The Office 365 rebranding may be a sign of things to come:
The name change is more than just cosmetic and could be an indication of a massive change to come.
While the contents of a Microsoft 365 subscription look very much like Office 365 right now, the Microsoft name tag is paving the way for the company to add Windows to the package.
No longer will your operating system be priced into the cost of a new PC or laptop. Instead, those devices will come with a 30-day free trial of Windows (much like Office does now), after which you’ll be expected to take out a subscription to keep the operating system active.
Let me explain why this might not be such a terrible thing… First, you pay for Windows anyway. You may not notice it, and you might have been told Windows 10 was “free”, but it’s not. The PC makers pay anything up to £50 per licence for Windows 10, and that cost is added to the price of new computers. If Microsoft were to turn that into a free trial, you’d hope the PC makers would pass on the savings.
Second, if Microsoft is charging you directly for Windows, it has a responsibility to support it. That means not simply directing you to a website or “chat assistant”, but proper telephone support, because if they don’t fix your problem, you don’t pay them next month. In other words, Microsoft will have a direct financial incentive to sort out its support.
Finally, and this is the big one, a Windows subscription makes it much easier to move to the model that will shape computing in this decade: streaming. It is entirely possible that by the end of this decade, we won’t be running Windows on the PC, but streaming it over the internet.
Your Windows installation will be hosted in one of Microsoft’s massive data centres, and whether you’re using a laptop, desktop PC, tablet or streaming device plugged into a screen, you’ll stream Windows over your fibre broadband connection.
Microsoft will look after backup; Microsoft will store all documents, photos and other files; Microsoft will charge you for all this in one convenient monthly sum and call it Microsoft 365.
