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Does anyone know why these are priced by the month, when so many other services (EC2, S3, RDS...) have much more granular billing?

I don't use Windows or Office enough to need a full copy, but if I could get access for $0.25 an hour on demand that would be pretty useful.

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The normal Microsoft service provider license agreement (SPLA) forces you to buy subscriber access licenses (SALs) on a monthly basis. Amazon may have a custom deal with MS for hourly Windows pricing on EC2 that wasn't extended to Office.

It also may have been a marketing move, since enterprise IT folks actually prefer the predictability of simple monthly pricing over utility-style hourly rates.

Yeah, I agree with you. I am guessing that over time the pricing model will change.

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