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#50
The extras may be OK for some people. I don't use OneDrive a lot and have no need for Skype. And over $600 extra for those are certainly not worth it.
No, in your instance it is not worth it. That is my point, it is worth it if you want the other perks included.
At that point your dollars spent change whether it is worth it. I'm not going to quote the math, but the time period cost you refer to does become worth it
Edit
Okay, that does not make a lot of sense. This is why a subscription makes sense to some people.
I own Office 2010 Pro plus and can use it until 2020, so it is paid off.
I also run a media server, and store a lot of data. In the near future I will be able to sync my files from my server to my one drive.
One drives gives 15GB for free, then cost 3.99 us for 200GB storage, and 6.99 us for 1tb, with office 365.
I want the 1tb, my media collection is already huge. So 6.99 a month for the next 5 years is 419 us dollars.
If I bought the next version of office pro plus it would cost about the same, without a new Office upgrade.. so it is worth it.
I own Office 2010 Pro 64 Bit, I do not care to rent an application. I have no use for Skype and if Windows 10 in any way goes on a Subscription basis , I will go back to using Linux.
One thing over looked when saying $129 vs $800 over 8 years (or what ever it was, not going to bother looking) is that you are talking the Home & Student version vs. the Professional version. The original cost for Office 2007 Professional (according to Amazon) was $500. Office 2010 was the same price. Office Professional 2013 is $400. So, if you bought the Professional version of the newest version of office each time it came out, it would have cost you $1400 before tax, rather than $800 (whether or not you pay tax depends on location, I don't). As others have mentioned, you also get extra online storage space, and 60 Skype world minutes each month.
I don't understand why anybody would want to pay those high prices for Onedrive. I just bought a 2TB USB3 disk for $69. That is my Onedrive. Plus I have about a dozen other smaller external disks of up to 1TB for backup.
For those who have an employee connection to MS, software bought thru my employer, Office 7, 10 and 13, have been $20. I opt for a physical disc for another $10.
We're getting pretty off topic, but the convenience of OneDrive, and online storage in general, is the fact that you don't have to carry hard drives like that around with you. Instead, I have my documents, music and pictures synced between my computer and tablet, so I can do work on either and both stay updated, and my videos on my computer I can also download to my tablet at anytime. I can also pull up all of these files on my cell phone whenever I want. When it really comes in handy is cases like when I was doing a presentation at a research conference a few weeks back. I was doing an oral presentation. I plugged my flash drive into the computer only to realize, in a rush before I left home, I put the wrong file on it. I had no other storage media with me, or my own computer, tablet, or even my cell phone. But, the computer I was using had internet. All I had to do was go to onedrive.live.com, type in my email and password, and download the file. If I only stored stuff locally, I would have really looked bad. Instead, I started a minute late, and looked like a pro having an immediate backup plan. Another example of it being useful is when I was making the presentation. My teammates and I could work on the file together, in real time, using Office Online. I had to do some of the fancier stuff do it using the regular Office, but with it being synced they could look at it at anytime and see the latest changes.
What it really comes down to is if you ever have times like that, when your working in groups or need to be able to access your files on computers other than your own, it is worth using. If you never have those situations come up, then yeah, you probably don't need OneDrive. The purchasing Office Home & Student vs. getting Office 365 is, again, a matter of if you need it or not. I use Publisher from time to time, have been trying to learn Access in my spare time, and prefer Outlook to other mail clients. But, some people would never use any of those programs, and only need Word, and on occasion PowerPoint and Excel. If you fit both those situations, then yeah, why the heck would you want to pay more money for stuff you don't need? That's just throwing money away. It all depends on what your individual needs are. There is no "right" option.
I own a volume license of Office 2010 and two pro Licenses for Office 2013. I have no need for Office 365. If Windows 10 goes subscription and the price is right I'll buy it, I won't throw my teddies out of the pram and swear to go to an inferior IS over a pricing system I didn't even know about.