Microsoft Help

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ONLINECLASSES 

Microsoft wants to change how we buy Microsoft Office software.  Instead of paying for the software once, Microsoft wants us to be paying for it monthly or annually.

Microsoft offers a variety of subscriptions for the latest version called Office 365.  This isn't cloud software. It still installs on your PC or Mac and the files will also be stored on your PC (though you can set it up to save to the cloud, too).

But the question is: what happens to your files if you decide to stop paying the subscription?

Microsoft does not delete them. It doesn't delete the Office software from your PC either. You can open them and look at them but you can't edit them.

http://in.finance.yahoo.com/news/happens-files-stop-paying-microsoft-151500135.html

This certainly isn't going to work well with computers that are not and can not be connected to the internet. It is already a big enough issue with Microsoft but subscriptions? Maybe for some but it won't work in the areas where I work. In this area, computers are connected to the internet on first boot, updated and activated. Then they are scanned for all sorts of "stuff" and disconnected from the outside world, never to be connected or updated again until the next refresh, usually about 10 to 15 years.

However, businesses have to be able to communicate via a compatible standard and MS may still be able to push its hostage ware for a while. Unfortunately for them, everything must come to an end at sometime, and it is just a matter of time before another Office Suite will come along that will be cheaper and more readily available, yet will have all of the necessary bells and whistles - then MS will be stuck with their collective heads in the clouds.

Consumers won't pay for it as a subscription and I think eventually businesses will look for other options as well. I have bought MS Office software before and love it, but I won't pay for it as a subscription. I realize that Microsoft is trying to fix a insurance for their profits in the quickly changing computing environment, but I don't think this will work. Microsoft Office is one of the reasons people went with Microsoft/Windows back in the 90's and the last decade. However, there are too many other options for people now and people no longer feel trapped into Microsoft products. 

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