5 ms·

Yeah, right. Office is MS cash cow. If they charged a reasonable amount for monthly use, that would be good. Lets say, 1 dollar per month. 3 dollar for 4 users

by TsomArp 13y ago

Yeah, right. Office is MS cash cow. If they charged a reasonable amount for monthly use, that would be good. Lets say, 1 dollar per month. 3 dollar for 4 users family pack. That would be great.

Steko 13y ago
I got a license for home use from my company for a one time payment of under $10. So millions of people probably have a deal that's even better than what you're asking for.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  Same here. But I don't even use it and default to LibreOffice all the time (I only use Linux nowadays).
  - Steko 13y ago
    Opposite case for me. In the past, anytime I had to use Libre/OpenOffice for more than 15 minutes made me feel like blowing my brains out.
    - ekianjo 13y ago
      Well I've never really liked the new UI paradigm in Office 2007 and beyond: it's just very messy to do even simple things. With LibreOffice there are certainly some UI issues as well, but it's closer to Office 2003 in terms of how things are organized.
fennecfoxen 13y ago
In an efficient market, in the long run, the price of a unit of software would approach the marginal cost of a unit of software. I wonder how long it will be until essentially all software is free, and all the services are run more or less at cost (as the economists would put it, they can earn profits, just not economic profits). But in the long run, as they say, we're all dead ;)
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  That's only true in cases of perfect competition, which mainly obtains for commodities. Products with different features are examples of monopolistic competition, because different products are not automatic substitutes for each other.
  - fennecfoxen 13y ago
    I think you misunderstand a little. That's not the consequence of an efficient market, that's the definition of an efficient market. ANY market where the price of an item is higher than its marginal cost is an inefficient one. (The cost includes opportunity cost, though, so it's not like the widget factory needs to make zero accounting profit on the operation). It's quite probable, of course, that software in the general case is prone to market inefficiencies, especially in the short run: there are high fixed costs associated with producing software. Yet extant software is so stupidly easy to copy that it's unthinkable that, thousands of years hence, things like WORD PROCESSORS will have a good reason for costing money. So how long will it take to get there?
smurf_account 13y ago
Not quite what you asked for, but there is a $100/yr or $10/mo plan for 5 people that also includes OneDrive storage and Skype minutes. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/home-premium/ http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/home-premium/ Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft

by TsomArp 13y ago

Yeah, right. Office is MS cash cow. If they charged a reasonable amount for monthly use, that would be good. Lets say, 1 dollar per month. 3 dollar for 4 users family pack. That would be great.

Steko 13y ago

I got a license for home use from my company for a one time payment of under $10. So millions of people probably have a deal that's even better than what you're asking for.

ekianjo 13y ago
Same here. But I don't even use it and default to LibreOffice all the time (I only use Linux nowadays).
- Steko 13y ago
  Opposite case for me. In the past, anytime I had to use Libre/OpenOffice for more than 15 minutes made me feel like blowing my brains out.
  - ekianjo 13y ago
    Well I've never really liked the new UI paradigm in Office 2007 and beyond: it's just very messy to do even simple things. With LibreOffice there are certainly some UI issues as well, but it's closer to Office 2003 in terms of how things are organized.

fennecfoxen 13y ago

In an efficient market, in the long run, the price of a unit of software would approach the marginal cost of a unit of software. I wonder how long it will be until essentially all software is free, and all the services are run more or less at cost (as the economists would put it, they can earn profits, just not economic profits). But in the long run, as they say, we're all dead ;)

anigbrowl 13y ago
That's only true in cases of perfect competition, which mainly obtains for commodities. Products with different features are examples of monopolistic competition, because different products are not automatic substitutes for each other.
- fennecfoxen 13y ago
  I think you misunderstand a little. That's not the consequence of an efficient market, that's the definition of an efficient market. ANY market where the price of an item is higher than its marginal cost is an inefficient one. (The cost includes opportunity cost, though, so it's not like the widget factory needs to make zero accounting profit on the operation). It's quite probable, of course, that software in the general case is prone to market inefficiencies, especially in the short run: there are high fixed costs associated with producing software. Yet extant software is so stupidly easy to copy that it's unthinkable that, thousands of years hence, things like WORD PROCESSORS will have a good reason for costing money. So how long will it take to get there?

smurf_account 13y ago

Not quite what you asked for, but there is a $100/yr or $10/mo plan for 5 people that also includes OneDrive storage and Skype minutes. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/home-premium/ http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/home-premium/ Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft