Microsoft Office as a Subscription? Introducing Equipt

On July 15 Microsoft will start selling an Office productivity package called Equipt for $69.99 annual subscription.  The package includes Office Home and Student, Windows Live OneCare, Office Live Workspace and some other tools.

Note: Office Home and Student includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote (an excellent productivity application that is worth a try.)

I used to work as a technical evangelist for Office, and Office Live and I’m so glad to see them doing this finally. It’s been a real challenge for Microsoft to evolve its offering from packaged software sold through retail to a blend of offline and online applications.

Software plus Services

Although they talk about their Software plus Services strategy, the “services” part of the equation has been pretty light, leaving the door open for Google Docs to get a foothold for certain types of productivity tasks. For example, collaborating on a document or spreadsheet with friends is super-easy with Google Docs, and still quite a pain with Microsoft Office.

Equipt moves the ball forward by offering Office Live Workspace to assist with document collaboration, and a better price point for small businesses and individuals.

And thank goodness they actually used a decent name for it! Equipt is much easier to remember than Microsoft Office Professional 2007…

Here is a link to the press release from Microsoft.

Tagged as: google docs, microsoft office, productivity