Microsoft Launches Office Subscription Service - InformationWeek

Microsoft have teamed up with retail merchant Circuit City to offer a consumer subscription service that includes its Office, Live OneCare, Messenger, and Photograph Gallery applications and services.

Microsoft is calling the service Equipt, and will offer it exclusively through Circuit City beginning in mid-July. Subscriptions cost $69.99 for one twelvemonth and cover usage of the included software system on up to three PCs. Subscribers will automatically have ascents to the merchandises at no further complaint as they are released.

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In offering software system subscriptions to consumers, Microsoft is taking a page from its concern playbook. The company offerings its commercial clients subscription entree to software system and services under programmes such as as Open License and Select Plus.

Microsoft and Circuit City functionaries are hoping that the subscription theoretical account -- which offers predictable costs and convenient, all-in-one packaging -- will catch on in the place market. wares director Bryson Gordon called Equipt "a convenient and low-cost manner to remain updated with the up-to-the-minute versions of Office and Windows Live OneCare."

Circuit City engineering merchandise full general director Elliot Becker said the chain, which saw its stock terms driblet by more than than 17% Wednesday after Blockbuster abandoned a $1.35 billion buyout offer, said he anticipates Equipt to be "a runaway hit."

Microsoft Office 2007, the most recent version of the suite, includes the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint applications. Windows Live OneCare is an incorporate set of personal computer security and optimisation tools that tin be accessed over the Web.

Equipt may appeal to consumers who desire to remain on technology's film editing edge. However, most desktop users only utilize their applications' most basic mathematical functions and as a consequence make not necessitate frequent upgrades. Given that the Home version of Office 2007 now sells for just $112 for lifespan rights, the latter grouping would likely see Equipt, with its $69.99 yearly fee, as a bad bargain.