Office 2013 Activation

[HCHTech]

The only perpetual licensing that makes any sense if you plan on using Office 365 long term, is volume. Because then you can purchase upgrade assurance and have the next release when it launches. OEM and Retail are essentially dead.

I'm going to draw a line on the business size where your statement makes sense. I see no reason to draw the conclusion that "OEM and Retail are dead" when you are talking about small business. Volume plus S/A is significantly more expensive for little extra benefit. I could be proven wrong, but from where I sit, I see a definite future for perpetual licensing in the small business arena.

 

[Sky-Knight]

SMBs derive the most value from the Business Premium O365 subscription. That's hosted Exchange with archiving and litigation hold. That's all office applications. That's a shared storage bin that all can work from. In short, it's an SBS server in the cloud they don't have to own or maintain. It's also an Azure directory local stations can be a part of.

Unless you have a LOB application that needs a local server, SMBs don't need servers anymore thanks to Office 365. Which is why MS is re-branding the thing, it's no longer Office 365, it's Microsoft 365.

The only time OEM and Retail licensing for Office makes sense is if you simply do not ever use O365 services. And honestly, if you're in that category you're already cutting yourself off at the knees. What are you going to do? Use Godaddy hosted mail? Google? I've been there and done that on them all, they're all terrible business tools.

If you feel Office 365 is overpriced, you aren't using it properly. Teams is amazing... Flow? That thing can rebuild entire business models. The product properly used will save at least it's value in the HR budget alone. Time is money. Office 365 is so much more than hosted versions of Word and Excel. If all you want is a spreadsheet application, and word processor LibreOffice is over there, and it's free.