Office 365 might have just gotten even more portable. Bernstein Research’s Mark Moerdler said Microsoft (News - Alert) is heading to outperform itself if it continues to see the current high rate of sales the company is now seeing with the solution. With plans to include Office 365 on portable tablets, this attempt could bring in as much as $83 billion by the end of the fiscal year.
“With respect to Office 365, the product could shift more consumers to paying on a subscription basis, given that it will cost $20 per year per user, which may be more attractive than the traditional $140 baseline, as far as consumers who upgrade only every four years or so,” said Tiernan Ray, writer for Barron’s Blog. “Office 365 combined traditional Word, Excel, and PowerPoint productivity programs with cloud-computing services such as Microsoft’s “SkyDrive” backup/file sharing service and Skype (News - Alert).”
In more detail, Office 365 lets Microsoft users take full advantage of using information in the cloud. Some key features include enterprise-grade Exchange e-mail and calendar, a range of communication and collaboration tools, and a suite of Web applications that enable Office 365 users to create and edit Office documents on-the-go without having to make any additional downloads.
The cloud service is available for users through a subscription offering various pricing for the amount of users and licenses needed. The subscription cost covers all users data and includes updates and security.
“The Office 365 application suite should prove to increase customer stickiness. On top of the Office applications, you also get 27GB of SkyDrive storage and 60 minutes per month of Skype with this version,” added Moerdler. “We estimate that the Surface for Windows RT to be priced at $600, and the Surface for Windows 8 Pro to be priced at $1000. We believe that Microsoft could ship 2.5-3 million Surface for Windows RTs, and 750,000 to 1 million Surface for Windows 8 Pros.”
If all stays according to plan, Microsoft could be seeing double-digit revenues in the billions in the very near future.
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Edited by Jamie Epstein