back to article Microsoft tests 45% M365 price hikes in Asia-Pacific to see how much you enjoy AI

Microsoft has advised users of its M365 suite in six Asia-Pacific nations they face big price rises when they renew subscriptions. We're told these hikes are needed to “ensure Microsoft customers are among the first to access powerful AI features in our apps." News of the price rises arrived in emails sent to subscribers last …

  1. Scotech
    Thumb Down

    If they pull this in the UK, then it's a hard nope from me. Copilot has the occasional bout of usefulness, but it's a novelty that's definitely not worth £25 per annum for personal use. Same on the business front - Office 365 is expensive enough for what you actually get already, without adding in the cost of an additional Copilot license. I can find better places to spend that money. I've yet to see a killer app for any Copilot - most of the time, I just have to keep batting it out of the way. Like Clippy.

    1. hoola Silver badge

      Whilst I agree the reality is that this is commercial - big business is likely to continue to pay as there are no realistic alternatives at the level they operate.

      Also M365 has been in existence for long enough now that it is almost impossible to break free.

      There needs to be two options:

      Standard M365 without AI shite

      AI Enabled M365 with AI shite.

      1. Like a badger

        Pricing also needs to reflect that - given Microsoft's desire to get adoption of their AI shite in the face of a market that's giving it a wholehearted "meh", presumably the non-AI version should be more expensive?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        and, of course, the NO FUCKING CLOUD! option.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          and, of course, the NO FUCKING CLOUD! option.

          We're talking specifically about the price of cloud licenses for office.

          But, screaming at Microsoft goes down an absolute storm around here so have at it!!

      3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        "big business is likely to continue to pay as there are no realistic alternatives at the level they operate."

        Let's try an alternative view of that:

        While big business look for no realistic alternatives they are likely to continue to pay

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          My employer decided to give Microsoft the heave-ho a few years back, and went Google Workspace instead. However MS is still needed for certain areas of the business, but so far Google is working out pretty well.

          Anon, because ...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            > My employer decided to give Microsoft the heave-ho a few years back, and went Google Workspace instead. However MS is still needed for certain areas of the business, but so far Google is working out pretty well.

            That's great, and I'm pleased, no really. :-)

            But, if MS demonstrate that there is "price insensitivity" as Economists like to call it, then expect a similar hike from Google about 6 months after.

          2. blu3b3rry
            Holmes

            Employer has been scrutinising Onedrive/Sharepoint costs as of late and moved a lot of stuff onto cheaper hosting.

            I genuinely wouldn't be upset if the price increases pissed them off and forced them to find services elsewhere - not a day goes by without someone having Sharepoint sync issues, an update breaking something or yet another Azure service borkage.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            My employer decided to give Microsoft the heave-ho a few years back

            I now feel like Ben in The Life of Brian - you lucky, lucky bar steward.

            My employer seems to have lapped up all the cool aid MS can dish out, and proactively made use of as many integrated features that would make leaving the 365 ecosystem impossible as it can. I can see the point of making use of stuff we've paid for, but it does seem rather short sighted - as Loudon D'Arcy points out below, it puts us definitely in the "I've got your balls, pay up" territory as realistically it would be very painful and expensive to switch to anything else now.

        2. ecofeco Silver badge

          Exactly. There are plenty of alternatives. But when a good portion of your investment portfolio is with vendor x, you keep buying vendor x's product.

          Conflict of interest? Never saw a single business that didn't love it.

      4. pimppetgaeghsr

        Those capex expenditures aren't going to pay for themselves, any AI pessimist saw this coming way back. You WILL pay for the AI, you WILL comply.

    2. UnknownUnknown

      Don’t have on auto-update. Simple as.

      Buy an annual retail key from Amazon and other retailers and add it manually. It is always cheaper, even with added months Microsoft try to tempt with.

  2. Loudon D'Arcy

    Vendor lock-in

    A Microsoft spokesperson sent us the following statement:

    "Your balls are in the palm of my right hand. Now pay up."

    1. m4r35n357 Silver badge

      Re: Vendor lock-in

      "Your balls are _still_ in the palm of my right hand. You are clearly too stupid to remove them. Now pay up"

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Vendor lock-in

      "in a vice" was the expression I had in mind. It can squeeze harder.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Vendor lock-in

        The vice lacks that personal touch that Microsoft is so famous for, with your very own $GREETING $NAME in ever email.

    3. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Vendor lock-in

      I'm waiting for them to charge even more to give customers with security concerns, like the military & banks, the means to turn all that AI spyware crap off.

  3. Baird34

    "Live, Laugh, Love"

    I like the “listen, learn, and improve” comment, about as beneficial as having a "Live, Laugh, Love" plaque on the wall.

    1. Bebu sa Ware
      Coat

      Re: "Live, Laugh, Love"

      Corporate America - Ignore, Forget and Degrade.

      Basically put everything in a Waring blender add truckloads of fecal material, whiz and let marketing tout it as the latest and greatest since sliced bread (which isn't actually a gourmet delight.)

      1. Andrew Hodgkinson

        Re: "Live, Laugh, Love"

        Wait, you wanted it sliced? No problem! Just upgrade to Bread Plus for only $29.99/mo (USD) or have sliced bread for you and up to four other family members wth Bread Plus Family for just $69.99/mo.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "Live, Laugh, Love"

          is this the famous 'Talkie toaster' making an appearance

          with apols to Dave Lister and Red dwarf

    2. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

      Re: “listen, learn, and improve”

      Oh dear, it is common practice to keep the initials the same e.g., Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, looks like the need some assistance in finding something with three L's. Let me think now...

      Listen, Learn and Lunch

      Listen, Learn and Lock-in, ah, yes, that's much more appropriate.

      Your turn, fellow commentards, for that final L...

      1. SuperGeek

        Re: “listen, learn, and improve”

        (Don't) Listen, Learn (but) Leech?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: “listen, learn, and improve”

        Listen (to the objections), Lawyer up (re-word the Ts&Cs everyone reviews thoroughly before clicking Next) then Loot

      3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: “listen, learn, and improve”

        Liquid Lunch and Lurch?

    3. Someone Else Silver badge

      Re: "Live, Laugh, Love"

      Has the same meter as "embrace, extend, extinguish"....

    4. TReko Silver badge

      Re: "Live, Laugh, Love"

      Better than "Delay, deny, depose" on bullet casings, I guess?

  4. Grey_Kiwi

    This is why I recently bought a 'perpetual' copy of Office 2024 Home & Business for just fractionally over two years' worth of subscription to Microsoft 365.

    It's an upgrade to my copy of Office 2019, so that perpetual version has now paid for itself more than twice over.

    If I didn't have over twenty-five (maybe thirty?) years' worth of email, calendar & contacts history in my Outlook .PST files, I'd switch to LibreOffice, but Outlook (Classic) owns me.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Tim99 Silver badge

      Outlook, and wrestling with.PST files, is just one of many reasons why I retired, and switched to Apple and Linux :-)

      An iMac, and iPad Pro for "the real world"; and a few Raspberry Pis for "play" (and recording TV). I dumped the emails and contacts that I needed into the MacOS programs, and started again with Calendar. After retirement from full time work, I moved a professional society's stuff to Thunderbird, that was OK too.

    3. simonlb Silver badge

      Perpetual?

      But how perpetual is that license, as these days there is no guarantee any more? I'm hoping you are located in a territory where they have some form of consumer protection which might force MS to honour that wording and keep it truly 'perpetual'. Sadly, if you're in the USA, you'll probably be offered the 'forced arbitration' route when MS decide to shaft you.

      1. SVD_NL Silver badge

        Re: Perpetual?

        5 years, as per their lifecycle policy this page is for office 2024, and you just won't receive any updates after that time. They'll continue to work, and activation servers usually keep working too.

        1. DoctorPaul

          Re: Perpetual?

          Not for my "perpetual" Office 2010 they didn't!!!!!

          1. Roland6 Silver badge

            Re: Perpetual?

            Not had reason to play around with XP for a while, seem to remember MS made promises about keeping the activation servers running until 2029…

        2. Chet Mannly

          Re: Perpetual?

          I had one of those - and discovered that it's only perpetual for the computer it is activated on - buy a new laptop and you have to pay up again.

          Or at least that's what happened with my copy of office 2019 when I got a new laptop last year and I doubt MS have gotten more generous.

          It was around that time that I realised I didn't really need Office for my personal use and after a short learning curve Libre Office works just fine for word and advanced excel work.

      2. wyatt

        Re: Perpetual?

        I think there is an acceptance that 'perpetual' will generally end after a period of time, life moves on and people accept that technology and software will as well. As long as it doesn't end prematurely then paying for a new version after a period of time is acceptable to me.

        1. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge
          FAIL

          Re: Perpetual?

          My perpetual Photoshop CS5 stopped working a while back claiming the authentication server doesn't exist anymore. My licensed Acrobat continuously questions it's own legitimacy by asking me to login to my Adobe account about once a month. Yet another reason to wean off of Adobe products going forward, which is what I am doing over time. Same with my employer.

          1. ICL1900-G3 Silver badge

            Re: Perpetual?

            Affinity Photo is pretty much up to Photoshop standards, supports PS plugins and has good support, both official and unofficial. Oh, you can try it free for a month. Pay once, yours forever.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Perpetual?

              Affinity apps are "perpetual" licences but periodic upgrades require a new payment (and when the Affinity suite went to v2 a while back, users of v1 got the same introductory discount as new users - i.e. no loyalty/upgrade discount). Also, for Mac uses at least, the v1 apps are no longer available on the Mac store. The perpetual licence still works out cheaper than Adobe's equivalents, so YPYMATYC.

              1. Chet Mannly

                Re: Perpetual?

                You can still download the v1 Mac installer from Affinitiy's website.

      3. hoola Silver badge

        Re: Perpetual?

        A lot depends on how the license was purchased.

        If it is a full retail license paid for appropriately and supplied either direct or via an approved reseller then it is probably perpetual and will survive a reinstall or move to new hardware.

        If it is a perpetual license that has been purchased through something like GamersOutlet then it s will not. It is perpetual until such time as you need to reactivate.

        Something to note on this that with a Windows 2022 license migrating to the same virtualisation platform running on substantially newer hardware deactivated the licenses. Now I only paid a few pounds so was not that bothered given the convenience of the wretched OS not rebooting hourly.

    4. wyatt

      Likewise, think it was ~£30 for Office and Visio for 3 installations. I've also a Hotmail account which gives me limited OneDrive access- yeah it's putting my eggs in the Microsoft basket but there are limited suppliers that do it as well as Microsoft does (not always great, but better than others).

      1. Adelio

        Never understood the reason to use cloud storage. OneDrive and it's derivatives can change the way you use and pay for it at the drop of a hat.

        I do not have a Microsoft account and have never found any need for it.

        1. SVD_NL Silver badge

          Convenience. Zero technical knowledge required, and you can access all of your files from any device.

          For most reg readers setting up a NAS and remote access is trivial, but for a lot of people that might as well be black magic.

          The only issue i have with recommending cloud storage is that they keep calling it a "backup" and constantly remind you that your files are "safe", but your options are extremely limited if you want to actually recover deleted or changed files. (to be fair, most NAS setups i've seen don't have proper backups either, most are running RAID1 at best, which isn't a backup to begin with).

          You're correct that they could change the service at any time, but counter-point: it's trivial to move to a different storage provider. ctrl+c, ctrl+v, wait for a couple hours/days.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            "your options are extremely limited if you want to actually recover deleted or changed files"

            I use NextCloud. I wouldn't say the UI is a model of clarity but as it saves multiple versions it's possible to cope with the occasions when yesterday's - or an hour ago's - version of the file suddenly seems like the best idea.

            Another useful aspect is sharing. I use it to share calendars between phone & laoptop and files between my laptop and my wife's.

            However it sits on a Pi upstairs so I'm not beholden to any third party although I also have been testing another hosted by Mythic Beasts to allow sharing with 3rd parties.

            1. SVD_NL Silver badge

              Personal Onedrive keeps the last 25 file revisions, but only stores items in the recycle bin for 30 days. From experience especially the last part is definitely a bit short for permanent deletion.

              1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

                And it's on somebody else's computer over which, and the policies of which, you have no control.

                The Pi also provides the server for the AIO's scan to server function and whatever else I might choose to put on a small home server.

    5. Adelio

      upgrades

      Why, oh why do you need to get continual upgrades to office applications (as a personal user) I kept using office 97 for 20 years, finally moving to libre office.

      The Only office app i still use is Outlook 2007 (The proper one).

      1. FirstTangoInParis Bronze badge

        Re: upgrades

        Our Technical Authors used to swear by (not at) Word 97. It was all they ever needed, and it worked for them. There is still nothing wrong with it (apart from all the bugs and zero-days) and frankly Office 20xx is just a different build with a different UI. Just like Windows 11 is a different build of Windows 10 (yes it is; check MS admin tools, 11 is reported as 10.0.0.2xxxx, 10 as 10.0.0.1xxxx).

      2. blu3b3rry

        Re: upgrades

        I happily switched to Libreoffice on my work PC for 99% of tasks. If I could find a way to bypass the laggy resource-hungry mess that is Outlook and find an alternative to that too with the right compatibility then I'd be able to avoid everything bar the necessary evil that is Teams....

        1. TReko Silver badge

          Re: upgrades

          Thunderbird is a good Outlook alternative.

        2. GDM
          Linux

          Re: upgrades

          Thunderbird, with Owl for Exchange so it can talk to OWA, works pretty well for me for both email and Calendar. There are a couple of areas that can have occasional weird behaviour (calendar invites sometimes) but no more than overall than with actual Outlook, which I'd been using for years previously.

          (Penguin because no owl icon...)

      3. I could be a dog really Silver badge

        Re: upgrades

        Why, oh why do you need to get continual upgrades to ...

        Because they are a route to extracting more money from the users.

        More seriously, some users keep asking for "one more feature", so everyone gets "one more feature" even if that feature is something they'd pay to not have cluttering up the UI.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Office 2024?

      I'm still running Office 2007 bought with a once-off payment to M$ almost 20 years ago and it's still adaquate for me.

    7. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      "If I didn't have over twenty-five (maybe thirty?) years' worth of email, calendar & contacts history in my Outlook .PST files"

      Searches for import PST to Thunderbird. Nope, nothing.

      1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

        Re: Searches for import PST to Thunderbird. Nope, nothing.

        Not directly, maybe, but PST -> MSG or similar is a possibility.

      2. hoola Silver badge

        It is possible but is a total horrendoma to achieve.

        1. Copy PST!!!!!!!!

        2. Create IMAP account and then upload all stuff in PST (assuming you don't run out of space and have to do this in chunks)

        3. Now connect new email client to IMAP and either leave it (assuming no space issue) or download everything and then copy to offline location.

        Of course being aware that all sorts of weird funkery happens when messing around with Outlook as thing decide they will only move not copy and so on.

        Not forgetting step 0 - have a suitable supply of coffee (or whatever substance helps you) and biscuits/pizza/cake

        And step -1 or step 4 - a large quantity of alcohol for when it all goes tits-up and you are having to fix the resulting mess on someone else's mailbox.

        1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

          A tame IMAP mailbox is an almost foolproof way of migrating emails. It probably doesn't help with your calendar stuff, though. Only you can say whether a 10-year old calendar is important to you.

        2. Loudon D'Arcy

          I recently had lots of fun (!) writing a Python script which grabbed all of the old e-mails in a directory (saved as plain-text '.eml' files) and then turned them into a single HTML page, displaying all of the messages in chronological order, complete with "To", "From", "Date" and "Subject" fields.

          The earliest e-mails from the 1990s were quite easy to convert as they were simply formatted and didn't have many text headers; but the most recent ones sent from MS mail-clients had an astounding amount of meta-data to wade through.

      3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Oh dear. Hoped irony would be obvious.

        1. Loudon D'Arcy
    8. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

      Re: email, calendar & contacts history in my Outlook .PST files

      There are conversion utilities to distill that lot out for use with another email client.

    9. Cheshire Cat
      Go

      > If I didn't have over twenty-five (maybe thirty?) years' worth of email, calendar & contacts history in my Outlook .PST files, I'd switch to LibreOffice, but Outlook (Classic) owns me.

      You can import PST files into Evolution, and from there store them into other mail services or open formats such as maildir. Not sure if they also import contacts and calendar items though.

      1. GNU Enjoyer
        Angel

        >import contacts

        Apparently you can export contacts from outlook in csv or vcard formats, which evolution can import (file - import - single file).

        >calendar items

        Apparently calendars can be exported from outlook in ICS format and there is the import-ics-attachments evolution plugin; https://wiki.debian.org/EvolutionPlugins

    10. GNU Enjoyer
      FAIL

      Libreoffice doesn't even support mail

      Even if you won't fight even the slightest bit for your own freedom, I don't see why you don't use just libreoffice for anything not-outlook and outlook for outlook.

      There does exist convertors and importers that process .PST files - sure it'll take a huge amount of work to get 30 years of email, calendars and contacts converted and imported into evolution, but it'll be worth it, as you will no longer be handcuffed so tightly by micro soft.

  5. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    1. navarac Silver badge

      Re: More AI Please

      AI and Starmer's crowd! What a combination of idiocy. What could possibly go wrong?

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: More AI Please

        AI and any government or manglement, what could possibly go wrong?

    2. Roj Blake Silver badge

      Re: More AI Please

      Who would have thought that a study led by British tech investor Matt Clifford would conclude that Britain needs to give more money to tech companies?

  6. Outcast!!!

    Why pay for M$ products when you can get it free: https://massgrave.dev/

    1. hoola Silver badge

      I understand the sentiment but it could stop working at any time and appears highly dubious as to its legality.

  7. Bebu sa Ware
    Pint

    Australian subscribers seem particularly piqued?

    Australians piqued? Outside inner city, cafe sociey poseurs the Australian is unlikey to be piqued but certainly is going to be pissed off and not being too particular, followed by a string of invective much of which is unprintable.

    99% of Aussies wouldn't know a pique if one bit them on the arse (but it would have queue with the native wildlife for the opportunity.)

    Corporate Australia will as always just accede to Microsoft's extortion but the rest might give them the middle finger.

    1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

      Re: Australian subscribers seem particularly piqued?

      The area under two curves (USD:AUD and CPI) have been high enough for long enough that Micros~1 decided they can max-out the rent increases and customers will just suck it up as yet another cost-of-living increase.

      Now they keep their fingers crossed and hope we don't notice the cost of actually delivering the product hasn't changed.

      Salve lucrum!

    2. I could be a dog really Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Australian subscribers seem particularly piqued?

      If only I could give you more than one upvote for that colourful description of our Aussie friends.

  8. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Linux

    Every day, in every way

    Microsoft finds a way to get crappier and crappier.

    Need I say? --->

    1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Every day, in every way

      Software[Crapware]

      Microsoft[Microcrap]

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    When CoPilot was launched our MS account rep tried pushing us to license it for all users in our M365 environment. We pointed out it would more than double the cost of our company's M365 subscription and we told Microsoft to fuck off.

    1. abend0c4 Silver badge

      This is the future of the industry

      I hope you're already preparing for the next confrontation, because at some point the outcome will be reversed. If indeed there is a confrontation - I suspect account reps will at some point be replaced by an AI godfather making offers you can't refuse.

      Across the industry, vendor lock-in has been largely accepted on the basis that the vendors would, in the end, have to "play nice". But the gloves are coming off: there's less concern about losing low-margin customers and a realistation that being seen to play hard ball isn't the impediment to future sales that might once have been imagined. In fact it can help "encourager les autres".

      Customers dependent on proprietary ecosystems need to decide whether they have a credible exit path or not. If they have, they're going to have to be prepared to use it, possibly with relatively short notice. If not, they're just going to have to pay up. In the new world, the vendor will happily walk away from you.

  10. Paul Crawford Silver badge
    Trollface

    I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further

    Software rental, what else did you expect?

    1. Blogitus Maximus

      Re: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further

      And so the march of subscription services continues toward the sunlit uplands of Enshittification.

      Shittier version of Amazon Prime with adverts- check

      Shittier version of Netflix with adverts or crappier quality - check

      Shittier version of M365 infested with fake AI - check

      The list, of course, goes on. I would never ever lease software from M$ and still enjoy a perpetual license for office professional plus 2016. It was bought using a student discount, so was reasonably priced at the time. Still works fine, and if it ever doesn't there's always open office.

      1. m4r35n357 Silver badge

        Re: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further

        Can any of the stupids who support the cloud please justify shitting up the world for everyone else?

        1. Lon24

          Re: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further

          I love my cloud. It's a RaspberryPi Nextcloud & NFS server with a big ssd stuck in the back. When that runs out I'll stick another one on. Negligable power consumption. Total control.

          MS-free now but I have a soft spot for the days I carried my .pst file round on a USB stick till it got too big. Cloudy with even less consumption.

          Planet survived.

          1. m4r35n357 Silver badge

            Re: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further

            Wot, a home "cloud"? I have one of those - I call it an NFS server, not a "cloud".

            Cloud _means_ "somebody else's computer".

            1. Lon24

              Re: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further

              Your definition - not mine. And I don;t actually own it but I do control it.

              My definition is data storage up in the [internet] sky accessible anywhere, anytime on any device with authorised credentials. Other can choose or make up their own. The test is 'your cloud' an effective alternative/plugin to the majors - AWS, Google ...??

          2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

            Re: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further

            I love my cloud. It's a RaspberryPi Nextcloud & NFS server with a big ssd stuck in the back

            Part of mine is a RPi5 with an SSD pentahat containing 5 1TB SSDs. With the RPi running ZFS with the 5 SSDs in a RAIDZ2 pool..

            (The other is an old Dell R720 with 27TB of RAID storage, 1TB of NVME storage (used for VMs) and (once the external SAS card arrives) another 20+ TB on an external EMC array.)

        2. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
          Devil

          Re: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further

          "We went full cloud, and the experience was awful.

          In the name of equality in adversity, everybody has to get the same experience!"

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further

          Wow, you don't even have an email account?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further

        But OpenOffice/LibreOffice has one of the worst UIs I've seen in recent years. I thought I'd downloaded the wrong thing at first. I could never with a straight face recommend it as genuine alternative to MS apps.

        1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

          Re: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further

          If you don't like the one it has out-of-the-box, change it to one of the others. If you're still not happy, customise.

          Maybe you'd prefer the ribbon interface...

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further

          Yeap. No ribbon crap, almost all the important tools one click away. Just horrible!

          How are you supposed to waste half your day trying to figure out how to write a simple document.?

      3. isdnip

        Re: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further

        Like it or not, Office files (especially Word, but to some extent Excel and Powerpoint) are the standard ones used for business and government collaboration. You may like your Libre Office or whatever, or be happy to have your little docs edited on the web via Google's js nightmare, but a lot of us need the real Office files since we do have to pass them around. And Libre Office is not good enough for that. So we're stuck with MS Office and it's just a business expense.

        What's especially annoying, though, is that they are trying to justify a higher price by saying it has improvements. What it has is enshittification galore. Office 2010 was the high point and it is down hill ever since. It is buggy and unreliable now, with annoyance piled upon annoyance. Making the scroll bar disappear just because they can? Having a second minimized file open up just because you opened a different one? The f'n ribbon? They've made it worse and worse. And it's pretty clear that the code base is a total mess, decades of badly documented spaghetti code that they are having trouble maintaining. For this they raise the price? Gag me, Witherspoon!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    These are not the apps you are looking for

    These are not the apps we are looking for…

  12. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    “These price changes reflect the extensive "

    . . . efforts in Redmond to ensure that Borkzilla is transformed from an OS provider to an OS leaser.

    Only a few years before I retire and throw everything Borkzilla out of the window to embrace the penguin.

    It can't happen too soon.

    1. m4r35n357 Silver badge

      Re: “These price changes reflect the extensive "

      a few years? They must be shitting themselves ;)

  13. seven of five Silver badge

    > can choose to sign up for a lesser version of M365 that does not include CoPilot.

    Can they? I might be willing to pay more for a version which doesn't...

    1. Guy de Loimbard Bronze badge

      I bet that's nigh on

      impossible to choose as an option.

      No "as a service" provider will make a choice to spend less, or cancel easy, as we keep hearing about in various forums, news articles and judicial proceedings.

      Most of the O365 package we use at home doesn't need all the knobs, bells and whistles.

      I bet if I really analyse what I'm using it will be Outlook, Word and occasional personal use of Powerpoint, but not enough to justify price hikes and the typically bundling of apps they know you won't use, but make out that they are doing you a favour for having them in your Office package.

      Perpetual licence or a reduced package would suit me, but not Redmond!

      1. I could be a dog really Silver badge

        Re: I bet that's nigh on

        I bet if I really analyse what I'm using it will be Outlook, Word and occasional personal use of Powerpoint

        Sounds like LibreOffice would suit you then. I used to keep using my old Office 2008 (Mac user), but on my last laptop upgrade didn't bother trying to get it working and just use LibreOffice now.

        If you like the UI on Outlook (are there lreally people who do ?) then other mail clients may grate, but if you use IMAP (preferably on your own server) you can mix and match mail clients till you find what you like.

        As to Calendar, one of the things that really REALLY gets me is when someone sends me nothing but an Outlook appointment file. If I drop it into my calendar it creates an event full of shirubbish and insists on sending an email. So I have to open it in a text editor and find the information I actually want.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      " I might be willing to pay more for a version which doesn't..."

      As soon as they realise that could be a money maker it might be possible. OTOH the price might have to relect loss of slurping access.

  14. PCScreenOnly

    Buy a load now and activate

    I have the family option, mainly for the Onedrive. Now the kids are not at school, don't really use the rest of the options.

    Looks like I had better go and scour the sites for the best deals, get a few and activate into my account

    Wish this was a few weeks earlier as Black Friday and new year you can get some good deals

  15. pro-logic

    Tried to "downgrade" but couldn't

    Tried to "downgrade" to my current plan with no copilot. Cancelled my plan but no way up actually get on the "classic" plan without a chat with support.

    They've really made it painfully hard.

    Finding the chat with support link is an exercise in frustration and clicking tough countless screens... and then they don't offer chat on weekends

    1. I could be a dog really Silver badge

      Re: Tried to "downgrade" but couldn't

      Standard practise - means they can fend of government investigations with "but we offer cheaper options" without actually allowing anyone to pay them less.

  16. Caffeinated Sponge

    Having tried (unsuccessful) to downgrade a family sub to an individual one with Microsoft in the past I'm not surprised. The default is to make the process as broken as possible so people let the date sail by and just start paying the extra...

    I have absolutely no interest in CoPilot at this point. I'd actually quite like the 'new!' versions of the apps to be solidly device based not webview too.

  17. Locomotion69 Bronze badge

    Too obvious

    Microsoft recently promised to spend $80 billion on datacenters in 2025 alone

    Did you really expect M$ would in the end pay for this ???

  18. This post has been deleted by its author

  19. prh99

    Well I am glad I am not dependent on Microsoft Office for anything. Don't really want Clippy 2.0 and definitely don't want to pay more to have it forced on me. I assume the price hike is coming one way or another.

  20. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

    Pay more for stuff I don't want, and rather not have at all?

    Not at all abusing a de-facto monopoly...

  21. Mishak Silver badge

    If it's not mandatory...

    Then I can only assume that the "can choose to sign up for* a lesser version of M365 that does not include CoPilot" is there in the hope that most won't notice that the price rise is coming and do something to opt out. Almost as bad as the Anti-virus companies (I'm looking at you Norton) that price-gouge if you auto-renew rather than buy a new license.

    * Interesting wording - given the comments above, does this mean that "downgrade" is not possible?

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If this is applied to universities, who all (?) subscribe to O365 for anything from email to office, then a 40% price hike will be one more nail in the coffin of struggling budgets (UK, Canada, ...).

    And good luck trying to argue to not use O365.

  23. SuperGeek

    Creativity

    "creative tools like Clipchamp"

    Clipchamp is garbage. Openshot is better, runs on multiple platforms, and if you come from a Linux environment and don't mind a learning curve, Kdenlive, is another option which runs on Windows too.

    Both free!

    1. X5-332960073452
      WTF?

      Re: Creativity

      And the only place ClipChamp will allow you to save is OneDrive, no local save option possible (last time I looked)

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Changed to "Classic"

    FYI I am in Australia, I went to subscriptions and went to turn off recurring subscription and BAM! Classsic subscription came up. I'm not paying for that AI shite. Change went down to $139 and not $179... Maybe it's Australia's strong consumer laws, it was too easy to change . Am i happy about it? no not really but with kids in school that live on M$ what choice do I have ? and NO, I'm going back to libre office or any alternative, family rebelled last time, was almost a massacre

    1. Like a badger

      Re: Changed to "Classic"

      I sympathise with your position, but we all know the marketing droids of Microsoft are going to be tracking this very carefully. They're not going to let people pay less and avoid the AI shite forever, so either they'll simply kill off the non-AI version in the next couple of years, or raise the price so there's no savings to be made.

      Broadcom's behaviour on VMware has shown that large companies can make money from the most outrageous, exploitative behaviour, and I'm confident that in tech sector boardrooms all round the world, people have been saying "What a great idea! Our customers are reluctant to change, and we can profitably shaft them for that reluctance - look at how much Broadcom are making!"

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Changed to "Classic"

        Linking it with Broadcom raises an interesting thought. As per reports here some larger installations have moved off, others will be planning to. What if the "could we?" mindset takes hold and starts looking for other opportunities.

    2. hh121

      Re: Changed to "Classic"

      It wasn't as hard as expected (per the OP) to get to the Manage Subscription either. From Outlook/Word/Excel, File/Office Account, Manage Account, then under Manage Subscription when you click Cancel Subscription the confirmation screen offers you the switch to M365 Family Classic without AI for AU$139, or switch to Personal for AU$111. Amazingly the actual 'Switch Plan' link doesn't offer those options...

      What isn't clear is what is still included in 'M365 Family Classic without AI' (the rest of the marketing site materials don't seem to have caught up yet). Luckily I don't have to pony up again till November so I can wait a while to see how this steaming pile of manure pans out, but based on a fair bit of experience with CoPilot so far, there is zero chance of me paying for it, since I had actually been looking for ways to turn the damn thing off in Word, Outlook and OneNote, desktop and mobile. It's a pain in the neck. "You appear to have written an email to your wife with a shopping list in it", thanks for that compelling insight.

  25. Zippy´s Sausage Factory
    Unhappy

    This feels a bit like a monopoly flexing its power. Thing is, under Trump, they'll totally get away with it.

  26. WolfFan

    I have not paid for MS Office since the days of Office 2003/2004 (Mac version). This is because I have been employed at various locations which provide MS Office to staff; I currently have two MS Office accounts for the full version ('Premium,' I think, but can't be arsed to check; the one with all the goodies including Publisher, now deceased, but not Visio or Project. I do have separate accounts for Visio and Project.) each of which can make four installs. For historical reasons, I have a third account, which is also free to me. I'm unsure if the installs from that account still work; OneDrive and email still work, but who knows about the rest. I mostly use LibreOffice and Apple iWork. Should MS raise the prices for MS Office, at least one of the locations will cancel all MS Office subscriptions; a now-defunct operation issued the historical account, and MS can't change the price; they no longer exist. I suspect that that account will go away once MS realizes it ain't get paid. OneDrive on that account is used just to transfer things, as the account might go bye-bye at any time; the email still works, but again, I suspect it might go away without warning. As it is, the only email on that account is spam.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "a lesser version of M365 that does not include Copilot."

    You meant to write "better" I think.

  28. ITMA Silver badge
    Devil

    Bullshit!

    "The spokesperson did say the purpose of the changes is to allow Microsoft a chance to 'listen, learn, and improve.' "

    Those are three words one would never associate with Microsoft, not for a good few years now:

    "Listen" - No you fucking don't.

    "Learn" - Like bollocks...

    "Improve" - Hahahahahaa, now I've heard everything. How does "make shittier"="improve"?

  29. Kev99 Silver badge

    Why do all users need AI? Why does anyone outside narrow industrials even need AI? We've survived decades without it in common, everyday usage.

  30. RAMChYLD Bronze badge

    Price rise in Asia Pacific

    > Micro$oft announces price increase, takes effect in a month

    > Lotus's (FKA Tesco's) selling prepaid cards at a discount due to Shopee sale just weeks before the price hike takes effect

    > /me smart, /me buy prepaid card from Lotus's before price hike takes effect even if subscription renewal is still some time away.

    > /me applies prepaid card after price hike and subscription is due for renewal, getting one more year at the old price thanks to hoarding a card.

    > /me laughs in Micro$oft's face

    Be smart like /me.

    But yeah, most likely /me be leaving Micro$oft's 365 ecosystem after next year unless I can continue getting these prepaid cards on the cheap. As much I like Onenote (Evernote just freaking increased it's price by a mad 600% this year. I was subscribed at RM50 a year, they suddenly wanted to jack the price up to RM310. I cancelled my Evernote sub and migrated to my seldom used Onenote account due to the fact) and OneDrive (Google Drive has been cutting down my storage significantly for several years now, and dropbox started putting unreasonable restrictions on how many devices can use an account). But eh, Microsoft is now demanding RM400 which is unreasonable, I refuse to pay more than RM200.

  31. david willis
    Trollface

    Gotta love the way it’s marketed?

    The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing devision of the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.”

    Replace “Sirius Cybernetics” with Microsoft?

  32. Always Right Mostly

    So, “Listen, learn, and improve”, you say...

    Listen to this: "Fuck right off".

  33. 0laf Silver badge

    God grant me time....

    For a lot of home users the lock-in is created by photographic backups rather than anything else.

    My mobile devices have backed up to Onedrive for a long time, although not impossible to move that store to an alternative it would be a PITA.

    My Mrs is currently locked into paying iCloud fees to store photos, also from a long period of use. Again not impossible to move but we're time poor and replacement backup services are also not particularly cheap. I also keep 365 on the home machines for the kids because this is what they use at school.

    I suspect that a few more years of the MS tax and I will make the time to do the shift. I'll not be buying new machines to use W11 and I have enough knowledge to switch to 'nix if I want to.

    I'm not a massive fan of Libra office but MS Office has likely enshittified enough now that Libra might well be the better current option despite not being as good as MS Office of old (I'd still use Office 97 tbh).

    I've no use for Co-Pilot despite actually having AI 'things' as part of my working role so I will make the effor to use the non-copilot versions while I can..

  34. dannwebb

    You can get around it: https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/you-don-t-have-to-pay-the-microsoft-365-price-increase

  35. Macross001

    I do not have any need or desire for AI crap on my system.

    All of my friends are shocked that I am still on Win 10 and remove as much AI rubbish as possible.

    Just more bloatware for general users!

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Inviting piracy

    Is the spokesperson implying they haven't increased prices in the past 12 years for previous "enhancements"? As for the latest "improvements", co-pilot is the equivalent of having the blathering drunk in the office.

    I guess they just want more people to pirate their software again.

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