Would you be willing to pay for a subscription based office

[muse108dc]

With Office 365 announce for beta, Microsoft's first cloud based office suite designed to compete with Google Docs, I was wondering would you be willing to pay either monthly or yearly fee?

I think I would be, as long as it is up to the standards that current office is, and no more need to drop hundreds of dollars every year or so just to keep updated. Along with the added bonuses of Office becoming very mobile, it would be device and OS neutral, my phone might actually get a decent office suite on it. My only concern is that it would happen in a web browser still and be limited by that.

Just for note, there has been no mention of cost, its all hypothetical. What are your opinions on office moving into the cloud? and the possibilities it creates.

[enaberif]

Nope.

Why do you really even need to update? Office 2003 still works perfectly fine!

Most people don't even use most of the features in a Office Suite

[chrisk]

I have not had great experiences with 'cloud computing' or software not directly installed on my desktop (for critical applications). An office suite is critical for my job, so I would not pay for it right now; I would have to wait for the technology to mature a lot before even considering it.

[sswilson]

Not when I can get OpenOffice for free with all of the functionality that I need.

[FlyingFish]

Anything that requires an internet connection is out for me. I spend too much time in areas where the connection is downright awful or non-existent. In those places being on the cloud is useless.

I've been in places where it's faster to call someone and have them google stuff for you than to do it yourself. Satellite internet is so awesome :-D

[Snarl]

I'd say no, if I can get a deal I'll buy a version of office as needed (i.e. through work) else OpenOffice

[JD]

How does it differ from Office Live (which is free)? I find that is much more in-line with Google Docs. It also integrates into the full Office Suite quite nicely, just like SharePoint really. Open and save documents to the cloud effortlessly.

Either way, I see no reason to pay for Office at all. There's many various alternatives.

[grinder]

there would be a cost benefit to small business who can't afford the capital hit that a SBS2008 server would bring (with all the bells setup like Exchange server, etc).

[m1dget]

Originally Posted by muse108dc

With Office 365 announce for beta, Microsoft's first cloud based office suite designed to compete with Google Docs, I was wondering would you be willing to pay either monthly or yearly fee?

Nope. I'm sticking to google docs if I really have to do something that an requires an online "word processor". MS is just trying again to kill another part of the consumer market with more of their crap so Nope again.

[DCCV44.2223]

Depends on how much MSFT wants for it.

I don't use Office anymore because I don't think the difference between it and Open/LibreOffice is worth $190+. If 356 has all the features of Office and they charge under C$20 per year then maybe.