14 DAY TRIAL // Adobe recently announced that it would move all its Creative Suite products to the cloud, thus abandoning classic software that could be downloaded and installed on users’ computers.
As far as Microsoft’s is concerned, this may not be the right decision, as customers still need time to adapt to this new cloud trend.
What’s more, the tech giant emphasized in a blog post that it would stick to the traditional, packaged software product for a while, even though it will also try to focus a bit more on cloud-based services.
Recent reports have suggested that Microsoft is working on a new service called “Mohoro” meant to turn Windows into a SaaS service and to make the operating system available via the Internet with the help of Windows Azure.
While such a product might be released at some point in the next few years, the tech giant would continue to offer traditional software, at least until everybody gets used to cloud services.
“Unlike Adobe, we think people's shift from packaged software to subscription services will take time. Within a decade, we think everyone will choose to subscribe because the benefits are undeniable. In the meantime, we are committed to offering choice--premier software sold as a package and powerful services sold as a subscription,” Microsoft explained.
And still, Microsoft admits that software-as-a-service is a huge opportunity for both companies and users and the new Office 365 productivity suite is nothing more than the living proof.
The service is already experiencing a great success, which could be an indication that cloud could become a priority for the tech giant at some point.
“The benefits to consumers are huge. Subscribers are always up-to-date. They get the latest and most complete applications. They can use subscriptions across the multitude of devices people use today,” it explained.