Microsoft's Office 365 subscription push pays off; what it means for biz

Microsoft last week quantified its success at driving customers to never-ending payments for its software, saying that 120 million active users are on a workplace-provided Office 365 subscription plan.

"We now have 120 million monthly active users of Office 365 Commercial," said company CEO Satya Nadella in an Oct. 26 call with Wall Street. That 120 million represents about 10% of all Office users; several months ago, Microsoft pegged the global Office user base at 1.2 billion.

More impressive has been the payoff from Microsoft's software-by-subscription strategy. During a summer conference call with financial analysts, Amy Hood, Microsoft's chief financial officer, announced that during the June quarter, revenue for the corporate side of Office 365 had for the first time surpassed the revenue generated by traditional licensing of the productivity suite.

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