Say goodbye to an economical Microsoft Office

I have never been a Microsoft hater, as many are. But the love is certainly gone. Welcome to the beginning of the end of an economical Office purchase (with one exception, which I'll get to later).

Ready to get your new 2013 Home & Student with 3 licenses? Forget about it: they're gone forever. Pay Microsoft your $140 and they will give you a THIRD of what they used to give you for that price: 1 license, not 3.

It gets worse: Are you familiar with Microsoft's big push for "Office 365"? Get familiar with it because this is the last time you will even be able to "buy" Office: you RENT Office 365, you don't own it. It's a subscription service. And it is the future of Office. Don't like the fact that you now have to pay $280 for your desktop and notebook copies of Office (or $420 for 3 licenses)? Say hello to $100 PER YEAR for Office 365. And that will be at LEAST $400 if you use it for more than 3 years.

The one positive aspect of 365 is that it covers up to 5 PC's, so a family will probably save money on the deal. However, if you are single or a couple with 2 or 3 computers, you will pay at least $300 over the average 3-year lifespan of an Office edition. Go one day over 3 years (requiring a 4th-year subscription) and it's $400. For something you paid $125 or so for until now (Office 2010 H&S with 3 licenses was $125).

Yes, I'm giving Microsoft 1 star: Forget about the merits of Office 2013, it's the greed and manipulative practices of Microsoft that need to be exposed here. One day in the not-too-distant future Microsoft will make sure "owned" editions of Office (perpetual licenses) will not work with new editions of Windows (e.g., Windows 10) so that you MUST subscribe to 365. Worse, you will have to ALWAYS subscribe if you want to read and edit your Word or Excel docs, use OneNote, etc.: the apps are DISABLED the minute your subscription lapses. This IS their plan. So, I encourage others to give Office 2013 a 1-star review to voice your displeasure over this 200% price increase and Microsoft's nefarious plans on making Office an extortion racket (they will be able to demand higher and higher 365 fees because you can't say no - unless you're willing to lose years worth of documents).

P.S. One other reason to hate this change in Office: the one license you get is now machine-specific, tied to that machine ID upon install. If that computer dies or if you decide to get a new PC, you now must buy another copy of Office: no migrating/transfering allowed anymore. Another $140. Nice.