Recently, a couple of Microsoft job postings hinted that the company could be readying a consumer version of Microsoft 365, and now CEO Satya Nadella has lended some credence to that idea. At a recent press event, CNET reports, Nadella said that Microsoft will "soon be talking about" plans for Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions.
Nadella's comments came as part of a larger statement on Microsoft's commitment to its consumer business. From Nadella:
It's very fair to say, as I said in the very beginning, that we started after all on the consumer side and then over-indexed to the IT side, and we definitely are very focused on bringing that back.
After touching on the success of its Surface and Bing advertising businesses, Nadella turned to Office 365, making a passing mention of Microsoft 365 for consumers:
So I would say Surface is a brand, what we are doing with Office 365 or what we will soon be talking about as Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions, those would be again completely consumer businesses.
Currently, Microsoft 365 is a subscription offering aimed at enterprise and education customers, bundling Office 365, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility + Security. For consumers, it's a little unclear what such a package would off, but ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley previously reported that it could include Windows 10, Skype, Outlook, Office 365, and other services.
In his comments, Nadella raised the possibility that a Microsoft 365 consumer offering could include Xbox tie-ins as well. From Nadella:
We have a structural position in that we have both a console business as well as a PC business which happens to be in fact bigger than the console business when it comes to gaming, and the idea is to aggregate those sockets with a subscription service.
While details such as the services included and pricing are very much a mystery right now, it sounds like we should hear much more about what Microsoft has planned soon.
