Microsoft launched Office 2019 just a couple of months ago, but one would think the company would prefer you not buy it. Instead, Microsoft’s latest ads pit sets of identical twins against each other to complete office-themed challenges, with the end result showing that the company stating that Office 365 (monthly or yearly subscription) is better than the Office 2019 (one-off payment).

These ads are rather odd; with Microsoft intentionally showing how inefficient the one-time payment version of its productivity suite is compared to the constant stream of updates it pushes to the subscription-based version.

This is rather odd indeed. Well, one might assume Microsoft would use this opportunity show Office’s strengths compared to a competitor like Apple’s iWork suite or Google Drive.

Then again this shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise – Microsoft pushing Office 365 that is. The picture below denotes the pricing of the 365 and 2019 suite of apps for Home use.

One thing for sure, most people don’t really update Office that often. As long as you can type out an essay or a report, then it’s fine. Now you see why Microsoft would rather lock-in customers into recurring subscriptions to keep a steady flow of revenue.

And this method reflects the current trend of using software as a service; Adobe Creative Cloud and Office for example, compared to the more traditional payment system that customers are used to.

So, how is it going to be? One-off or yearly? This decision won’t be that hard to make, given where consumers are mostly leaning to. Still, I’m not ruling out anything just yet.

And here are the ads, check them out:

https://youtu.be/PxOS4OvShAY

https://youtu.be/aR_o2uZ4sjU