Should I Subscribe to O365 for myself?

If you are considering using Microsoft Office Suite at home you have several options that you can consider. The first is whether you want to pay on a subscription basis or if you want to move into a one-time purchase model. In the subscription model you have two choices between Office 365 Personal or Office 365 Home.

Why would I choose a perpetual license? First, you only pay a fee one time. You can either purchase “Home and Student” or “Home and Business”.  Main difference between these two? You get Outlook in Home and Business. If you are not using Outlook or are happy accessing your email through a web browser then the “Home and Student” may work for you. Priced at $145.00. Home and Business is $229.99. The Cons on going with a perpetual license are many, they are licensed for only one machine and legally cannot be moved to a new system purchase from an old installation. It doesn’t license installation on mobile devices and you don’t get any cloud storage. Lastly, you don’t get to always use the most current version. Microsoft seems to have major updates every 3 years. If being current doesn’t matter to you then…

Why I like the subscription model. First, I can always be up to date. If you only have one machine but a couple of mobile devices, tablet or phone, then you are licensed to put these most of the suite products on these as well. You also have access to on-line versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote so that you can be on any computer and access your programs. You get 1 TB of cloud space, so you can also store you documents to the CLOUD and have access to these files from any device. Last, you get the full Office Suite. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Publisher, Access and Outlook. Office 365 Home offers installing the office suite for up to five users with each user getting their own 1TB cloud storage space for a cost of $99.99/year. Office 365 Personal is $69.99/year.

Now let’s do the math. If you think you would be upgrading your Office license with each new release you Perpetual licenses would be slightly less expensive then your subscription counterparts. However, you are not getting the ability to install on mobile devices, in the case of Office 365 Home you can install on up to 5 workstations (all the kids, you and your wife’s systems, and you don’t have the cloud apps or storage space. If you need it on more than 1 machine than the Office 365 Home subscription seems to me to be a no brainer. Of course if your employer has opted into Office 365 Business Premium, then that creates a whole different scenario.