Microsoft changed up its Office product in January by offering the productivity suite as a subscription for home users for the first time — pay a recurring annual fee of $99.99/year rather than a one-time license. So how’s it going? The company just announced that Office 365 Home Premium has surpassed 1 million subscribers in about 100 days.
Overall, Microsoft says the new Office is so far the best-selling version of the software in its history.
In an infographic, the company compares Office 365’s home subscription uptake to the time it took other consumer services to reach 1 million users — noting that Office 365 reached the milestone ahead of Hulu Plus, Spotify, Dropbox and even Facebook. Of course, the Office business in general had a big running start compared with those much younger services, but it looks like Microsoft’s subscription offering is resonating with a significant segment of the consumer population.
Previously Office 365 subscriptions were available only to businesses.
The $99.99/year subscription comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook and other Office apps for up to five machines, plus an extra 20 GB of SkyDrive Storage, and 60 minutes of Skype world minutes per month. The company still sells a traditional version, Office Home & Student, for a one-time-licensing fee of $139.99, with the ability to install Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote on one PC.
