Microsoft Details Pricing for Office 365 Subscriptions

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By Jane McEntegart
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Office 2010 upgrade offer starts next month.

As if Windows 8, Microsoft Surface, and Windows Phone 8 weren't enough, Microsoft is also preparing to launch Office 2013. Redmond today detailed pricing for its software suite, talking new subscriptions for Office 365 as well as pricing for standalone purchases of Office 2013.

First up is the single subscription to Office 365 Home Premium, which covers an entire household. Each user will be able to sign in with his or her Microsoft account (which means access to documents and personalized settings) and one subscription provides access for up to five machines (Mac or PC). This subscription will be available across 227 markets worldwide (online and in-store) for $99.99 billed per year. Aside from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, and Publisher, Office 365 Home Premium will also net you 20GB of SkyDrive storage, 60 minutes of Skype world calling per month, and continuous updates.

Microsoft is also offering Office 365 Small Business Premium, which is aimed at businesses with less than 10 employees. This will cover up to five machines (again, PC or Mac) for access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, and Publisher plus Lync. There's also a 25GB Outlook mailbox, 10GB of cloud storage for the company and 500MB per user, the ability to host online meetings, and the ability to set up, build and maintain a website with no additional hosting fees. 

If subscriptions aren't your thing, you can always grab Microsoft's suite of productivity tools in the more traditional form of Office 2013. Prices start at $139.99 for Office Home and Student 2013, both of which include Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Office Home and Business 2013 include all the applications in Home and Student with Outlook thrown in on top while Office Professional 2013 includes the applications in Home and Business with Access and Publisher on top.

Lastly, starting next month, anyone purchasing Office 2012 or Office for Mac 2011 will qualify for one free year of Office 365 Home Premium or the equivalent Office 2013 offering, when it becomes available. This upgrade deal will kick in on October 19.

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23 Comments Comment from the forums
  • belardo
    Many of us will stick with Office 2010.... Office 2013...ugly but with some new features.
    Reply
  • tomfreak
    Libre office > Any Microsoft Office.
    Reply
  • edogawa
    I really do like the new Office 2013, but I don't think it's a major upgrade; I do like the cloud support for it and new features. Office has that new "Windows 8" paint on it too.


    140$ is steep though, many people will go with Libre Office instead; 80$ would be fine with me.
    Reply
  • dameon51
    I use Open Office for myself and it works fine for now. Once the kids are old enough for schooling/homework etc $99 a year for 5 computers to get Office doesn't seem like its breaking the bank.
    Reply
  • livebriand
    belardoMany of us will stick with Office 2010.... Office 2013...ugly but with some new features.No kidding - it's WAY too bright, and hurts my eyes. If it let you choose the color (or picked the one from your Windows theme), that would be better. Not to mention how ridiculous their pricing is - $150 for 3 PCs is fine; $140 for one is NOT. And I'm not willing to use a subscription service either. I guess it's Office 2010 for me then.
    Reply
  • sync_nine
    TomfreakLibre office > Any Microsoft Office.
    I don't agree, i use libre at my workplace everyday and its buggy as hell.
    At least 3 times a day i just hangs up, and there is a office.bin file in task manager which you have to delete and then restart the program for it to work again.
    Microsoft office doesn't have stupid bugs like these.
    Reply
  • volvavite
    sync_nineI don't agree, i use libre at my workplace everyday and its buggy as hell.At least 3 times a day i just hangs up, and there is a office.bin file in task manager which you have to delete and then restart the program for it to work again.Microsoft office doesn't have stupid bugs like these.Libreoffice is free and open source. If you see a bug report it and help the community on delivering a free product. Otherwise, pay for Microsoft Office.
    On my experience though, Libreoffice is quite stable. I recommend 3.5.0 or later. I stopped using Office and so did my family, and no one complains.
    Reply
  • mynameis1
    i thought windows 8 will have word and excell included ??
    Reply
  • marclee37
    libreoffice is good, i don't see the reason to pay to MS for the office app.
    the whole suite of libreoffice is completely free, which is much powerful than the version MS provide. and one thing i like- libreoffice, firefox uses the menu style i used to.
    i do notice the libreoffice latest version 3.6 is not stable with old winxp, go back to version 3.5 is ok.
    latest version of gimp is not stable with xp too, go back to one version earlier is fine.
    Reply
  • jlc0312
    I'm still using office2007 I got from the ultimate steal. I use skydrive office on my chromebook so I don't really have any reason to upgrade.
    Reply