Are all MS XP products gonna be sold on a subscription basis

[zirik 0]

I just read that MS plans to sell Office XP on a subscription basis in the near future. I do not think this is fair because the software they make are always full of bugs.

 

People should not have to pay for bug fixes. If they do that then they should put a warning on every box they sell telling people that their software does not work as advertised and you need to subscribe to get the full working version in lets say two years by which there would be a new version out with more bugs to fix.

[ThC 129 0]

subscription based products are sold and maintained on the web. All your software is mainintaed someplace else so you do most of your work on a program that isnt on your machine, this way bug fixes and SPs can be integrated more easily. Who told you that you have to pay to get SPs and things that is not how subscription based software works. Im not a proponent of that kind of software but it is easier for some compaines.

[Brian Frank 0]

I agree with ThC 129. I dont want to have subscription based software, but for companies, that just might be the ticket.

MS may be screwy sometimes, but I dont ever recall hearing about charging for updates.

[clutch 1]

If you have a subscription, and it runs out, you are normally charged for either the update or to renew your subscription in order to get the update. That's how it works for most of our software (Solidworks, MP2, QAD MFG/Pro, Progress, and a few others) and I would imagine that format will carry over to MS as well. I don't quite see MS as being ready to sell subsciptions to average users, so it may vary as to how they plan on issuing patches and service packs. With these vendors, you (usually) get a year of "maintenance" which includes patches and service packs, but that's it. If you don't renew the subscription, you are SOL for SPs. We probably sink about $40K/yr (US) into renewing maintenance agreements alone, nevermind any new software we may buy or add licenses to. I hope this clears up how subscriptions work, but only MS knows how they will deal with consumers on this matter.

[Bursar 0]

The last plan I heard was that there was going to be two versions of Office XP.

 

One is the full walk into a shop plonk down a few hundred quid and take the software away version.

 

The other is a subscription based version where you buy the software from a shop but at a lower price. You then do your upgrades over the web direct with MS to renew the subscription. This should be relatively pain free. If they can handle the Activation features of their new software this should be easy. The subscription gives you the right to use the software for 12 months. I would guess that all updates would be included in this fee, as they are generally made freely available anyway.

 

The only problem is that the subscription revenue goes straight to MS. This could put some software retailers into financial difficulties a year or two from now when people are still running their subscription services rather than getting a new copy from the retailer.

[loengard 0]

Subscription based software is just bad.... period. It's another way for software companies to continue to put the screws to us and take our money.... I figure, when I go into a store and buy Office, for example, I should then have the right to use it for the rest of eternity if I want to (assuming I install it on one machine, and all the normal licence stuff).... Making me pay a fee every 12 months to continue using it is nothing more than a rip off...

 

Anyone remember Divx? The motion picture industry and Circuit City tried to do something similar, and got burned big time.... Open DVD was the way to go, and standard software licencing is the way to go here.... Next thing you know, the hardware vendors will try this, and I'll have to swipe my credit card in my machine before I can turn it on....

[BladeRunner 0]

If you want to purchase a Microsoft Office product and not pay for it each year, then you don't buy a subscription product.

You go out to the store, purchase the shrink wrapped version and there you have it, all done, just download the Service Packs and use it for as long as you like.

For companies, a subscription based system is very, very viable.

Instead of paying out a lot of money up front to roll out some 100 copies of Office, we can pay a much smaller amount.

In a years time I pay a much smaller amount agin.

Following year, a new MS Office product is released.

No problem, I cancel my subscription to the current version and update it to 100 copies of the new Office package.

No extra cost, no major upgrade cost.

The same goes for OS's.

I've rolled out 100 copies of Win2k, now once WinXP is released, if I really wanted it I'd have to buy 100x approx. £80.

If I was just subscribed, I would have had a very low cost initial lay out and then once WinXP was released, I'd just chance my subscription.

This is so very viable for business and I for one am quite looking forward to it appearing.