The rules have changed... sigh.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Those aren't comparable prices. One includes ten installation rights (five stationary, five mobile), the full Pro Plus suite, remote use rights (Office Online Sharepoint Option) and all upgrades plus online storage and promises of new features.
This is the problem. People have no way to compare the new pricing model easily to the old model. You understand it, I understand it, but the users and business decision makers have no clue.
It is our job to get them to understand the true comparable costs.
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Very few of the differences are technical, mostly it is just financial. Understanding the time / value of money, understanding total cost, multiple deployments, varying features... those aren't technical things. The IT people easily can provide great insight into if and when multiple deployments will be useful, which features are used today, desired and potentially used tomorrow. But the basic financial picture is really for the financial people to assess. IT traditionally provides little or poor insight into how the financials really work for the company - often because they seldom have any real view into them.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Very few of the differences are technical, mostly it is just financial. Understanding the time / value of money, understanding total cost, multiple deployments, varying features... those aren't technical things. The IT people easily can provide great insight into if and when multiple deployments will be useful, which features are used today, desired and potentially used tomorrow. But the basic financial picture is really for the financial people to assess. IT traditionally provides little or poor insight into how the financials really work for the company - often because they seldom have any real view into them.
You are trying to tell me that IT does not know the overall financials and thus cannot make the call. Well, duh. That is not what is being discussed. What is being stated is that there are generally not any financial people other than the head of the accounting department and the owner. Neither of those people will have the first clue about a single thing to assess which solution is better. The IT person has to do that. No, IT will not know the financial details of the company, but the IT person is the one that has to analyze the costs of the solutions and present the reasoning to the owner and accounting person. They will more than likely complain about $864 per user over 6 years instead of a one time $169 Home and Business license for those same 6 years. They will not care about the differences because they do not understand them. IT is the only one capable of making the decision on which solution should be used. IT may be overridden by the powers above, but the powers above can NOT make the decisions without IT.
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Basically this can be distilled into "the owners and CFO don't understand basic business or finance and are confused by their own jobs and IT has to do the work of the CEO / CFO on their behalf because they don't understand basic money."
I get that this is possibly true but it begs a major question - if the IT teams are universally the only ones that understand basic finance and management, why do we stay in IT rather than running businesses of our own - or business that are not IT of our own? Why does IT always appear to have the business answers and the non-IT people always seem to lack them? Is it really that IT is that much better and just do IT because we like it that much or is it just that IT has that impression broadly and the business people really do have a clue about business much of the time? Looking at the world through IT glasses it seems like the business people are often little children playing at business and IT are the adults in the background running nearly everything. But that feels like can't possible really be the case outside of really isolated situations.
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Interesting question!
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And I really do wonder this... do many of us really possess a great proficiency for running businesses (maybe only on the backend side) that we do not leverage? Am I well equipped to start a manufacturing business? A store? A brewery? A payroll processing firm? A small hotel? I've often wondered this and struggled with the perception of "I am making way too many business decisions for companies" with the "why am I not running a business" questions.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@david.wiese said:
we just purchase open licenses for both windows and office. Roughly $240 for each license and we own them. One master key using network authentication. pretty straight forward for me. I run inventory reports through spiceworks for our true up and there we go.
Which Office version?
well with the open license you purchase the license for the latest software that is available but it gives you the ability to install the previous version as well. Currently we are running office 2010 and win 7 pro, however we purchase the licensing for office 2013 and win 8.1
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@JaredBusch
I think one of Scott's early points was that the business owners can and should make the financial decisions - I don't disagree that without the proper documentation they don't understand the differences, but how is that any different than any other non IT decision they make? I'm also guessing that in a lot of those other cases they aren't doing the research on all of the options either, they are leaving that to another department to gather the research and present it to management (with or without their own bias).In our case we need to show those business leaders/owners -The cost for each option (including our time for installing/maintaining/etc), what features each options have, etc.
If you're a business that needs to have users using mobile devices and several workstations - its clear that O365 Pro Plus is the cheapest option, but if your workers work only on one workstation, are never mobile, it might be worth it to the company to purchase the $169 copy and have you spend 4 times as much time maintaining it versus buying the VL version for 5 times the cheaper cost.
This type of decision is purely financial - and one they should easily be able to make once they have all the research in front of them.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller I don't call $432 to rent something for 3 years versus $169 to own it forever "a pretty natural price increase". It's a huge price increase.
Those aren't comparable prices. One includes ten installation rights (five stationary, five mobile), the full Pro Plus suite, remote use rights (Office Online Sharepoint Option) and all upgrades plus online storage and promises of new features.
They're comparable if you don't want or need all the additional functionality. If I'm buying a TV package specifically to watch football, the fact that the cable company bundles in 30 extra non-sport channels compared with the satellite company is irrelevant because I only watch football.
On the other issue, Finance Directors are often head of IT and should have an excellent knowledge of it. I also have a strong financial background, despite working in an IT role. So my relationship with my boss (the Finance Director) on IT projects is one of a partnership based on mutual respect and we generally come to decisions jointly (albeit he outranks me so can overrule). I've never thought of it as "I'm IT - you're finance".
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@Carnival-Boy my point was that people who only want Word, for example, shouldn't be looking at Office 365 today because that isn't an offering on that side. It's the people considering Pro Plus VL vs. Pro Plus Subscription.
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OK. sure. It's still a substantial price rise to go from Office 2010 H&B to Office 2013 Standard Volume Licence, and you could install the former on two computers. So my point remains, it's not "a pretty natural price increase", it's the killing of a low-cost product.
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But doesn't the low cost version remain?
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@scottalanmiller said:
But doesn't the low cost version remain?
Yes the low cost version does remain, you can buy Office Home and Business for around $150 (maybe more maybe less.. I'm to lazy to look it up).
The problem with this version is managing it. Also, You can't install it on more than one computer like you used to be able to (a desktop and a laptop - same user). Now it's limited to one. Also, the new license is essentially an OEM license, i.e. you can't move it to another device - ever! once the computer you install it on dies/is replaced, so does the license. While I don't have a specific issue with this, it can been seen as a significant price increase. -
I don't see the big fuss. I have open license for all our machines, for both Windows 7 Enterprise and Office 2010/2013 with Software Assurance for everything. It's just a cost of doing business if it's something they need. I don't really decide who gets what software, we sometimes say no to some pieces of software but, at the end of the day it comes down to what the departments want and pay for.
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@Dashrender said:
Also, the new license is essentially an OEM license, i.e. you can't move it to another device - ever! once the computer you install it on dies/is replaced, so does the license. While I don't have a specific issue with this, it can been seen as a significant price increase.
I believe MS backtracked on that and you can now move it to another device.
But it's totally unmanageable for anything other than tiny environments. To the degree that I would say the low cost version is no longer available.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
But it's totally unmanageable for anything other than tiny environments. To the degree that I would say the low cost version is no longer available.
Yeah, If only that were true, that's it no longer available. The powers that be know they exist because they see it in the store 'Office Home Business Edition'
