The New York Times article on January 29th titled, "For Rent: the New Microsoft Office," acknowledged that the future of Microsoft Office is a subscription based model where consumers can have Office on five of their computers at a time. Consumers will pay $100/year opposed to $140 one time for their license to Office software. The subscription based Office product is Office 365, and has more features than the software license version of the Office suite. Office 365 Home Premium users will have sixty minutes of Skype talking time, and online storage through Sky-drive.
Kurt DelBene, president of Microsoft’s Office division, is quoted in the article saying, “I would say in 10 years, the majority of customers, perhaps all customers, will be in a subscription relationship as opposed to a perpetual.”
Given the momentum Microsoft and the technology industry has going towards the Cloud, it is important as a Microsoft partner to position your business accordingly and transition to the Cloud!