Microsoft pushing subscription model

[KBD]

Looks like Israel is not going to have it:

According to the Finance Ministry, Microsoft is trying to shift Israel from a licensing system where it owns the software and can use the software as it wishes, to a subscription system that is similar to renting.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-isra ... SKCN1L61DX

I believe that is Microsoft's end game for all of its software. And probably why they are happy to let anyone with any Windows license install Windows 10. They start by pushing businesses and governments to subscription models. Consumers will be next.
This will be good for Linux, and also good for Google and Chromebooks. It's bad news for those who can't live without Microsoft Office though.

[fatmac]

Microsoft became irrelevant way back in 1999, as far as I'm concerned, but it is time that governments & businesses realised the facts.

[Gerson]

For work reasons I use Windows and MSOffice with VirtualBox in MX.
Unfortunately LibreOffice has not reached 100% compatibility with MSOffice, especially with PowerPoint and Excell, as for Word to avoid conflicts I keep in .PDF.
There are programs of my profession that only come for Windows and MAC.

[Jerry3904]

I have to use both Windows 7 (data collection device software) and 8 for business purposes now and then.

[clicktician]

I believe that is Microsoft's end game for all of its software. And probably why they are happy to let anyone with any Windows license install Windows 10. They start by pushing businesses and governments to subscription models.

Oh, I'm certain of it. And, in all fairness, subscription models are frequently the best solution. Adobe's Creative Cloud is hard to beat. But Microsoft itself is a bit behind the curve of what others are already doing.

Subscriptions to Windows products are perfect for me as a Linux user. Most of the time I simply want access to Windows and a suite of apps for a very brief period of time. Why would I want to buy/maintain/upgrade a bunch of Windows stuff when I can just rent a Hosted Virtual Desktop instance from Amazon for 35 bucks a month... or by the hour?

I currently use Windows in VMware Workstation on both my MX desktop and lappy. This is the same scenario that the guys who created Amazon H Virtual Desktop used as well (except it was Ubuntu w/ Windows in a VM).
I'm invested in VMware and these Windows 8.1 instances so it's hard for me to turn loose. Still, I'm committed to not upgrading. If I have to upgrade, I'll just abandon it and rent from Amazon Workspaces when I need them.

https://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/pricing/

[Adrian]

Oh, I'm certain of it. And, in all fairness, subscription models are frequently the best solution.

I agree, plus it makes sense because companies and people expect the product to be updated and patched continuously. Obviously the subscription needs to be reasonable, since you mentioned Adobe I think their stuff is a bit too expensive for most of the people, maybe not for companies. But... the more they tighten their fist the more stuff slips through the fingers, it makes it an incentive for people to use alternative products, I would be more worried if they make Windows free of charge, it's harder to compete with "free" stuff.

[Redacted]

Not to play the devil's advocate, but - I've never been able to accept subscription or cloud computing. And it has nothing to do with security or privacy.
I grew up in a book lover's family. I still have hundreds of books, and I often reread many of them. I own them, and they'll be passed on.
The same with digital stuff. I have gigabytes of videos that my wife and I watch. If we're still alive in ten years, we'll probably watch some of them again.
This copy of MX will still be around in ten years, and I won't have to pay again to use it.
I don't know if my reasoning totally applies to a case like this, but that is what I'm thinking.

[clicktician]

Not to play the devil's advocate, but - I've never been able to accept subscription or cloud computing. And it has nothing to do with security or privacy.
I grew up in a book lover's family. I still have hundreds of books, and I often reread many of them. I own them, and they'll be passed on.
The same with digital stuff. I have gigabytes of videos that my wife and I watch. If we're still alive in ten years, we'll probably watch some of them again.
This copy of MX will still be around in ten years, and I won't have to pay again to use it.

I know exactly what you mean, and it's funny to hear you say this out loud. You and I are of a generation that is mystified by Millennial generation values and constructs.
We subscribe to cable TV or satellite, but we don't really own any of it. Certainly, we don't own the content. And somehow, we're perfectly comfortable with that.
When we buy a BluRay, we technically only buy the plastic. The video itself is licensed to us, but it doesn't belong to us. We can't even legally copy it from the plastic.
We think we own books, but if you tried to reprint one, you'd find out very fast that you don't own anything but the paper itself. The words still belong to someone else.
We don't own MX, we're just licensed to use it.

Millennials were born into this "licensing" age, and they are quite at home using things they don't own. They have expanded that concept far beyond Intellectual property in the US, and Japan especially.
They gave us Uber and AirBnB and Netflix and iTunes -- enjoying something has no connection to owning it. BMW, Mercedes, Cadillac and Volvo now have subscription based car services. You have zero maintenance and insurance, and you can change cars as often as you like.

If you read the OP article carefully, Israel is not complaining about the subscription service at all. They're complaining only about the price.
I don't think subscriptions are the future because they're already here and have been for decades. The question is, how are us old guys going to adjust to it? Lol.

[timkb4cq]

Meh. It's the very old choice of buying vs renting (leasing). Some things you don't have the choice - I can't buy a connection the internet, only rent it.
With web services you have the privacy consideration that sending data over the net makes it potentially available to others.

I have computer data going back over 20 years and I intend to keep much of it, so I wouldn't keep it in the cloud where it can disappear at the will of others. But I will lease hosting services / Virtual servers when necessary. Since U.S. tax software is (to date) Windows/Mac only, when my Windows 7 VM is no longer supported it might make sense to lease a Windows instance to do my taxes - but I would still need to have a local machine to store the data on for when that instance disappears.

As a taxpayer I would want any government decision of purchase vs lease to make financial sense and protect the data so a provider can't lose it or hold it hostage. And the checkered history of government bespoke software should always be kept in mind...

[Adrian]

I have computer data going back over 20 years and I intend to keep much of it, so I wouldn't keep it in the cloud where it can disappear at the will of others

For what is worth I never lost my cloud data, but I lost the data on my drive at least three times: hdd failure, a wild rm or dd, experimenting with fs formats... I find the cloud much more reliable than me.