Microsoft raises Office for Mac 2011 prices, pushes customers toward Office 365
Three weeks after Microsoft released Office 365 Home Premium, a subscription-based service that gives Macs, PCs and Windows tablets access to the complete set of Office applications, it was discovered that the Redmond company quietly upped the price of single use Office for Mac copies by as much as 17 percent.
First spotted by Computerworld, the new pricing structure puts the outdated Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 in the same tier as its newer PC counterpart, Office 2013 for Windows. Also deprecated from the Mac version are multi-license bundles, meaning those interested in purchasing can now only install the software on one device at a time.
The publication proposes that the change was designed to spur sales of Microsoft's newest Office 365 suite, the "Home Premium" version of which includes a complete set of Office applications that can be installed on up to five Macs, PCs, and Windows tablets. To access the cloud-based solution, users pay a yearly subscription of $99.99. Student pricing comes in at a substantially cheaper $79.99 for a four-year subscription to Office 365 University.
Microsoft now charges $140 for the single-license Office for Mac Home & Student and $220 for Office for Mac Home & Business, a respective 17 percent and 10 percent price hike from the previous $120 and $200 price points.
As for the now-extinct multi-license packages, the company once offered a three-license bundle of Office for Mac Home & Student for $150 and a two-license set of Office for Mac Home & Business for $250. Using the new pricing scheme, it would cost $420 to buy three separate licenses of Home & Student and $440 for two Home & Business licenses, representing 180 percent and 76 percent increases from the erstwhile bundles, respectively.
While Microsoft and Apple's respective online stores now reflect the higher prices, Office for Mac 2011 can still be found at the older pricing in both single- and multi-license versions from online retailers like Amazon.
First spotted by Computerworld, the new pricing structure puts the outdated Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 in the same tier as its newer PC counterpart, Office 2013 for Windows. Also deprecated from the Mac version are multi-license bundles, meaning those interested in purchasing can now only install the software on one device at a time.
The publication proposes that the change was designed to spur sales of Microsoft's newest Office 365 suite, the "Home Premium" version of which includes a complete set of Office applications that can be installed on up to five Macs, PCs, and Windows tablets. To access the cloud-based solution, users pay a yearly subscription of $99.99. Student pricing comes in at a substantially cheaper $79.99 for a four-year subscription to Office 365 University.
Microsoft now charges $140 for the single-license Office for Mac Home & Student and $220 for Office for Mac Home & Business, a respective 17 percent and 10 percent price hike from the previous $120 and $200 price points.
As for the now-extinct multi-license packages, the company once offered a three-license bundle of Office for Mac Home & Student for $150 and a two-license set of Office for Mac Home & Business for $250. Using the new pricing scheme, it would cost $420 to buy three separate licenses of Home & Student and $440 for two Home & Business licenses, representing 180 percent and 76 percent increases from the erstwhile bundles, respectively.
While Microsoft and Apple's respective online stores now reflect the higher prices, Office for Mac 2011 can still be found at the older pricing in both single- and multi-license versions from online retailers like Amazon.
Comments
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
…it was discovered that the Redmond company quietly upped the price of single use Office for Mac copies by as much as 17 percent.
"What're you gonna do about it? Buy iWork?!"
*six months later*
"Sir, they bought iWork."
"…oh."
Best bet for Apple might be to make iWork or Pages and Numbers (and Bento/Filemaker) open source and let developers have at it, so these applications can be made real competitors. Apache has shown such a process can work quite well.
Apple could really put the hammer down if they released new updated versions of Safari and iWork for Mac and Windows. Millions of iDevices... Another MS cash cow that can easily bit the dust.
But Apple isn't doing it... Sometimes they seem so retarded. Oh well, they can't be perfect, right? They could just recruit more programmers and focus even more on software. I want an upgrade cycle of at least 7 years for my 13" Air 2011, software plays a big part. C'mon Apple.
2013 for Windows and 2011 for Mac can still be had for $9.95 from http://www.microsofthup.com if you are fortunate enough to work for a company that participates in this program.
How Apple can help knee cap Microsoft for the sake of Apple Customers: Release a full-fledged trio in iWorks with truly a professional level spreadsheet and DTP with hooks for services including TeXLive, MatLab, R, Octave and include full support for ODF 1.2 to allow interoperability with LibreOffice through file type support.
I know a subscription based business model is one of the most desirable models. I actually avoid them as much as possible.
I dislike someone going into my checking/credit card acct. and debiting my account automatically. Hate it!
That said, I will not have any MS product on my Macs or iOS devices! No thanks, MS.
...and a licensing change may push Microsoft Office users to Google Docs.
http://siliconangle.com/blog/2013/02/18/single-license-office-2013-will-drive-users-to-google-docs-breaking-analysis/
Enough said
Quote:
Originally Posted by waldobushman
Apple should make iWork more complete, and functional to compete with Office Suite, which gets buggier with every release. OpenOffice is not a real competitor for MS Office.
Best bet for Apple might be to make iWork or Pages and Numbers (and Bento/Filemaker) open source and let developers have at it, so these applications can be made real competitors. Apache has shown such a process can work quite well.
Agree about iWork needing some work, mainly Numbers still has a few glaring gaps, some as simple as text rotation in cells (which is the number one feature I have to go to Excel for).
Using Apache as an example for a successful Open Source project? I can't agree on that. Apache is an expert tool and as user-unfriendly as possible, not exactly something an office suite can get away with. If there is no high usability and a polished design, it will not be used. And I do not know a single Open Source project that managed to come up with a compelling GUI (OK, some online toolsets like WordPress look OKish, but they are not really conventional end user applications either). Just look at OpenOffice... it certainly has 100% of the functionality 99% of users will ever need. It simply does not attract enough people to become relevant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by neiltc13
2013 for Windows and 2011 for Mac can still be had for $9.95 from http://www.microsofthup.com if you are fortunate enough to work for a company that participates in this program.
and it's probably a freebie if you're an executive at Microsoft...
Do you have any offers for the majority of users not fortunate enough to work amongst the select companies?
Yeah, the office suite apps were more or less mature years ago, and now Microsoft spends millions rearranging functions on the Ribbon so you can't find them, and their corporate customers have to upgrade then spend money retraining their work force. It's a racket.
If Apple had any sense, it would have contined to improve iWork so it could be a credible alternative to Office. But what business or consumer would put their dollars behind a semi-dead product like the Mac version of Iwork? And so iWorks fate appears to be sealed.
Really, Tim Cook, is this the best you can do?? I'm so unimpressed.
Microsoft's answer to making their quarterly numbers......... Raise prices of what most people use and NEED. WIndows prices just got raised, now it's Office.
I think $100 a year is ridiculous for someone with only computer. $25 a year, I wouldn't have a problem paying $25 a year for one yearly subscription to use Office and to always get upgrades for whatever computer I'm using. but $100? F that.
Originally Posted by k2director
I love it. As Microsoft raises prices and limits licenses for Mac users, head-in-the-clouds Apple has let the Mac edition of iWork languish for more than 3 years without any appreciable update. Way to protect the Mac market, Apple! Maybe you should give up on Safari, too, so we can be at Microsoft's mercy even more. I really loved those days when Internet Explorer was the only game in town.
If Apple had any sense, it would have contined to improve iWork so it could be a credible alternative to Office. But what business or consumer would put their dollars behind a semi-dead product like the Mac version of Iwork? And so iWorks fate appears to be sealed.
Really, Tim Cook, is this the best you can do?? I'm so unimpressed.
Oh, yeah. The forums are RE~ALLY a lot better when we let these posts go undeleted.
I have not installed any version of Microsoft Office on my mac in years, I rely on Google Docs and iWork for everything and am quite satisfied with both. Yet I do have to agree that Apple is being lazy when it comes to iWork, seriously it's been three years since they actually updated it (iCloud + retina suport are just minor things), what are they thinking?
Over the years I've been bemused and to a degree, disappointed with the obsession with the Microsoft Office Suite.
I hope that people are slowly waking up to the fact that you don't need the full Microsoft Office suite to type up most letters and documents, just as you don't need Internet Explorer to view web pages.
I can recall the very first Excel and Word release, it was created for the then new Apple Macintosh, only later did they migrate to DOS and Windows.
The fact that Microsoft allowed applications it created originally for the Mac to now lag behind its Windows counterpart is most revealing.
I hope, with iWorks, Mariner, open-source and online Office suites, that we will are returning to the days of a healthy choice of useful office apps.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
"What're you gonna do about it? Buy iWork?!"
*six months later*
"Sir, they bought iWork."
"…oh."
Given enterprise adoption of ipads, it's possible that Apple would really benefit from a strong office suite.