Microsoft is working on a Microsoft 365 consumer subscription

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Microsoft announced Microsoft 365 back in July 2017 as a combined offering of Windows 10, Office 365, and Enterprise Mobility + Security. Since then, it's been widely speculated that the firm might release a consumer SKU, and now there's finally some hard evidence of such a subscription plan.

 

The company has posted a job listing (via ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley) on its website for a product manager for the Microsoft 365 consumer subscription. The PM will be working on the Modern Life & Devices team, which the listing describes as "the Windows platform and ecosystem, the Microsoft Surface device portfolio, Office 365 consumer services, Skype, Microsoft’s intelligent agent in Cortana and search efforts with Bing, as well as the Microsoft Education Team."

 

Unfortunately, the listing doesn't say anything about what will actually be included in a Microsoft 365 consumer bundle, so we can only speculate. The business SKU includes Windows 10, Office 365, and Enterprise Mobility + Security, and consumers have little use for a Windows 10 or an EMS subscription. After all, Windows 10 comes preinstalled on most PCs.

 

Office 365 Home seems like the obvious thing to include, and perhaps a license for a Windows 10 Pro upgrade would increase the value proposition. Something like Xbox Live Gold could work to, but the issue there is that a small portion of the target audience for this actually owns an Xbox. Another possibility would be to include Skype premium features.

 

Microsoft used to sell a package called the Work and Play Bundle, which includes Office 365 Home, Skype, Xbox Live Gold, and Xbox Music. Of course, Xbox Music became Groove and later was killed off, but Work and Play was the only bundle of Microsoft's consumer subscriptions that we've ever seen.

 

Source