I for one salute Microsoft for exploring innovative business models such as *checks notes* selling software
Microsoft released a new one-time purchase version of Office with most of the features from the subscription version, I am sure you all will be devastated that it doesn't include the Copilot AI integration (I feel like this is a selling point to most people who would buy a one-time purchase...)
If you're not a fan of the $69.99 annual fee for Microsoft 365, you can get a lifetime license for Microsoft's suite of apps for $149.99.
Let’s not be crazy, they’re just selling a perpetual license to use the software
I remember when they did this with their OS back in the day. You'd get a PC which already came packaged with Windows. You didn't need to pay nor was it baked into the price. I think this was around 3.x to 95 era? They wanted to corner the market through saturation and it worked. Fuckers.
Is Publisher in there somewhere?
this will surely pay for 3 mile island
Can they go back to selling video games and consoles now as well? I miss those days.
For business users you often also get their software assurance. (You have to get it in some cases like virtualization) That's kind of a subscription too! (And allowing you to always use the latest version while it's active) Don't get me started on Microsoft licensing in enterprises. 😿
scratching under the surface with an urge to discover how this is any better than the 2016 or 2000 versions
They saw how much people were just using google docs (or hang around on home/student 2010 etc forever) rather than pay for their sub