That's the plan for most commercial software vendors (at the consumer and enterprise level). I'm not sure it's a bad thing if priced right. Office is an expensive application suite if you buy it outright, but a $70/year subscription would take you well past the point you'd normally upgrade if extrapolated out over enough years to equal the purchase price.
Speaking of which, the Office subscription on my Windows tablet is about to expire (was included with the price of the tablet for the first year). I don't need most office apps on my tablet, but Outlook was nice to have as it allowed me to use my tablet to handle work email when I didn't feel like dragging my laptop out.
Chris
As I've mentioned in past discussions on this topic, IMO, it totally makes sense to pay for the latest MS Office, whether as a product or subscription, if you are in a line of work where 100% compatibility is important (in fact MS offers all kinds of ultra-cheap home use "employee deals" for large entities). If you don't need 100% compatibility with the working world, or you're a bum like I am now, there's no reason not to stick with your old version of MS Office, or else use any of the Open Office flavors out there. At this point, for individual use, I think Libre Office has more to offer than pre Office 2K versions of MS Office, without the security worries of older MS versions.
I think MS knows this and are good with it. They know which side of the computer using community butters their bread, and don't really care that Joe Blow is using OO, when they're selling a bajillion copies of MS Office to large corporation "X".
