Report: Microsoft may launch new Office cloud license

This would allow Microsoft to maximize its revenue without driving customers toward cheap and free solutions such as Google Apps, Zoho and VMware's recently acquired Zimbra e-mail app.

"So in an effort to have it both ways, Microsoft may ask the customer to pay for both ways, license plus subscription," DeGroot wrote in an e-mail. "My view is that both the economics (buy an expensive product so you can use a cheap one) and practicality (one user working across the feature sets of two doc creation apps) of that is unattractive, and the risk is that very few customers will take them up on that offer. That would not be good."

Eric Lai covers Windows and Linux, desktop applications, databases and business intelligence for Computerworld . Follow Eric on Twitter at @ericylai or subscribe to Eric's RSS feed . His e-mail address is elai@computerworld.com .

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