Microsoft Is Making Office Users Pay for AI. It Could Backfire.

A big success story for software giant Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) over the past decade has been Office 365, now called Microsoft 365. Facing competition from Alphabet's Google Docs, Microsoft launched subscription versions of its iconic Office applications. The old model of selling pricey one-off licenses was under threat, and Microsoft successfully convinced tens of millions of consumers and businesses to pay annual fees to access its software.At the end of Microsoft's most recent quarter, the number of consumer Microsoft 365 subscribers grew to 80.4 million. While Microsoft doesn't disclose revenue directly, based on the old pricing, this subscriber base is likely generating somewhere between $5 billion and $10 billion in revenue annually.I say "old pricing" because Microsoft has just enacted an enormous price increase on its consumer Microsoft 365 plans. The Personal and Family plans will see a $3 bump in monthly pricing and a $30 bump in annual pricing. The annual Personal plan will now be about 42% more expensive, while the annual Family plan will be 30% costlier. This is the first price increase for either plan in more than a decade.Continue readingWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei MotleyFool Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei MotleyFool