The company plans to charge users a A$33 (R199) subscription fee for three months, with users able to top up as they go.
The service is based on a mobile phone pre-paid system and will only be available on new computers.
The company said the model would make its Office software more affordable to users in emerging markets like South Africa.
Microsoft said the service would also be launched in Romania this month, though there is no word yet whether it will be rolled-out to the emerging market giants of Brazil, Russia, India and China (which with South Africa are known collectively as BRICS.)
“We need to think differently in order to address the needs of the next five billion users of computers and how we can make technology accessible to them,” Microsoft South Africa executive Cyril Belikof said in a statement.
The company says the Saas model would make its software more affordable to students, home users and small business who might not have otherwise been able to afford the one-off payment for the off-the-shelf package.
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