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Microsoft

Microsoft 365 Basic is a New $1.99 a Month Subscription With 100GB of Storage (theverge.com) 63

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Microsoft is introducing a new consumer tier to its Microsoft 365 subscription offerings. From a report: Priced at $1.99 per month, Microsoft 365 Basic is designed to replace the 100GB OneDrive storage option with some extra features that sit in between the free option and the $6.99 a month Personal subscription. Microsoft 365 Basic will be available worldwide on January 30th with 100GB of cloud storage, an ad-free Outlook web and mobile experience, and enhanced security features. The security features include data encryption for an Outlook mailbox, suspicious link checking, and virus / malware scanning for attachments. Existing OneDrive 100GB storage customers will be automatically upgraded to Microsoft 365 Basic at the same $1.99 monthly rate. [...] The main difference between the $6.99 Personal subscription and this new $1.99 Basic one (other than the amount of cloud storage) is that Microsoft 365 Basic doesn't include access to the desktop versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps. Basic subscribers will have to use the web or mobile versions instead.
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Microsoft 365 Basic is a New $1.99 a Month Subscription With 100GB of Storage More

Microsoft 365 Basic is a New $1.99 a Month Subscription With 100GB of Storage

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  • Or pay $0/month... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Ritz_Just_Ritz ( 883997 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2023 @04:46PM (#63200440)

    And download Libreoffice.

    https://www.libreoffice.org/ [libreoffice.org]

    That has worked for me for a few years now. I haven't had any compatibility issues when saving files in their respective M$ formats.

    Best,

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )
      And it's a completely viable option too. While I have plenty of criticism of the usability in LibreOffice, most of the basics workflows are straightforward and simple to use. Certainly for people who just want to hammer out short essays, letters, house expenses or things like that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nomadic ( 141991 )

        The problem is Word is so ubiquitous that Libreoffice is just way too hard for sharing, collaboration, redlining, etc. if everyone else is using Word.

        • Really ? I use Libreoffice on Linux and happily exchange documents with many others.

        • Export docs to Word format. It's pretty simple. For Word, even Word is incompatible with itself if the versions don't match. If you really want to share a doc, use PDF. Anyone these days who complains that they don't know how to display PDF (mostly recruiters in my experience) really needs more help with their computer skills.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by nomadic ( 141991 )

            The export is never good enough. I wish it was, because Word is expensive and has some really annoying design decisions.

            Honestly, the only useful alternative I've seen is Google Docs, since everyone can edit the same doc from a browser window.

        • Well, the problem is that some people (or IT departments) are so antisocial they will try to force you to use their paid-for Windows-only software instead of installing some free software themselves which works on a superset of operating systems.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Yup, sounds like office-in-the-cloud but without all the features of office, or all the features of the cloud. Possibly intended for the basic home users of the type who used to use the dumbed down not-really-office tools that would come preinstalled (Write, etc).

    • I love LibreOffice but it is still not on-par with MS office for advanced functionalities.

    • +1 informative

    • I totally agree. The more these kind of offerings come up ("pay 50 cents a month, for your completely necessary computing needs") the more people will realise they have become enslaved to a service, and hopefully pay attention to the alternatives.

    • They renamed the Onedrive subscription to Office365. Otherwise it's EXACTLY the same. Is Slashdot desperate for content ?

    • LibreOffice Online is perhaps a closer equivalent.
      As an example, check: (under development)

      https://lab.allotropia.de/wasm... [allotropia.de]
      (Takes a while to load ... didn't load on my iOS devices, only Android.)

      For more info see:
      https://archive.fosdem.org/202... [fosdem.org]

    • And download Libreoffice.

      Tried it. It didn't come with an email client nor with cloud storage so what's the point. It looks like something people who use computers the way they used them in the 90s would want.

      Quip aside I actually did install Libreoffice and then went Thunderbird for my email client. An email client that after 10 minutes couldn't figure out that a person may want to use a different account and different server for sending and receiving email. I don't have time to fight with my computer. I uninstalled both (poor Lib

  • I don't get how suspicious link checking, and virus / malware scanning for attachments are "premium" features? Seems like those two things should be standard for all levels of service. I've had a Hotmail account for a long time (almost 3 decades), but moves like this provide motivation for me to switch to something else.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ebunga ( 95613 )

      Because it turns out operating and supporting those features cost money. Same goes for the the more advanced capabilities of AAD, despite the fact that AAD is a core component of anything existing and working on Microsoft 365. It especially sucks when you have to add an extra $6/user/mo to get some minor sub-feature of an add-on to a core component, but it's nice that it's someone else's problem when shit breaks.

      • >> Because it turns out operating and supporting those features cost money.

        That is absolutely true. And, as corporations, they don't just need to cover costs but turn a profit as well.

        But it's also true that this company is worth almost 2 TRILLION US dollars ... so it's probably fair to say they're making a "healthy" profit on their online services.

  • This Is To Compete With Google One (Score:5, Informative)

    by Voyager529 ( 1363959 ) <.voyager529. .at. .yahoo.com.> on Wednesday January 11, 2023 @05:11PM (#63200524)

    ...not Libreoffice. Google One, and its 100GB of GDrive storage, is also $2/month.

    Whether people genuinely prefer Word and Outlook to Docs and Gmail on mobile devices is an uphill battle for Microsoft; they're not adding even MS Word into the bundle (something they used to do with the Works Suite back in the 9x/XP days) and the browser-based iterations of Office are already free. Really, all this covers is the storage, and puts Microsoft in parity with Google and Apple's iCloud+ (the disparity of storage tiers notwithstanding).

    In the absence of a first party mobile OS, the lack of even MS Word, and the fact that they're not competing on price/GB, it's unclear who the market truly is for this service. People who want to be in the MS ecosystem already pay $100/year for it with the Office Personal subscription. People who want 100G of cloud storage are equally served (if not better) by the first party options present in iOS and Android. Cost-conscious students likely get Office free from their school, if they're not already elbows-deep in the Google ecosystem there. Desktop stalwarts are either buying the perpetual-licensed copies of Office, or using LibreOffice and Dropbox.

    ...So, this strikes me as poetic justice, as Microsoft finds itself in the shoes Netscape filled during the 90's browser wars. There's no home turf to compete on anymore, and the home teams already sell what MS is selling here.

    • And iCloud. Thing is, both that and Google One cover device backups. Microsoft gives you a lot of storage space, but not a lot of tools to use it well.

  • The full family plan of Microsoft 365 is DEAL! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wernst ( 536414 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2023 @05:21PM (#63200538) Homepage

    What I posted a year and a half ago still stands today... (copy-pasta follows)

    Potentially Unpopular Opinion: the Office 365 Annual Subscription is a fantastic deal if you have a lot of family members, and devices, and could use a huge amount of online storage/backup/file syncing.

    For $100 a year, here's what your Office 365 license gets you:

    - Full use of the installable versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, Publisher, and Access, plus OneNote 2016 (although OneNote 2016 is now free for anyone to use, it integrates with the rest of Office 365).
    - These installations work on ALL your devices: Windows PCs, Macintoshes, Android devices (phone/tablets/ChromeOS), iPhones, iPads. So in my case, I have Office installed on my Windows desktop, my laptop, my *other* desktop, my MacBook, my Android phone, my Android tablet, and my Chromebook. All for one license.
    - One TB (!) of online storage (or backup) on Microsoft OneDrive for your documents, music, photos, or whatever, using a Dropbox-like syncing tool that works across devices if you like, so I can access all my files and photos across all my devices all the time from anywhere, or just use it as an off-site backup. Acronis charges about this much for 1TB of online storage just by itself. Carbonite is like $80 a year. iDrive is like $70 a year. If you were going to use an online backup tool for lots of stuff, then you might as well do Office 365 - it's like paying for the online storage you were looking for, and getting all the Office applications for free.
    - Full access to the online versions of MS Office. So if I'm at someone else's PC or at a business center in a hotel, or using the PWA version on my Chromebook, or need to do some office work on my Linux box, I can open up (a semi-reduced feature version of) Word or Excel in a web browser, and if I'm using OneDrive (and I am), I can access all my files from that browser too.
    - And then I can have 5 family members do all this too, all on the same license, because that $100 a year is for the whole family! So my wife each gets all these apps on all her devices, and she gets 1TB of device-syncing OneDrive storage too. So does my kid. So does my Mom. So does my Father in Law. So each person is getting all this stuff, including 1TB of online storage EACH, for about $20 a year.

    Now don't get me wrong, I've used and recommended LibreOffice for years too, and I fully respect its capabilities, but Microsoft's pricing model for Office reminds me of Netflix vs. Torrents for movies: yes, Torrents are free, but Netflix is so much quality content for so little money, if you can swing a few bucks a month, it's worth it. So is Office 365.

    Yes, yes, Hail Corporate.

    • "Store 100 gb of data on our cloud for only $100 a year."

      For that same $100, I can buy 2 x 4tb hard drives and pop them in my HD duplicator.

      And 2 more next year.

      Etc, etc ...

      Heck, if you don't have a hard drive caddy, you can buy a terabyte of USB 128 gb thumb drives.

      • Itâ(TM)s 24 dollars a year, not 100. And Iâ(TM)d like a backup where burglars cannot find it.
        • It's $100 a year for 1 tb of storage. A total waste of money. For $24 a year for 100 gb, just buy 2 x 128 gb usb thumb drive - twice the storage, and no annual fee.

        • Iâ(TM)d like a backup where burglars cannot find it.

          Just out of curiosity, how many backups have you lost to burglars?
          Yeah, me neither.

          Physical risks like fire and theft are of course relevant to physical backups. Which is why you usually have duplicates, in separate locations. One easily reachable when you need it (in case you mess something up) and one somewhere else (a bank vault is a good option).
          And of course you are already encrypting the backups of anything sensitive with a decent encryption mechanism, so the burglar will just get to view your family

      • I've got a 4TB USB drive which even fits in a large pocket. And bought it at least a couple of years ago.

        And I dread to think how long uploading 4TB to some cloud service over my connection would take.

        • Exactly. I keep getting ads from ASUS asking me to subscribe to their cloud backup service. I've got 4x8tb-32tb of hard drives. NOT going to back that up over the internet. And at "only a couple of bucks a month per terabyte", that's simply not worth it.

          "But it's the cloud. I don't have to administer it!" You will if you lose everything locally and you don't have a local backup. You're looking at an OS install from scratch, for starters, including all the configuration, etc., BEFORE you even think of resto

    • "Potentially Unpopular Opinion: the Office 365 Annual Subscription is a fantastic deal IF you have a lot of family members, and devices, and could use a huge amount of online storage/backup/file syncing." (Emphasis added)

      None of those conditions apply in my case, so the conditional statement is false.

    • It's a deal, except everyone I've ever seen in real life subscribed to it is a person who lives alone and got pushed into that version instead of the $69.99 version.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Not for me. I rarely use Office and LibreOffice. I used to do when I was working and in schools. I'm OK with updated LibreOffice and old Office 2007. I also don't do cloud stuff.

      • Same here, still using Office 2007 for everything and no issues whatsoever. Of course I'm still using Windows7 too. My Mint box has LibreOffice for when I finally need to pull the plug on Windows 7. Then I'll just use a VM of Windows 7 and Office 2007 inside Linux if I still need it for anything. Linux to the rescue. M$ can take the crap they've been shoveling for the past 10 years and stick it.
    • These installations work on ALL your devices

      You're writing this on Slashdot, when MS Office still doesn't run (easily) on Linux? I couldn't install it on my Linux desktop, I know for a fact it won't run on my router nor will it run on a raspberry pi.

  • As expected

  • The issue here are changes over time not the current price.

    I know that as soon as I get comfortable, features and pricing will change to force me into paying more or readjust to new unfamiliar systems.

    So why not learn another system now?

  • Seriously? Since we are doing blatant slashvertising I might as well get on this too.

    Call now for a great deal on toilet fittings. We have fittings for toilets of all kinds and a toilet for every need. Whether it is a toilet for a little shit or a big shit, we can find a something suitable. Call now for 5% off percent off the purchase price if you mention you modded backslashdot +1 Insightful. Terms and conditions apply.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rossdee ( 243626 )

      "Whether it is a toilet for a little shit or a big shit, we can find a something suitable. "

      But the advantage of Office 365 is that they will tell you if your shit has any viruses - don't you want to know (and M$ to know) if you have AIDS or COVID ?

    • +1 Insightful #63200648. I agree to your terms and conditions! Shucks. I always do that.

  • MS cripple-ware (Score:3)

    by NotEmmanuelGoldstein ( 6423622 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2023 @06:16PM (#63200712)

    ... desktop versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps.

    I just bought MS Office 2021 PlusPro Retail so I could 'own' MS software, although it requires a OneDrive/LiveMail/X360 account to activate: Crippleware is the word that comes to mind. The first problem, there is no 'select products' dialog in the install program: Everything gets installed and the standard option of a configuration file, doesn't work. One can delete the menu shortcuts and launcher program for unwanted applications but it's still there.

    MS didn't destroy advanced features like What-If, no they destroyed copy-paste functionality. It attempts to fill the Windows clipboard with an image of the data being copied (thus preventing data being pasted into other applications) but that can be disabled. In Excel, it pastes values, not formulas. Also, Excel limits pasting (but not copying) of data to one row/column at a time, no auto-repeat to fill a multi-row/column destination. Without auto-repeat, one learns just how much repetition there is in building a spreadsheet. I suspect that Office 2021 is for What-If usage of spreadsheets built elsewhere.

    This budget price means Microsoft wants to extend its consumer base to students/families again, but I've seen them sabotage their own products to sell at 'budget' prices. As vendor529 [slashdot.org] notes, this doesn't match competing products, including their own. This may look good because they're competing against Google Worksheets but I suspect once they've got vendor lock-in, the functionality will start shrinking.

    • The first problem, there is no 'select products' dialog in the install program: Everything gets installed and the standard option of a configuration file, doesn't work. One can delete the menu shortcuts and launcher program for unwanted applications but it's still there.

      Oh thank god. Finally we're past the stupidity of:
      "Do you have Office?"
      "Why yes I do!"
      *hands over excel file*
      "Oh no I don't have Excel I didn't install that".

      We really need to stop giving users ropes with which they hang themselves.

      But for your copy/paste issues. Honestly I don't know what you're on about. My version of Office 2021 doesn't do any of what you described. It certainly isn't limited to one row/column, it pastes formulas by default (and offers a drop down to change the paste style), and repeatin

  • Oh wait, next month it would have to change to Microsoft 28 Basic.. Marketing won't like that.
  • One thing goes wrong, and the whole office cannot work. Stupid way to go against the grain of the idea of the personal computer.

    • For many people their interaction with an office application is only ever to do something online, like fill out or print out a document they just downloaded, or upload something somewhere. Having cloud based software isn't much of an issue for most westerners.

      Maybe if you live in Africa or the USA where internet is shit its a different story.

  • I'm perfectly happy with Microsoft Basic 2.0
  • Does it ship with GORILLA.BAS as an example program? (Yes, I'm dating myself.)

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