http://download.cnet.com/reviewed-office-365/8301-2007_4-20074853-12.html

Microsoft's cloud based Office 365 has been launched, which provides an alternative to Google's own cloud based Google Docs. Office 365 is aimed at business users that can subscribe for $6 to $27 a month per user.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/231325/memo_to_microsoft_its_time_for_windows_365.html

Would you consider a subscription fee for Windows? Maybe instead of paying $100 a couple years for a Windows upgrade, you could just pay $4 a month without any big upfront cost?

But right now Microsoft really hasn't said anything about this, so I'm pretty sure it won't be done with Windows 8 next year.

What if you want to skip an OS <cough> Vista? It will be in a way forced upon you.

If Windows goes subscription, I'm going Linux. I haven't played many games on my PC in a while. And everything else I do on my computer I can do with Linux. I wouldn't miss the few games I do play on my computer. And now days most games on the PC also come out with a console version. So I can't say I'd miss Windows that much.

 

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Games/gaming are the only things that keep me on a Windows based system at all.

What I actually really like about the Office cloud is that I think it will become feasible on a corporate scale to run linux desktops and use Office products.

 

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what no openoffice cloud

 

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Security is the big worry with the Cloud. I read a technical article recently which highlighted (1) the problem with the Cloud being hosted globally, no-one knows the national data protection system under which their data will be held as it will vary according to the laws of the host nation, (2) the inevitability of the Cloud being targetted by hackers much in the same way that IE is, and (3) the risk that with the amount of processing power required to run the Cloud it will be easy for criminal gangs renting the use of that processing power with stolen credit cards to use it to decrypt passwords and credit card etc details in a fraction of the time it would take them currently with home-based systems. The Cloud will transform cyber crime, and of course its military ramifications are frightening. Imagine the extent of the loss of data if a foreign power could take it down. As it is, the UK's Ministry of Defence already repels more than one cyber attack per day and I have no doubt it's at least as bad at the Pentagon.


In my view the internet is getting too big for its own good, its undoubted benefits are increasingly being outweighed by its bad points among which its anonymity and the ease with which it can be abused/exploited by organised criminals including financial and sexual predators together with enemies of the state mean that it's only a matter of time before all Western nations go the way of China in restricting its accessibility and use. At the very least it will have to be governed by strict international law in a way that simply isn't happening at present.


Seriously, when you see what a bunch of loonies at Wikileaks and a group of teenagers with learning difficulties can do with national defence and similar websites is it really going to be viable to maintain the present system for much longer in the face of co-ordinated attacks by our international enemies? Even the internet's educational benefits are trashed when Palin's supporters can edit Wiki to re-write history according to her misunderstanding of it.


Putting all your eggs in one basket has never been seen as a sensible way of conducting ones affairs, and that in essence is what the Cloud entails where global data is concerned. It will end in tears!

Devil is in the details really. It all depends on how and what parts are actually stored on cloud and loaded each time you boot. I am sketchy of the PC doing things online before the kernal and firewall are even loaded for instance.

In some cases it could be more secure or harder on viruses if each time you load got a clean kernal and other system files. But the same could done outside of a cloud service. It might make things harder on selected applications, especially if a patch was forced on you.

Cloud in itself is not a reason for me as an end user to buy a newer os.

 

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that was my first thought as well - why would MS do this?? i'm sure they know it too, and must have come to the conclusion that the amount of corp desktops that will be converted from windows to linux will probably be miniscule, so it doesn't really matter anyway.

my 2nd thought was what about email? outlook is part of the ms suite, and loads of outlook users on the corp level (even down to super small businesses) use exchange. so will exchange be hosted as well? or will you configure your cloud outlook to point back to your internal exchange server? weird.

for me as well, games are the only thing keeping me on a windows os on at least one of my PCs. and no, i would not subscribe to windows. i loathe subscription pricing and avoid it whenever and wherever possible in both business and personal life. it's becoming increasingly harder to do, but i avoid it at all costs.

 

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Def won't happen for Win8. That said, what are thoughts on a parallel idea - what if, instead of offering 3-4 different flavors of Windows, there was a single base install, and you had a marketplace you could opt to just pay for the options you wanted? Of course large businesses would still be able to do something with deep discounts on a grand scale, I am talking abous small businesses and individuals.

Say you want Bitlocker on your laptop, but don't want to pay the ~$200 upgrade from Windows Home Basic type version to Ultimate, just to get that one feature? What if that was something you could download online from MS, activate and have it for a one time $15 fee (for example)? This would go with any feature that is tied to certain versions currently - like ability to join a domain, remote desktop control a specific PC, etc.

I think this would be a good way to go, and perhaps even a better business model and able to make more money, since people who might balk at a large upgrade premium to get ONE feature they want or need and lots of others they don't care about, would likely do this for a small upfront fee. Also would save a lot on packaging several different retail flavors, etc.


*** Edit to address Speak's comments:

NO local Exchange server, it would all be cloud based, and either you could use a browser to access mail like a rich version of Outlook Web Access, or you can use a 365 version of Outlook that points to your cloud Exchange server.

The cost savings of doing this is immense for many companies, as they would no longer need:

- Heavy lifting servers to host and manage SQL, Exchange, File servers
- Much less network and infrastructure needs with most of the data flowing only across the ingress/egress points with the internet to local offices (no more need for large WAN segments, leased lines between satillite offices)
- No licenses for the O/S and Office apps that run on the server or the clients - that is all incorporated into the Office 365 subscription
- No cost for constantly replacing old hardware that these services would need to run on internally
- No lost productivity or downtime due to hardware failures, or internal network outages, 365 is fully redundant
- No cost associated with backups and offsite storage, much less cost for business continuity planning - you can get communications up anywhere in the world you have internet connectivity
- Much less costs for power/HVAC with less servers in your datacenter(s)
- Less staff to support what you have on site, since Office services are now in the Cloud.

 

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I can see MS forcing OS updates by cranking up the requirements once they have a good sized installed base. I am certain that there are still a large number of W2K/XP systems out there all running various Pentium models in the business world. In fact you can still find DOS out there but that is mostly in industrial machines.

 

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