Subscription. Make stand-alone versions, but make them so damn expensive only Bill Gates himself would buy it.
For everyone else, wine and dine them in the benefits of getting a subscription. This is being test marketed in
Australia currently. Pricing for the Australian subscription offering is as follows: Windows Professional
Edition costs users A$359 (Australian dollars) a year over three years, compared with A$1,029 for a one-time
upgrade and A$1,288 for a full install. For your reference, $359 Australian is equal to approximately $188 US
(according to recent conversion rates). Here’s the thing: if users do not pay the subscription, they are not
able to open any new files, only files already created. Hmmm….. Of course, the full version is bought at $675
(converted to US).
Call me crazy (and some of you might) but I don’t like where this is heading. It is the equivalent of Microsoft
forcing its customers to upgrade. We all know that their latest software upgrades, while sometimes cool, are
often fancy patches. This is the very reason customers are NOT upgrading! But, if they are in a subscription-
based program where you will literally be cut off for not paying, that’s just a little too much Microsoft
control over my desktop.
Trust me, I am no Microsoft basher. I admire the company’s vision. I admire their ability to create complex
software that is easy enough for almost anyone to use. From a business perspective, I admire them for their
competitiveness and ability to execute what they decide when they decide it. It is this leadership which has
driven them to the top of the market, not shady tactics to suppress their competitors (although I know they’ve
been guilty of it a few times). But, with this, I am concerned that Microsoft may be going the way of AOL, a
huge behemoth which is mostly made up of subscribers who subscribe simply because they don’t know their
options. AOL has great marketing. To newbies, AOL equates to the internet. Well, Microsoft could be the same
way, and subscribers may dig it.
But, I don’t know. If Microsoft really does follow through with this (and I have no reason to believe they
won’t) then I will likely explore non-Microsoft products. All I can say is: open source. Office products? Ever
heard of Star Office, by Sun? Full-fledged, VERY nice, Office-level software suite. It is open source (which
means free for the non-nerds). Operating System? There are plenty of them out there with no Microsoft emblem on
them. Yes, finding software to run on them could prove tedious. But, if Microsoft loses customers to
alternative products, then the demand will increase and it will drive developers to create more software for
other operating systems.
Instead of “paper or plastic”, people will be asking “subscription or boxed”? I, for one, am leaning toward
“neither”.
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