Microsoft teases Office for Mac update coming, without subscription

AppleInsider · September 24, 2020 10:04AM

Alongside the version included in the Office 365 subscription package, Microsoft says it will release another Office for Mac update in 2021, which will be a single purchase.

The main apps in Office 2016 for Mac

Ahead of its refreshed Outlook for Mac coming in October, Microsoft has announced that it will release a new edition of the full Office for Mac with what it calls a "perpetual licence" instead of subscription. Coming some time in the second half of next year, what may be called "Office 2021" is to be sold as a one-off purchase.

"Microsoft Office will also see a new perpetual release for both Windows and Mac, in the second half of 2021," said Microsoft in a blog post. No further details were provided, and the blog post was chiefly about updates to Exchange Server, which "are only available with the purchase of a subscription license."

Office for Mac was originally a single, one-off purchase from when it first came out in 1998. From 2013 onwards, however, Microsoft has been increasingly promoting its continuous subscription version, Office 365, for both Mac and Windows.

More recently referred to as Microsoft 365, the subscription comes in business, personal and family versions. The business version costs from $5 per month per user, and the personal edition is $6.99 per month.

Microsoft recently announced that it was officially ending support for Office 2016 for Mac on October 13, 2020.

bageljoey · September 24, 2020 10:20AM

I will get this. I refuse the subscription model for this product.

george kaplan · September 24, 2020 12:54PM

bageljoey said:

I will get this. I refuse the subscription model for this product.

For me, it depends upon the price, since I don’t need Office for work. But I wonder if Microsoft took too many hits from improved versions of Pages/Numbers/etc and Google Office to be able to justify charging Mac users a subscription fee?

I know the Apple and Google suites aren’t identical to Office, and for some it must be Office, but for many of us, what Apple and Google offer is more than good enough.

Graeme000 · September 24, 2020 1:25PM

bageljoey said:

I will get this. I refuse the subscription model for this product.

Seconded. The last time I paid for office was when they last had a perpetual license. I will definitely consider this.

I really hope Adobe is considering a non-subscription version too.

rob53 · September 24, 2020 2:12PM

bageljoey said:

I will get this. I refuse the subscription model for this product.

I agree but I'm using the $99/yr subscription on a few computers and I have to wonder how often Microsoft would release what they consider an upgrade instead of an update, again charging full amount for each and every Microsoft product. I also would worry they'd continue using their activation process, again on a per computer basis. I hate saying anything Microsoft sells is a good price but their subscription cost is much less than Adobe's.

danvm · September 24, 2020 2:20PM

Graeme000 said:

bageljoey said:

I will get this. I refuse the subscription model for this product.

Seconded. The last time I paid for office was when they last had a perpetual license. I will definitely consider this.
I really hope Adobe is considering a non-subscription version too.

Maybe you didn't knew, but MS never took out from the market the boxed version of MS Office. And Adobe have some applications without subscription, at least with business licensing, like Adobe Acrobat Pro. The thing with Adobe Acrobat, is that the perpetual license is for old versions, in this case from 2017. At least that was my experience with a customer, different from MS, that gives you an updated version of MS Office.

ITGUYINSD · September 24, 2020 2:20PM

$100/yr for 6 users gets you fully updated version of all the Office apps plus 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage PER USER. To get the same iCloud storage would cost as much as this entire Office Suite!

So, $17/user per year, how many years until you've spent as much as a perpetual SINGLE USER license? 10 or 15 years?

But people say Office365 isn't a good deal. If you have multiple computers, family members, friends, etc., can share the cost, it definitely makes sense to spend $17/yr for the apps plus 1TB cloud storage.

Office365 is the deal of the century compared to Adobe's subscriptions and pricing.

dewme · September 24, 2020 3:56PM

If you work for a larger company that purchases a lot of Office 365 licenses (I think the minimum is 2000), or a non-profit, or educational institution, Microsoft has what they call a home use program (HUP) that allows you to purchase the non-subscription version of Office 365 (PC or Mac) for a tiny amount of money. The last time I bought it I paid $9.99. It’s what I’d call an amazing deal, if you can get it. The subscription version is around 30% off the regular price. Check with your IT department. Microsoft also offers discounts for active duty military and veterans on some of their products.

Beats · September 24, 2020 5:31PM

I wish people would jump onto Apples office services instead. MS' subscription crap is terrible. Hope this news is true as I might need excel for work (unfortunately).

ITGUYINSD said:

$100/yr for 6 users gets you fully updated version of all the Office apps plus 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage PER USER. To get the same iCloud storage would cost as much as this entire Office Suite!

So, $17/user per year, how many years until you've spent as much as a perpetual SINGLE USER license? 10 or 15 years?

But people say Office365 isn't a good deal. If you have multiple computers, family members, friends, etc., can share the cost, it definitely makes sense to spend $17/yr for the apps plus 1TB cloud storage.

Office365 is the deal of the century compared to Adobe's subscriptions and pricing.

What if you're a single user? That's where the problem begins. What if you only need excel for a month and a half? That's $99/year per user and I don't want to use Microsofts cloud service. I don't trust them.

Apple's programs are free. Much better deal.

sflocal · September 24, 2020 7:01PM

If one is a single-user, with one computer then that's great.

I use Office365 on three Macs, and my iPhone. The math has to work for sure.

danvm · September 24, 2020 7:15PM

Beats said:

I wish people would jump onto Apples office services instead. MS' subscription crap is terrible. Hope this news is true as I might need excel for work (unfortunately).

ITGUYINSD said:

$100/yr for 6 users gets you fully updated version of all the Office apps plus 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage PER USER. To get the same iCloud storage would cost as much as this entire Office Suite!

So, $17/user per year, how many years until you've spent as much as a perpetual SINGLE USER license? 10 or 15 years?

But people say Office365 isn't a good deal. If you have multiple computers, family members, friends, etc., can share the cost, it definitely makes sense to spend $17/yr for the apps plus 1TB cloud storage.

Office365 is the deal of the century compared to Adobe's subscriptions and pricing.

People would jump in Apple office services if they were better than what MS offers, specially for business where MS ecosystem is far ahead from what Apple have.

What if you're a single user? That's where the problem begins. What if you only need excel for a month and a half? That's $99/year per user and I don't want to use Microsofts cloud service. I don't trust them.

Apple's programs are free. Much better deal.

There is plan for single users, $70 per year. And even you can subscribe with monthly plans, that would be cheap for the month and a half example you gave. IMO, not that bad either, considering it includes 1TB of OneDrive storage.

MplsP · September 24, 2020 9:07PM

Beats said:

I wish people would jump onto Apples office services instead. MS' subscription crap is terrible. Hope this news is true as I might need excel for work (unfortunately).

I like Pages and Numbers but they are not on par with MS Office. I really wish Apple would allow better compatibility with Office.

One of my biggest complaints with MS Office is that its incredible bloat-ware. It takes forever to load and is often cumbersome to use.

rikipedia · September 25, 2020 1:16AM

C'mon people, think!
iOS Macs are arriving soon-ish. Wait until then to spend the big bucks outfitting your beast with the latest. In fact, let's starve Apple into building us new silicon sooner than later. Don't be buyin' Mac shit now.

michelb76 · September 25, 2020 7:24AM

rikipedia said:

C'mon people, think!
iOS Macs are arriving soon-ish. Wait until then to spend the big bucks outfitting your beast with the latest. In fact, let's starve Apple into building us new silicon sooner than later. Don't be buyin' Mac shit now.

Dumbest post yet. You must have missed the PPC transition at all. Intel macs will be supported for YEARS to come.

wood1208 · September 25, 2020 2:52PM

rikipedia said:

C'mon people, think!
iOS Macs are arriving soon-ish. Wait until then to spend the big bucks outfitting your beast with the latest. In fact, let's starve Apple into building us new silicon sooner than later. Don't be buyin' Mac shit now.

First MAC is the best, not shit. Apple will support Intel for years so no issue there but if anyone choose to wait to replace/upgrade/buy Apple Silicon based MAC, than that is their choice.

wood1208 · September 25, 2020 3:08PM

Subscription based software model is good for enterprise,medium,small businesses but not for casual users like students,at home users where not all apps from MS Office suite used frequently. So, offering non-subscription Office is good for Microsoft and Users. For my MAC, I like to buy non-subscription single license under $50 MS office and use it for the next 8-10 years. There are also other free options for office productivity software(OpenOffice,LibreOffice, Apple documents tools, etc) on MAC,Windows that can also be used for simpler document work like opening,changing and saving document originally created by Microsoft Word,Excel,etc.

StrangeDays · September 25, 2020 7:44PM

For consumers or small businesses, not being forced to pay rent for SaaS is preferred. When your needs are minimal you don't need every latest bell & whistle.

Gruber posted this about Panic's new Nova app's pricing model, which is a hybrid -- initial upfront price for a year, then a lower-priced annual subscription, but if you don't want to pay you don't have to, and you keep the working version you have without updates. Sounds ideal.

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/09/24/nova

As for Office, I refuse to pay rent to use Office on iOS.

iQuack · September 25, 2020 10:50PM

Unless you absolutely must have Microsoft Office, you can get the same functionality free using OpenOffice or the similar LibreOffice, available for both PCs and Macs. Check those out before spending your money on Microsoft Office.

chasm · September 26, 2020 9:41PM

Since some of you do not appear to be aware, Microsoft has not stopped selling a (wildly misnamed) "perpetual" version of Office ... it just costs a lot.

The current standard version of Office can be bought for around $300 iirc, but some versions aren't available in the non-seated or perpetual format.

But of course, we now know that "perpetual" Office licenses -- if you can get them and want to pay that price -- only last for four years, as demonstrated by the coming nullification of Office 2016. Also, you don't get the 1TB of OneDrive space with the "perpetual" license, again iirc.

So the $70/year an individual would pay for the standard 365 version actually works out to be a better value, and cheaper. And I say this as someone who is not a big fan of software subscriptions, nor do I use Office.

rikipedia · September 29, 2020 7:22PM

wood1208 said:

rikipedia said:

C'mon people, think!
iOS Macs are arriving soon-ish. Wait until then to spend the big bucks outfitting your beast with the latest. In fact, let's starve Apple into building us new silicon sooner than later. Don't be buyin' Mac shit now.

First MAC is the best, not shit. Apple will support Intel for years so no issue there but if anyone choose to wait to replace/upgrade/buy Apple Silicon based MAC, than that is their choice.

Sorry, if I offended people by saying Mac 'shit.' It's a hipster term of endearment. I call everything I like, 'the shit.' I call all of my Apple gear 'Apple Shit' because I have so much of it (you know what I mean)

I will take issue with: 'Apple will support Intel for years so no issue there.' Ughhh, my Mac doesn't support Big Sur. What will I do with my Mac when Apple Silicon arrives? I'll flush down that shit. When it's released EVERYTHING published (magazine articles, how-to's, web postings, etc.) will be about Apple Silicon and you'll feel like a dinosaur running Intel) Again I say, WAIT before you buy more Mac stuff.

Microsoft teases Office for Mac update coming, without subscription

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