- Here in NZ, pretty much all medium/large businesses and govt departments have gone all-in with M365. Most govt departments are on the E5 licence, and have also started to roll out the Copilot licences too.
The cost and complexity and the effort required to switch away from M365 is massive. It's not just using a different version of Excel and Word - that's the least of the issues. It's all the data stored in SharePoint Online, the metadata, permissions, data governance, etc. It's the Teams meetings, voice calls, chats and channels. All the security policies that are implemented with Entra and Defender. All the desktop and mobile management that is done through Intune. And the list just goes on and on.
Microsoft bundles so many things with M365, that when you're already paying for an E5 licence for each user, it makes financial sense to go all-in and use as much as possible.
Take a look at the full feature list to get an idea of what's included: https://www.microsoft.com/en-nz/microsoft-365/enterprise/mic...
And of course, the more you consume, the harder it is to get out...
by TheJoeMan
20 subcomments
- They also are actively decreasing the value by sunsetting Publisher in October 2026 [0]. Hilariously, the suggested replacement is PowerPoint, despite it being unable to natively open .pub files. The solution for that? Run a powershell script to convert all your publisher files to (uneditable) PDF.
There are many memes about inserting photos into Word, and the content flying around and breaking. My pet theory is that the younger generation never realized Publisher existed or was included in M365, and used PowerPoint as an everything-is-a-hammer crutch, and have now gotten jobs at Microsoft and are sticking with it.
Also, as far as I can tell, Publisher is the only application where the color-picker includes Pantone colors which is a must for professional poster production. I assume Microsoft is paying a licensing fee for this, and I wonder if they'll remember to cancel it.
Perhaps Affinity can eat their lunch and release a word-processor.
[0] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/microsoft-publish...
by Workaccount2
10 subcomments
- Most people using excel and word would be just as functional using office '98.
SaaS is largely just a cancer on society. Monthly subscription to pay for features you never use and bug fixes you never should have needed.
by thot_experiment
4 subcomments
- I know that modern office has xlookup and other niceties, but if you're not a power user Office 97 off archive.org is like 200mb installed, works just fine on win 10 or under wine, and has the benefit of being written 28 years ago so on a modern computer everything happens imperceptibly fast. I installed the 97 suite like 2 or 3 years ago and I've never looked back.
by acheong08
12 subcomments
- This feels like a dangerous game they're playing. Yes, there is some lock in, but competitors exist and are better than ever. The new "features" they're justifying this with (Copilot) isn't even something that most people want
- If most companies had to for some reason revert to Windows XP and MS Office from 1998, they would barely be impacted. There is literally no benefit to this subscription model besides paying for what you already have and what you don't want. None of this stuff needs to be on the cloud even for bigger firms. For the I need/like X in Office 365, it's not worth it from a costs perspective.
by LeoWattenberg
1 subcomments
- I bet the folks of the state Schleswig-Holstein are celebrating right now, having switched away from it recently
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Goodbye-Microsoft-Schleswig-Hol...
by mrbluecoat
3 subcomments
- Switched to the free OnlyOffice a year ago and never looked back: https://www.onlyoffice.com/desktop
https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE
by puttycat
13 subcomments
- Is there any reason to use Office nowadays except for being able to open documents sent by institutions where secretaries still use Word/Excel/PPT? (universities, etc.)
- Considering the last price increase was almost 4 years before this one goes into effect, most of those are pretty modest 1-4%/year increases. In line with inflation. The notable outliers are F1 and F3 which got a lot more expensive
Apparently F1 and F3 are "Office 365 for Frontline Workers". F3 is kind of like Office 365 Basic, F1 is stripped down to mostly read-only access plus Microsoft Teams
- At this point Microsoft office suite is practically a monopoly. Governments around the world rely on it. Every big enterprise and every business needs it.
The spec for office documents was authored by Microsoft( and approved by Microsoft!). The spec is basically the docx datastructure published publicly as a standard - which makes building competing office suites even harder.
Given the situation there isn't much customers can do if Microsoft decides to hike the prices anyhow they like.
Note: Indian Government recently adopted Zoho office suite to insulate themselves from Microsoft.
But I don't think many other governments or businesses have the guts to make such move.
- The price increases seem reasonable (from 6 to 7, 12 to 14, etc) given inflation. Have they been increasing prices frequently or am I missing something?
- Microsoft raising prices on Office?!
Must be for all those new useful features brought to your desktop over the last decade. Definitely not monopolistic rent-seeking. No siree.
If you or someone you love is a legal user and interested in checking out an in-development word processor built for lawyers, please consider Tritium.
It's free to download: https://tritium.legal/download or check out the web version: https://tritium.legal/preview
- In the Netherlands I have spotted the first large company offering Nextcloud as an alternative: [0]
I'm thinking of pivoting my Bioinformatics services company to more of a "sovereign systems" provider. I build a ton of infra for a small startup, it's all Nucs and beefier systems throwing data around.
[0] https://www.kpn.com/zakelijk/grootzakelijk/modern-workplace/...
by shevy-java
2 subcomments
- We need to create an office suite that really allows us to get rid of those milking corporations. I am not just thinking LibreOffice - I am actually thinking that an office suite can be used globally AND can also be at the least in part be co-funded by governments. The exact amount and procedure I omit here (can be many things), but it is no longer acceptable that a single greedy corporation keeps on milking schools for money.
(To those wondering why not LibreOffice - I am not saying not LibreOffice; but I am not sure how well LibreOffice's model fits to e. g. having a suite of office-related software that can be employed by every government, school, university, company etc... perhaps the code base is not well-written. Do we already have the co-editing functionality online? So that I could modify the document of an elderly person and then create a .pdf file. I can do so locally of course, but I want to be able to modify that on another, approved before-hand computer. Right now I have to carry an USB stick, and then modify locally, which is also possible, but I'd much prefer in-built solutions here. This is just one example of many many more. We need an improved LibreOffice here.)
by commandlinefan
0 subcomment
- I bought Microsoft Word, years ago, before it was "licensed". However, it auto-updated itself with my permission from time to time. A few weeks ago, I went to edit a document and was presented with a pop-up that said I needed to update my license fee in order to be allowed to make modifications to it.
This is doubly frustrating when Word is the standard for resumes.
by indolering
0 subcomment
- The healthcare industry is basically locked into 365 due to a lack of alternatives supporting HIPAA.
Google Workplace theoretically can be configured, but it doesn't cover basic stuff like information in contacts. So if ANYONE in your organization (like an outreach coordinator) adds a patient and puts notes into the contact field, it's a HIPAA violation. There is no way to effectively police that.
I wish the regulations were written such that messaging apps, office suites, etc over a certain percentage of revenue had to qualify for HIPAA by default. It's absurd how many small shops just do everything in over WhatsApp/iMessage/Gmail/iCould, etc.
- >" One interpretation is that the extra $10 billion from the price increases will offset some of the red ink Microsoft is bleeding because of the investments they’re making in datacenter capacity, hardware, and software needed to make Copilot useful"
Saying the quiet part out loud. Looks like O365 folks will have to subsidize MSFT's losses in giving Azure compute away for its LLM customers. Not great.
- They can set whatever price they want. Most customers have no choice but to pay; there is no competitor with anything approaching full compatibility or a similar feature set.
Companies like Microsoft and Adobe have maintained a business software monoculture for decades. Nobody has invested significant resources into competing products, just tiny companies and open source volunteers putting out niche alternatives. Microsoft could probably double their prices, and double the built-in advertising, and most customers would complain loudly and keep using them. Docx files, PSDs, PDF forms, etc with any complexity will only ever run properly in one corresponding proprietary application.
- To be honest I still see Microsoft able to squeeze even more dollars from customers bexause at this stage most are really locked in and has no other choices unless their entire Information System collapses.
So happy for customers choosing to go all-in with Microsoft. I sincerely think that Microsoft had to pour a lot of $$$$ to IT managers across US and EU to 'lobby' them to adopt O365. I say this because two of my last contracts in France had a great wall for anything published on the Internet because RGPD/Security/Data, but magically the same people that, you better insult them than ask for a Public IP, adopted O365.
Happy for all these companies, I hope they are squeezed even more.
Le me being layed off in April 2026 because the Cisco collaboration suite is phased out and the company goes all in with Teams. (I'm open to work in France)
- The family plan was already noticeably more expensive this year on Black Friday (roughly +20% over prior year).
Already moved all my usage away from MS…now just need to persuade rest of fam
by ManBeardPc
1 subcomments
- My next company‘s boss was pretty much Windows only (server and desktops/laptops, some Linux servers). Linux on the server was already replacing more and more machines. Now I am even allowed to use MacBooks or Linux laptops. Current company is already using the Google suite, MS Office was an exception if required for some reason. I saw the same shift with Oracle. Previously nearly everyone wanted Oracle as a DB, then the price increases got too much and everyone who could switched to alternatives like MySQL or Postgres.
- Copilot in every nook and cranny…that stuff costs money!
- Amazon ($AMZN) has moved to M365 in an “all-in” fashion just this year. Being maintained an old (2016?) on-premise exchange server and share-point installations for 10 years…
I wonder how it will fit with the “Frugality” LP.
- I have a family license and am more or less stuck with it, but for my business I will be moving things over to gsuite so I can be price gouged by them instead. It will cost more, but I’ll have Gemini, which is actually useful.
The last straw, aside from the price increases, was switching my office.com landing page to copilot. It feels like a new low, even for Microsoft.
You just lost $6/mo., Microsoft. I hope it was worth it.
by qingcharles
1 subcomments
- As an alternative, if you need Office, just search the web, there are plenty of places selling legitimate Office 2024 licenses for the cost of one month of one of these subscriptions.
[also massgrave will activate Office if you are really stuck...]
- One thing I can't find is what the new prices will be for the versions without teams. There's special EEA versions of those SKUs. Or will they just not change?
I don't use much of it (just email and onedrive) and I can even drop onedrive if I need to (so just use exchange online plan 1). But if the teams-less version is not rising in price I might stick with that.
by shantnutiwari
1 subcomments
- I cancelled my personal O365 subscription for this reason, even though I prefer Word to LibreOffice and the crap my Mac provides-- it wasnt just they raised the price, it was the new "AI" features they kept pushing.
When I cancelled, I made it clear why I was doing it. But I doubt anyone reads the feedback we provide
- They need to raise prices to fund the new data centers for all the AI most Office customers didn't ask for and don't want.
It's annoying because for me the most useful parts of Office are OneNote and Publisher. OneNote being a neglected back-water app they obviously don't care about and Publisher actually being EOL in '26.
- Anecdotally I’m starting to see a more people switch to my spreadsheet app. Not something that should be possible if the MS ecosystem was healthy.
https://www.sumbuddy.net
- Haven't opened Microsoft Office in I think 7 years. Haven't also used Apple's Office suite either - it is just Google Docs/presentations/sheets/drive for everything. I feel my life is better. They were massive installs and I prefer to have everything online all the time anyhow - just safer and more convenient.
by SomeHacker44
1 subcomments
- I would prefer unbundling this. I do not use Microsoft Office apps; I use Google Workspace apps which can read those files. I do heavily use OneDrive space though. I want to pay only for that. And cannot.
I would love to find a OneDrive replacement that works well both on Linux and Windows (and Android, iOS).
- The height of me using Microsoft Office in a personal capacity was when I was in school and university. I've been fine living out of Google Docs since then. At work, my company is a Google Workspace customer and I have to say I've come to enjoy the comment/live editing functionality of Google Docs more than Word.
- There are also positive news in Dataverse: Environments get some free capacity upgrade: https://licensing.guide/december-2025-dataverse-default-capa...
- Well, take the fact that they aren't seeing the adoption of their AI products as they'd wish and a switch from their products by several governments in the EU... they need to do something to keep revenue on target I guess.
- While businesses definitely don't need all those features, I guess most use it for compatibility sake - to work with existing files and to collaborate with others who use MS Office.
What's current state of open-source alternatives that can work with the MS file formats?
- 2026 will be the year of the Libreoffice desktop!
- Ah, how surprising :) And at a time when they desperately need to show that the AI strategy is paying off, so they are probably framing the pricing hike with the "new AI features" - same how google did recently with workspace.
- Who still uses this garbage? None of these products have meaningfully improved since Office ‘97 —and that was like peak Office
by KellyCriterion
0 subcomment
- 25%++ up in my region (EU)
- Hoorah for Libre Office :)
- Does anyone else remember when it was possible to include interactive graphs ala plotly in powerpoint?
Because it isn't possible now.
Office just keeps getting worse and worse and worse. The only thing they have going for them is vendor lock-in, and that's sad.
- I wish they would allow Microsoft Family to have personal domains again. :(
by lenerdenator
1 subcomments
- That's an interesting way to make up for missing revenue targets.
- I truly despise all Microsoft software, from Windows 10/11 to SQL Server, Visual Studio and lastly Office/M365. But enterprises love it and it will often cost them millions to migrate to something else.
- Likely to fund their AI misadventures?
by mock-possum
0 subcomment
- Really weird considering google docs and libre office exist - what do you get if you pay m$?
- I don't use Office365 much, apart from maybe Outlook (which I have to, for some of my work). However, the other day I had to use PowerPoint in the browser for the first time (I use Linux, so no native app) and… it turns out it's completely and utterly broken? I mean, the document looked nothing like the presentation my coworker ended up giving (using the desktop application on Windows(?)). What I saw in the browser was that positions were off, font faces and sizes were inconsistent, etc. etc. It was wild. How do they even manage to sell that?
by 29athrowaway
1 subcomments
- This office suite is less known but great: https://www.freeoffice.com/
- Heroic. With all the problems with Microsoft products lately, they can just increase prices just like that. A sign of a healthy market and actual existing capitalism.
- I stopped paying for MsOffice as soon as they've introduces Office 365. I saw where the ball was going. Sticking with the alternatives
- Ooooh but it has AI ;) blergh
- O365 and other Microsoft products are a massive, massive drain on valuable foreign exchange for third world countries like mine. If it were up to me, I would outlaw paying Microsoft for anything in my country.
by exasperaited
0 subcomment
- Well how else are you going to pay for the AI they want?
You have to understand the basic consumer SaaA contract of the 21st century:
- We give them money and agree terms and they do things to us that we didn't ask for that they want to do
- They change the terms of the agreement to allow it, we occasionally spot their attempts to grab new rights in the process, and they back away a little as if it was just some sort of silly mistake.
- Repeat.
- I cannot believe people here are defending this and they are like Okay price increases are normal
I guess we get what we deserve after all..
Who's coming on board the self-hosted Nextcloud etc train? choo choo !
- WPS - Free tier
by downrightmike
0 subcomment
- Y u no want copilot???
- You will subscribe and be happy, and when the prices increase, you will have no choice but to keep paying or you will lose access to the thing you've paid more than enough for in a lifetime, for features you never asked for.
- > Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices
Well, the RAM prices had gone up and they need to buy more hard drives for your confidential documents, stored on OneDrive.
- wouldn't it be more honest to call it M355 rather than M365?
by throwaway613745
0 subcomment
- Nobody is buying Co-Pilot so....fuggit...jack up the price! What is anyone gonna do about it? Leave? lmao
by ReptileMan
1 subcomments
- Can I pay them more to remove all AI crap from the platforms?
by insane_dreamer
2 subcomments
- The only reason people still need office -- other than a niche of advanced Excel users -- is because no one, despite the last several decades, has managed to make a 100% compatible DOCX editor (not LibreOffice, not Apple Pages, not Google Docs). I'm guessing it's because there are aspects of it that MSFT keeps secret?
The only reason I still use Word is because I don't want to have to deal with random layout incompatibility issues when sharing docs with colleagues.
In general, I find Apple Pages much more pleasant to work with and by far my favorite word processor (and I have used them all extensively on Win/Mac/nix).
- I’m the insufferable Apple fanboy that chimes in to mention Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. I have a personal subscription to Office 365 for interoperability but I’ve been annoyed by their inescapable AI price hike and now this. I might as well just cancel my subscription. Excel for Apple doesn’t even have PowerQuery and PowerPivot, so it’s already a diminished experience.
- They got into major shit in Australia for their way of increasing prices.
https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/microsoft-in-court-for...
by baggachipz
0 subcomment
- That often wrong and unnecessary AI bullshit ain't gonna pay for itself!
by reactordev
1 subcomments
- the era of ai enshitification begins with trying to recoup the costs...
by 1970-01-01
0 subcomment
- This is a nothingburger with fries and a drink. The largest increase is $3/month for heavy (as in big enterprise) licenses. This is not newsworthy and certainly not worthy of the HN frontpage.
- Enshittification at its best.
- LibreOffice
by CodeCompost
1 subcomments
- Why do I, as a European, have to pay for Trumpflation?
- they increased the price also last year... i went back to pirating after, dunno, 15 years or more.
by David_0101
0 subcomment
- [dead]
by jhaskldjfhskj
0 subcomment
- [dead]
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