Instead, you can buy the traditional “packaged” copy of Office, trading a higher up-front price for a perpetual license.Īnd, this time around, there’s a third aoption: if you buy a Windows RT tablet, Microsoft will throw in the core Office apps – Word, PowerPoint, Excel and the oft-overlooked OneNote – for free. And for the customer who’s not all that convinced that Microsoft offers compelling reasons to upgrade from generation to generation of Office, that might be the best bet. If at any point down the road you decide not to pay anymore, however, Office goes away. And you could end up paying just $1.66 per device per month for a continually updated piece of software. For the first time, consumers will be able to buy an Office 365 subscription, paying for either a home or small business edition of Office for a one-time annual fee that covers five PCs or Macs. If you want to subscribe, Microsoft is more than willing to help you out. The decision isn’t simple: you’ll pay less upfront for a subscription, but you may be allowing Microsoft’s hand in your pocket for the rest of your days.Ĭonsumers who want to upgrade their Microsoft Office software this fall have to ask themselves a hard question: “Do I want to subscribe to Office like I would a magazine – or continue to buy it like a book?” For the first time this fall, consumers will have the choice between subscribing to Microsoft Office as a service – Office 365 – or buying a traditional license for the productivity software.

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