The latest issue of Office Watch includes the following interesting remarks about the subscription option for MS office:
"Microsoft has played a clever game with Office 2013 subscription pricing and the media has taken the bait with the proverbial hook, line and sinker.
"Take this generally positive review of Office 2013 titled “Subscribing to Office, Now and forever” from the New York Times.
"It talks about “buy an annual subscription to these programs for $100 a year” which is exactly what Microsoft wants customers to read. However it's quite wrong.
"It’s more correct to say “buy an annual subscription for $100 in the first year”.
"There’s no guarantee that the now advertised subscription fee will continue in future years – in fact any smart money would bet on an increase in some form.
"Yet the NYT says Office 2013/365 is “a fixed, knowable fee that keeps you up to date” which is quite wrong. The annual subscription fee is neither fixed nor knowable."
Again we must grateful for Softmaker Office!
Lance
Microsoft's subscription price trap
Re: Microsoft's subscription price trap
quote
It’s more correct to say “buy an annual subscription for $100 in the first year”.
"There’s no guarantee that the now advertised subscription fee will continue in future years – in fact any smart money would bet on an increase in some form.
unquote
This is very true indeed! A well developed trick used with subscriptions on (scientific) journals. Starting with a low subscription fee, and increasing it substantially after one ore two years.
And another trick used there: paying per volume, not per year. The first years they issue only one volume. After three years they isue two or three volumes a year. Libraries managing a few thousand subscriptions aren't always aware of it.
This helps publishers sharholders more than subscribers...
It’s more correct to say “buy an annual subscription for $100 in the first year”.
"There’s no guarantee that the now advertised subscription fee will continue in future years – in fact any smart money would bet on an increase in some form.
unquote
This is very true indeed! A well developed trick used with subscriptions on (scientific) journals. Starting with a low subscription fee, and increasing it substantially after one ore two years.
And another trick used there: paying per volume, not per year. The first years they issue only one volume. After three years they isue two or three volumes a year. Libraries managing a few thousand subscriptions aren't always aware of it.
This helps publishers sharholders more than subscribers...
Re: Microsoft's subscription price trap
Question is : how many companies / public sectors chose Softmaker instead of MS Office ?
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martin-k
- SoftMaker Team
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Re: Microsoft's subscription price trap
Not enough yet ...ArnaudK wrote:Question is : how many companies / public sectors chose Softmaker instead of MS Office ?
It seems their level of suffering is not high enough yet. But I am sure Microsoft is working on that.
Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH
SoftMaker Software GmbH
Re: Microsoft's subscription price trap
I have yet to see any medium or large companies / public sectors that chose Softmaker instead of MS Office.martin-k wrote:Not enough yet ...ArnaudK wrote:Question is : how many companies / public sectors chose Softmaker instead of MS Office ?
It seems their level of suffering is not high enough yet. But I am sure Microsoft is working on that.
Few public sectors in Europe and some companies chose OpenOffice / Libre Office (some of them switched back to MS Office, due to the lack of interoperability / bugs).
Wordperfect has still a presence in Northern America (especially Canada).
I wonder why you don't write success stories on companies that switch to Softmaker, even small companies. I am sure there are few german / russian companies that chose SM. Take a look on what do Redhat and SUSE : any new customer ii acclamed with a success story sent to IT online newspapers/