise licensing to scale, to reflect the amount of people we had working there. 30,000 plus employees.

    Not to mention all of our thin clients across citrix used Win 7 Pro edition instead of let's say "Win 7 Enterprise" which would have reflected a VL model to reflect the size of our user base etc.. many things weren't in compliance. Few seem to adhere entirely to many of the licensing practices coming from Microsoft. We only fell within compliance around the time I left (O365 E3, W10 Enterprise etc) requiring a massive migration... not fun times.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 1, 2020
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  8. heffeque

    heffeque Ancient Guru

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    I pay for the Office 365 family pack not because of Office itself, but because of the 5x1 TB of OneDrive for 1.65 €/month per account... with free Office!
    No other company gives 1 TB for 1.65 €/month (VAT included).
     
  9. reix2x

    reix2x Master Guru

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    That's truly a good price
     
  10. Crazy Serb

    Crazy Serb Master Guru

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    I will rather keep using libre office and buy new 4tb drive every year instead of giving 100EUR for either sub/one drive space...
     

  11. heffeque

    heffeque Ancient Guru

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    For my stuff I have offline backups too ;)
    First of all: only relying in offline backups is a disaster waiting to happen.
    Second of all: I never said that all 5 accounts were in a single household, so your solution would require a full blown NAS.
    Third of all: I have tried lots of times to teach them to back up their data every once in a while... and it's literally impossible, so the best option is to have something automated that they don't have to plug in every once in a while, and that's where NAS or cloud backups come in. In my case I chose cloud backups.

    Edit: if I ever end up getting a NAS, it will surely be an AS5304T populated with "cheap/SATA" large capacity SSDs. Don't think that I haven't given NAS's a though!
     
  12. Aura89

    Aura89 Ancient Guru

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    If you're only interested in the base model office and only need it for one PC, then yes, subscription is too expensive.

    However, if you need the all the office programs, and need it for 6 PCs, that's $439.99 per PC, $2639.94 total.

    A $100 a year subscription to get equivalently the same thing (for the most part) doesn't seem like such a bad deal then, it'll take you 26 years to equate to the same cost. Plus, you'll get the updated programs rather than be stuck with the copy you bought one time.

    There is definitely a place for the subscription. I almost never recommend to anyone to get the subscription, but sometimes, it makes sense.

    It can even make sense, just not as long if all you need is the base program for 6 PCs, as that's $899.94 total, and would take you 9 years to equate to the same cost
     
  13. reix2x

    reix2x Master Guru

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    man... i can totally use the same software for 26 years, i have been doing that with notepad haha, now being serious as you say it, it make sense
     
  14. fantaskarsef

    fantaskarsef Ancient Guru

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    Will see how libre office is, I guess this freeware will suit my needs.
     
  15. heffeque

    heffeque Ancient Guru

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    If you don't use macros, etc. it's probably more than enough for almost anyone's use case scenario.
     
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  16. fantaskarsef

    fantaskarsef Ancient Guru

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    Yeah I use word for the occasional letter and excel for simple tables and such, if I needed more I'd have the alternative to use my work laptop as I currently work from home. But I don't fancy taking it home and turning it on usually, I try to separate the two spheres of personal and business.
     
  17. heffeque

    heffeque Ancient Guru

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    Then libre office is great for you!
     
  18. fantaskarsef

    fantaskarsef Ancient Guru

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    From what limited experience I have during the last week, I guess so too. ;)
     
  19. Kaarme

    Kaarme Ancient Guru

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    Back in the Office 2010 days you could buy a pack of three licenses. It didn't cost that much more than an OEM single license (from a reputable store, like 150 euros vs 99 euros, or something). Such an option has only disappeared because MS wants everybody to switch to subscription. They only have the relatively expensive and limited 1 PC license left for the people who hate subscription services as much as MS hates those people.

    Btw, I'm still running Office 2010. I'll only update if I happen to come across a newer non-subscription license for much cheaper than what MS is asking for it. Not that I'd have been looking around.
     
  20. heffeque

    heffeque Ancient Guru

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    Office 365 subscription makes sense for 2 things: you need/want updated Office tools AND/OR you need/want 1 TB of OneDrive for very cheap.

    Any other case doesn't make sense.
     

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