Microsoft's big bet on paid subscriptions for Office appears to be seeing some early signs of success. The software giant announced on Wednesday that it has now passed one million subscribers for its Office 365 Home Premium service, in just over 100 days. Office 365 Home Premium is Microsoft's cloud offering for access to Office software and services at $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year.
Aside from raw numbers, Microsoft says overall this version of Office is the "best-selling Office edition yet," without expanding on specifics. According to Microsoft, "more than one" copy is "sold every second on average" since its launch earlier this year. Microsoft's Office 365 Home Premium numbers are small compared to the overall Office sales that include enterprise licenses, but it shows consumers are willing to pay for Office in the cloud.
The company's approach mirrors similar efforts by Adobe to bring Photoshop to the cloud. Adobe reached one million subscribers after seven months, with most of its 326,000 paid subscribers opting for an annual payment structure. It's too early to say whether either company is succeeding in their transformation from traditional software to the cloud, but there's clearly still a demand for these standalone apps that web-based versions aren't close to fulfilling.