Microsoft beta testing subscription based, hosted Office

[pctech]

http://office.microsoft.com

Windows will no doubt follow suit so think I need to look for a new career.

[Niall]

Thats a fantastic way to lose your user base. This will be remembered as the day Linux won

[pctech]

Possibly.

When I order my next PC I think it'll be ordered with no OS and I may just switch to a dual boot config of Ubuntu and ReactOS (a Windows clone)

[Rik]

Every cloud has a silver lining - Microsoft's palm, that it.

[zappaDPJ]

I'll sit on the fence for a while. There are a lot of potential benefits and this is a trend that seems to be gathering momentum. Being able to sit at 'your computer' from any location on any hardware is quite an attractive proposition but of course that means trusting someone else to host your data and that's the stumbling block as far as I'm concerned.

[pctech]

putting aside my interest in how this pans out because I currently provide software technical support for a living, purely as a user I have a major issue with losing control of software running on hardware I purchase, being charged for the privilege and having to pay for the bandwidth to facilitate this too.

[Technical Ben]

I'll sit on the fence for a while. There are a lot of potential benefits and this is a trend that seems to be gathering momentum. Being able to sit at 'your computer' from any location on any hardware is quite an attractive proposition but of course that means trusting someone else to host your data and that's the stumbling block as far as I'm concerned.

You can do it already with your own PC + VM software. The benifit? Single payment for Iphone VM, Palm/windows 8 VM or Andriod VM software. Then just leave the PC/network on to access from the train and bus.