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Microsoft Software Technology

Microsoft Removes Device Install Limits For Office 365 Subscribers (engadget.com) 78

Starting October 2nd, Office 365 Home users will no longer be restricted to 10 devices across five users and Personal subscribers will no longer have a limit of one computer and one tablet. The catch is that you can only stay signed in on five devices at once. Engadget reports: Meanwhile, Home users can let another person use the productivity suite through their account, with Microsoft bumping up the number of licenses per subscriber from five to six. Each user has access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote, along with 1TB of individual storage. Microsoft is also integrating Home subscriptions with its family service, so you can automatically share your Office 365 plan with people you've set up as family members. Elsewhere, you'll manage your subscription from within your Microsoft account settings from now on.
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Microsoft Removes Device Install Limits For Office 365 Subscribers

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  • Same with WIndows 10 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Thursday August 30, 2018 @08:29PM (#57228770) Journal

    If you go into the device settings -> accounts -> manage -> your account -> will open your hotmail/outlook account and you can unassign WIndows 10 Pro from 1 device to another.

    It is a great way to save money.

  • The year of office on the desktop
  • So when offline = office in limited mode?

  • by Puls4r ( 724907 ) on Thursday August 30, 2018 @09:03PM (#57228898)
    They're just trying to move people off legacy office. 5 years from now this will go away and it'll be one license one user.
    • Absolutely. I said the same about the "free" Windows 10 upgrade plans and was laughed at. Now look at Windows. Heading inexorably towards a subscription model.

      Apple isn't much better with their push towards ios app subscriptions.

    • A better headline would be as given in the subject. I honestly don't see the need for Office at all. And anyone who sniffs the software-as-a-service glue ought to be placed in the same category as those who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Both groups are caving to pressure from those who do not have their best interests in mind, pandering to a concept of dubious value, and creating a worse environment for everyone else.

  • Microsoft should have done this all along. Since it's subscription based, it really no longer benefits them to try to limit how many machines a person has the software installed on. It benefits them more if it exists "anywhere and everywhere possible", so the user will be more likely to maintain a paid subscription because it's "so useful".

    Imagine if some service like Netflix did this, saying you couldn't keep the Netflix software on more than X number of devices at a time without paying for a second subsc

    • by Anonymous Coward

      They should have done this all along but I suspect that they're doing this now so that other members of the household get as much exposure to Office as possible.

      Right now, my kids in elementary and middle school only know Google Docs. This is going to be a big problem for Microsoft in a decade or so when an entire country of kids grow up and all they know is non-Microsoft Office.

    • vNexflix is live vs offline (office apps) now you want to be able to use office in places with no network?? Now if 365 comes with free roaming + free LTE and free airline WIFI then I may buy it.

      • You can download Netflix content to some devices for offline viewing. I've not used that but I have used Amazon Prime's offline viewing and if I recall you have to 'refresh' once a month or so. I doubt anyone who cares about Office 365 goes more than a month without connecting to the internet, if they wanted to do something similar.
  • Does that mean that you can install full Office 365 on 20 devices, and so long as you save locally and not on the cloud, you can use them? Or will some of the devices be in limited functionality mode, only allowing viewing, not even local save?
    • by jezwel ( 2451108 )
      O365 periodically phones home to reactivate itself, and without an active & valid licence should drop into read-only mode.
      We set our enterprise 365 install to include Visio and Project, which drop into view-only mode after 7 days from first install if the user is not licensed. Pretty handy just for that as we no longer require viewer programs.

      According to the article:

      The catch is that you can only stay signed in on five devices at once.
      Meanwhile, Home users can let another person use the productivity suite through their account, with Microsoft bumping up the number of licenses per subscriber from five to six

      you will be able to use O365 simultaneously on either 5 or 6 PCs....hmmm.

      • by PPH ( 736903 )

        O365 periodically phones home to reactivate itself,

        So, can't be used within a SCIF [wikipedia.org].

  • I have a license on macos which is going to go waste when Mojave is released - 32 bit vs 64 bit - as I have no plans or need to upgrade thanks to LibreOffice.

    Even got my accountant to switch. Those guys are wedded to Excel.

  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Thursday August 30, 2018 @10:04PM (#57229088)
    GNUCash and LibreOffice. But I keep 1 local install Microsoft office lic and have 1 o365 premium account. Why? because my clients are not like me and they are Microsoft users. Their remote servers are all Linux but in their offices they are Microsoft based.

    Just the way of things

    Just my 2 cents ;)
  • How am I supposed to get any work done if I can only stay signed into Office 365 on five devices at once?

  • ....any idiot still using Microsoft software absolutely deserves all of these levels of bullshit - and more on the way! - that you are dealing with. FFS, why would any person, much less organization submit to this?!? Is Outlook THAT fucking awesome that you'll give up your IT life/control? Is there any aspect of AD that justifies ridiculous reboots in mid-presentation/whatever-I'm-running-at-the-time?

    Christ on a candle! What does it take for you to at least START breaking your chains of slavery?!?!
    • by labnet ( 457441 )

      It's a great question.
      Every time I've tried pushing Libre to staff in 5 minutes they've come back with something that doesn't format right.
      When it costs $100/hr for each of you to be distracted, the cost of the office license becomes insignificant.
      Governments should have forced MS to FULLY open their file format spec, but Billy Gates being the evil prick forces us to pay the MS tax because we all have other more pressing issues to solve.

      • It's a great question.
        Every time I've tried pushing Libre to staff in 5 minutes they've come back with something that doesn't format right.
        When it costs $100/hr for each of you to be distracted, the cost of the office license becomes insignificant.
        Governments should have forced MS to FULLY open their file format spec, but Billy Gates being the evil prick forces us to pay the MS tax because we all have other more pressing issues to solve.

        This is 2018 and that document most likely does not come from Microsoft Office...Could come from a whole host of Phone Apps, or Google's Office or Apples Office, or even a Different version of Office...It could even have a different printer attached. As someone who works in multiple environments ironically Libreoffice is my goto for compatibility, and when I send a document back its from Libreoffice, and even then I am always on the latest version.

    • ....any idiot still using Microsoft software absolutely deserves all of these levels of bullshit - and more on the way!

      They deserve discounts and less restrictions? And more?

      Yeah why would anyone submit to it. It's horrible.

  • by barc0001 ( 173002 ) on Friday August 31, 2018 @01:19AM (#57229544)

    My good old copy of Office 2007 does everything I need. I like buying things once, not renting them as a service.

    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      Ditto. I used to use 2K, 2002, and then 2007 for other people who no longer used them. I was still able to reactivate them too on new machines.

  • Not enough people jumped onto the subscription bandwagon, so we're going to make it look more attractive for a while in order to lure them in.

    Later on, when everyone is safely in pocket, we'll crank up the restrictions again and force everyone to buy more subscriptions because it'll be easier than trying to figure out how to downgrade everyone to a version they can actually own.

  • Yeah, now if Amazon could do the same thing with Kindle.
  • Insert totally useless advert for MICROS~1

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