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Microsoft Introduces Subscription Service For Office Software

By Ian Bush

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - If you use Word, Excel, and other Office software at home, Microsoft has an offer that's not unlike how you might get a newspaper or magazines.

Office 365 Home Premium is a cloud subscription service, which will set you back $99 a year or $9.99 a month.

For that, Windows expert Paul Thurrott from WinSupersite.com says you can install the suite on up to five computers.

"I have a wife and two kids -- both the kids are in school -- all four of us use Office. That's a tremendous deal for my family, and I suspect many families."

If you just have one PC, Thurrott says it makes less sense; you might stick with the traditional one-time purchase, the free ad-supported version, or a competitor, like OpenOffice or Google Docs.

But to sweeten the deal, Microsoft says it will offer regular updates and extras.

"You get 20 GB additional SkyDrive storage for free; you get Skype World Minutes, so you can call phones all over the world for free, basically, every month; you also get the ability to run these Office apps on the fly, if you will," explains Thurrott.  "So if I were to visit you at your home and you didn't have Office on your computer, I could sign into my account, 'stream' Word to your computer, edit documents, save them to the cloud, close it, and it uninstalls completely."

And, Thurrott says, Office 365 Home Premium is the high-end version of Office, which means it includes the entire suite: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access.

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