Why Microsoft's Office 2013 Subscription Model Will Flop

There has been a lot of talk about Microsoft's Office 2013 subscription model. The benefits of upgrading to the latest version of Office, which ships this week, are debatable. Generally speaking, people tend to adapt to the newest version of Office or merely go off and nab some open-source system instead.

Personally, I find the random changes in Microsoft Office to be annoying. As far as I am concerned, the company should add new features and improve the product rather than endlessly fiddle with the interface.

But the real push here will be the rental idea, whereby users can pay a subscription fee and get the product on an as-needed basis. This is going to take a while to shake out because, except for temporary usage, there is no real reason anyone would want to subscribe to the suite. That is, unless Microsoft goes the way of Adobe.

As my regular readers know, I am a fan of the Adobe's Creative Cloud subscription package, but it's not necessarily something Microsoft can copy. For one thing, Adobe is constantly upgrading its products with new capabilities, and its users get the updates immediately with the subscription model. Microsoft does nothing like this.

Adobe also has a slew of products in the subscription suite. There is Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Encore, Fireworks, InDesign, and OnLocation. Microsoft merely has the Office suite.

Adobe adds incentive for its subscribers by throwing in some bonus programs that you cannot even buy. Microsoft can't figure out what to do.

A subscriber will look at Adobe's list of programs and be wowed, knowing full well that he or she will not use more than one or two programs and be done with it. Most programs will languish, but at least they are available if you want them.

This is what Microsoft needs to do but the company has spent too many years sitting on its duff rather than innovating. There are scattered applications here and there, but many are server-side products or other sysadmin-type products. Microsoft could bundle Visio, OneNote, and some of its other products and create a list large enough to attract attention. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that the company has even studied the Adobe model.

Microsoft will probably offer more and more cloud space for its subscribers, and that's a start to make this model successful, but at some point it begins to look like Google's approach. And, in fact, I think that is the problem. Microsoft spends too much of its time preoccupied with Google rather than looking around to see what other companies are doing.

Come on now, Microsoft, rethink your subscription specifics before you blow it.

You can Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter @therealdvorak.

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