Software as a subscription

[Smooth Operator]

GIMP is usable. But it takes a while to figure it out and the damn thing is so unstable it crashes if you try to do anything more complicated than a few layers with it. Maybe it's different today, I don't know. I stopped using it years ago when I purchased Photoshop. Once I did, I realized that GIMP is like a retarded cousin that you don't mention to your friends.

I wouldn't say retarded cousin, I'd say weird inventor uncle who does every single thing in a non conventional way. Which seems cool at first but when you want to get shit done it's just annoying.

I used GIMP countless times so far and while I haven't come across instabilities the thing is stupidly convoluted, every single time I need the tutorial open to find the simplest shit because it's buried 20 menus deep somewhere.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

[snip]

Of course the professors are going gaga over it. They have the budget to purchase massive amounts of licenses a year for the university computers and probably don't might paying monthly for their own copy on an extra, personal PC. I'm assuming you have to pay out of your own pocket for a subscription for your own PC, on top of tuition and other expenses you also have. It's funny how highly educated people can also have a narrow view of something that they are very familiar with.

Yes, this is all a plot to get all users to pay monthly for CC, who would otherwise keep the same version for years, buy a used copy for far cheaper, or pass it down. The sad part is they can get away with it. Ubisoft's and the original Xbox One's DRM schemes failed because of low sales, threats of boycotts and the competition had better offers. No one needs to play video games (except possibly esports players). People rely on Adobe's and MS's software for work and school, because their institutions and industries expect them to know how to use the software. It is kind of sickening on these software giants' parts. (You can still buy Creative Suite 6 and MS Office 2013, but they are well hidden on their respective sites (especially Adobe's) and Office's licensing limitations are horrible compared to what was available before Office 365 came out.)

 

[ResonanceCascade]

[snip]

Of course the professors are going gaga over it. They have the budget to purchase massive amounts of licenses a year for the university computers and probably don't might paying monthly for their own copy on an extra, personal PC. I'm assuming you have to pay out of your own pocket for a subscription for your own PC, on top of tuition and other expenses you also have. It's funny how highly educated people can also have a narrow view of something that they are very familiar with.

Yes, this is all a plot to get all users to pay monthly for CC, who would otherwise keep the same version for years, buy a used copy for far cheaper, or pass it down. The sad part is they can get away with it. Ubisoft's and the original Xbox One's DRM schemes failed because of low sales, threats of boycotts and the competition had better offers. No one needs to play video games (except possibly esports players). People rely on Adobe's and MS's software for work and school, because their institutions and industries expect them to know how to use the software. It is kind of sickening on these software giants' parts. (You can still buy Creative Suite 6 and MS Office 2013, but they are well hidden on their respective sites (especially Adobe's) and Office's licensing limitations are horrible compared to what was available before Office 365 came out.)

How are MS Office licenses limited in any way by the introduction of Office 365? You still have the standard Home and Student, Home and Business and Pro packages available for purchase in retail packs. Then you get into the normal volume and enterprise licensing. Additional to the packages it is possible to buy any of the individual components such as Word or Excel.

In the Office 365 subscription you have Home version subscriptions for all of the office products. There is then business and enterprise level subscription packages for the Online Hosted Exchange, Sharepoint, OneDrive and Lync which are additional to the Office software.

To me it looks like there are more options and not less.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

How are MS Office licenses limited in any way by the introduction of Office 365? You still have the standard Home and Student, Home and Business and Pro packages available for purchase in retail packs. Then you get into the normal volume and enterprise licensing. Additional to the packages it is possible to buy any of the individual components such as Word or Excel.

In the Office 365 subscription you have Home version subscriptions for all of the office products. There is then business and enterprise level subscription packages for the Online Hosted Exchange, Sharepoint, OneDrive and Lync which are additional to the Office software.

To me it looks like there are more options and not less.

I probably wasn't clear enough and way too vague with that sentence I wrote. What I meant was the full, non-subscription versions of Office 2013 have limited installs for the same price as previous iterations. Older Home and Student/Student and Teacher editions did cost about the same as the $140 2013 version, but allow the user to install the software on three separate computers at once. 2013 gives you one. You are right. The entire Office line up has more options total (and many will find the subscription model works with their needs), but the one time purchase options, the licenses, have been weakened to entice more 365 sales. That was my angle.

Small businesses haven't been hit as hard, since the license on business editions was only for one PC for a long time, and enterprise customers probably didn't feel a difference big enough to care about. (Though, I don't get why 2013 Home and Business and Pro are listed in the "For Home" tab on the "Plans and Pricing" page but not also listed on the "For Business" tab. Wait, I know why. They want less savvy small business owners to think Office 365 is their only option.)

 

[laggyteabag]

The problem that I have with subscription services is that they generally have a one month minimum subscription. As a result, it often feels like a commitment to subscribe to something, and any time spent not using the service, just feels like you are wasting your money. I cant even remember how many times I got a WoW subscription, played it for a week, and then dropped it. If they did daily subscriptions, I would jump right at the chance. Sure, if you were to pay everyday, it would give yourself a huge bill, but just for those days where I fancy playing it, it would be a lot better than a £10 commitment. I would imagine that the same would apply to software. If I had to pay £10 to use Microsoft Word every month, I would probably just find another service to use, because chances are, I would write one thing, and then not touch it again.

That being said, I hate subscriptions, because all they do is inflate the cost of a service. I just wish that things would do away with them. I tend to just prefer the whole "you pay for it, you can use it for as long as you want, as often as you want.".

 

[ResonanceCascade]

I'm unsure of why Office 365/Office 2013 is better than Office 2003. I don't mind the Office subscription model because it doesn't realistically cost me that much compared to what I can make from it (though that is artificial as 2003 made the same), but I'd like to know why they've taken the perfectly good 2003 version and shit all over it.

There are a number of technical improvements particularly to Outlook which have been made in the newer versions. This is mainly to do with the changes to the document formats (.doc to docx etc) and .pst/.ost file sizes in Outlook. I do get the frustration of being forced to use a new version due to limited backwards compatibility. Office 2003 not installing on Windows 8 is stupid, there is no reason for it to not work aside from Microsoft saying it won't.

I probably wasn't clear enough and way too vague with that sentence I wrote. What I meant was the full, non-subscription versions of Office 2013 have limited installs for the same price as previous iterations. Older Home and Student/Student and Teacher editions did cost about the same as the $140 2013 version, but allow the user to install the software on three separate computers at once. 2013 gives you one. You are right. The entire Office line up has more options total (and many will find the subscription model works with their needs), but the one time purchase options, the licenses, have been weakened to entice more 365 sales. That was my angle.

Small businesses haven't been hit as hard, since the license on business editions was only for one PC for a long time, and enterprise customers probably didn't feel a difference big enough to care about. (Though, I don't get why 2013 Home and Business and Pro are listed in the "For Home" tab on the "Plans and Pricing" page but not also listed on the "For Business" tab. Wait, I know why. They want less savvy small business owners to think Office 365 is their only option.)

Yeah I can see how the retail packs being limited to a single install is a backwards step. Interesting that the 365 subscription gives you 5 installs per license, which works to promote this over the retail options.