Microsoft Changes Verification on College Office Products

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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For all of you ‘non-student’ students who have been hanging on to educational-use-only versions of Office products, it’s looking like the cheap ride is just about over. Microsoft has replaced the old standard software with Microsoft Office University 2010 which has a much tougher verification procedures. End of another era….it took you long enough, Microsoft. :D

Office University 2010 does not come with a product key. Your eligibility will be verified online before completing purchase. This product will not work without successful verification as you will not have a product key.
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Finally, although I guess people with a permanent .edu address would be able to still use it even though they aren't a student anymore.
 
well at least they purchased education only versions, now many of them will jump to straight warez versions instead and call it a day.
 
I don't think this is as much about keeping your copy after you leave as it is to cut down on the business of people (mostly faculty) running online stores and ebay auctions where they sell 'cheap' copies of Office (normally hiding its academic nature) using a number of excuses for the low price. Then they just buy the copies from the campus store to meet orders. Adobe had the same problem. It's not just that Microsoft and Adobe lose money directly from the sale, they also lose customer loyalty whenever someone who thought they had bought a full version comes looking for support.
 
So how did it work before? They simply had an academic version you could buy and install? Don't have an experience with office products, all I know is in order to "verify" me for a $30 copy of Win7 I simply gave them an .edu address.
 
sfsuphysics said:
So how did it work before? They simply had an academic version you could buy and install? Don't have an experience with office products, all I know is in order to "verify" me for a $30 copy of Win7 I simply gave them an .edu address.
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When buying the boxed versions all you had to do was show a valid student id. With MS products stores weren't forced to keep track of student puchases.
 
Meh, I switched to libre office a while ago anyway. The zotero support for Office X-whenever-we-feel-like-charging-for-a-new-version is for shit anyway mainly due to Office changing the way it handles VBA and plugins.
 
Seems like this isn't going to do anything but decrease their market share. People who are cheap enough to abuse the edu software system aren't going to pony up $100 or whatever the full version costs... theyll just pirate it or switch to a free version.

Besides, isnt the money in selling licenses to businesses, not to individuals?
 
All the educational agreements that I've read from my own purchases clearly state that if you graduate (not kicked out or anything) you are allowed to keep and use the software for non-commercial purposes. It isn't transferable but it is yours to use until the day you croak. I view it as a nice pat-on-the-back from MS for finishing your degree.

Nice way to avoid abuse of the .edu programs but at the same time it hurts legit students from the looks of it.
 
night_2004 said:
Nice way to avoid abuse of the .edu programs but at the same time it hurts legit students from the looks of it.
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Doubtful. It'll probably just require your student ID, verify that with your school, and then you can buy the keyless product. That'll make it so you can only buy one (or however many they allow) while an active student but there's nothing saying your ability to use it will end after your status as a student has ended.
 
David_CAN said:
I don't think this is as much about keeping your copy after you leave as it is to cut down on the business of people (mostly faculty) running online stores and ebay auctions where they sell 'cheap' copies of Office (normally hiding its academic nature) using a number of excuses for the low price. Then they just buy the copies from the campus store to meet orders. Adobe had the same problem. It's not just that Microsoft and Adobe lose money directly from the sale, they also lose customer loyalty whenever someone who thought they had bought a full version comes looking for support.
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I think they tightened that up a few years ago since the academic store on my campus limited it to one license per email address for faculty/staff/students.
 
night_2004 said:
All the educational agreements that I've read from my own purchases clearly state that if you graduate (not kicked out or anything) you are allowed to keep and use the software for non-commercial purposes. It isn't transferable but it is yours to use until the day you croak. I view it as a nice pat-on-the-back from MS for finishing your degree.

Nice way to avoid abuse of the .edu programs but at the same time it hurts legit students from the looks of it.
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I lost my .EDU when I finished college. I would feel pretty ripped if I had software tied to that .EDU address.
 
ocellaris said:
I lost my .EDU when I finished college. I would feel pretty ripped if I had software tied to that .EDU address.
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The adress is only used for verification you get the PK once you've verified. Keep in mind that the license is perpetual so as said previously it's yours till you croak,.
 
Keiichi said:
The adress is only used for verification you get the PK once you've verified. Keep in mind that the license is perpetual so as said previously it's yours till you croak,.
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no guarantee. MS been selling plenty of office software with limited use keys (product key card) which can't be reused for something like moving the office to another computer. Might be the case here as well.
 
Keiichi said:
The adress is only used for verification you get the PK once you've verified. Keep in mind that the license is perpetual so as said previously it's yours till you croak,.
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I've had to call the MS Activation line numerous times for software I purchased, I don't have 100% confidence in that email not being needed again in the future.
 
TehQuick said:
no guarantee. MS been selling plenty of office software with limited use keys (product key card) which can't be reused for something like moving the office to another computer. Might be the case here as well.
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Those are OEM versions that live and die with the computer it's installed on, nice try though.
 
Is this already in effect? Can you still buy the old SKU, hopefully with discount? ($60?)
 
venm11 said:
Is this already in effect? Can you still buy the old SKU, hopefully with discount? ($60?)
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TLDR
On February 1, Microsoft quietly replaced the Office Professional Academic 2010 SKU with a new one called “Microsoft Office University 2010.” The new SKU is for “higher-education” students and faculty only. “Microsoft Office Home and Student 2010 is the recommended product for parents and families with K-12 students,” according to a Microsoft frequently asked questions (FAQ) document. (There’s a new comparable Office for Mac 2011 University SKU, too.)
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Sounds smart. <-- Sarcasm of course. There is a reason people try and save money this way. They cannot afford the traditional cost of this product. Take that away, you force people into a corner and in some cases, not all, piracy.
 
Hopefully this doesnt affect my Office 2010 I bought in the fall through my schools techstore. Can't beat $70 for the entire office 2010 suite.
 
rthefley said:
Sounds smart. <-- Sarcasm of course. There is a reason people try and save money this way. They cannot afford the traditional cost of this product. Take that away, you force people into a corner and in some cases, not all, piracy.
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They're cheap shmucks that don't want to pay for tools?

There's always the Home and student versions, which is uber cheap. If you have a need for something like Access/Publisher then you're not really a home/student user and you should pay up.
 
MajorDomo said:
For all of you ‘non-student’ students who have been hanging on to educational-use-only versions of Office products, it’s looking like the cheap ride is just about over. Microsoft has replaced the old standard software with Microsoft Office University 2010 which has a much tougher verification procedures. End of another era….it took you long enough, Microsoft. :D
Click to expand...

Eh. Won't bother students so much. Microsoft's pretty much a non-factor in word processing now. While Office 2007 wasn't exactly a sales failure, it's total market penetration didn't exactly surpass / overtake the market penetration of Office 2003.

There have been several reasons for the inability of Microsoft to turn their Office Suite into a profitable powerhouse. The first is the obvious catastrophic mishandling of Open Office by Oracle. The resulting Libre Office fork has attracted numerous more developers and in it's latest versions have eliminated the feature advantage Microsoft Office used to have.

Another major factor has been the rise of online office suits such as Google Docs. While most online solutions tend to lack features and capabilities, the difference in features is not really noticeable for most document creation.

The move to pull cheap student licenses appears to be a knee-jerk reaction from Microsoft to keep Microsoft Office as a profitable gravy train. Considering that Microsoft Office has been only one of two profitable product lines from Microsoft (the other being the Microsoft Windows product line), it is easy to understand why Microsoft would want to try and leverage the office suite to gain as much money as possible. What I don't think Microsoft understands is that the large market penetration of the cheaper student licenses was because a large number of consumers legitimately can not afford to pay the prices Microsoft is asking for their software.

Making the student licenses tougher to obtain will likely backfire on Microsoft and drive consumers that were willing to pay for Microsoft Office to other solutions such as Libre-Office. Granted we will likely see Microsoft take the position that the loss of Microsoft Office sales is due to "Piracy" and not because consumers are just using a competitors better product.
 
Saist said:
The move to pull cheap student licenses appears to be a knee-jerk reaction from Microsoft to keep Microsoft Office as a profitable gravy train. Considering that Microsoft Office has been only one of two profitable product lines from Microsoft (the other being the Microsoft Windows product line), it is easy to understand why Microsoft would want to try and leverage the office suite to gain as much money as possible. What I don't think Microsoft understands is that the large market penetration of the cheaper student licenses was because a large number of consumers legitimately can not afford to pay the prices Microsoft is asking for their software.
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Profitability was never the M.O. for the Academic SKUs. It was just a way for students to be able to get software that they needed. Office was never meant for use outside of businesses anyway. The only reason why there is a "Home and Student" sku was because MS decided to cut the Microsoft Home suite.

The Office Suite is a very powerful tool, thus priced accordingly. The most complex thing that a home user would use it for is to format a document to MLA spec or a mailmerge.
 
Keiichi said:
The Office Suite is a very powerful tool, thus priced accordingly. The most complex thing that a home user would use it for is to format a document to MLA spec or a mailmerge.
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Office is a bit like the Call of Duty series. It makes tons of money and each individual version is good, but there's hardly anything new/different between versions, and not much reason to spend hundreds of dollars updating.

Office 2000/XP would be sufficient for most users probably. Word processing and spreadsheets haven't really changed in the last 10 years.
 
Can't really say it makes too much difference. Honestly the price difference for anyone buying the educational version vs the regular outside a campus store is minimal. Couple that with no outlook and it basically eliminates the value. Just buy it off some place like buycheapsoftware and get the full version for very little more.
 
travbrad said:
Office is a bit like the Call of Duty series. It makes tons of money and each individual version is good, but there's hardly anything new/different between versions, and not much reason to spend hundreds of dollars updating.

Office 2000/XP would be sufficient for most users probably. Word processing and spreadsheets haven't really changed in the last 10 years.
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Not really. At my institution, most profs put out .docx files and/or PDFs. The docx standard really put a dent in trying to avoid upgrading to the "Ribbon" style interface.

Have they fixed Oo_Org or Libre Office's handling of docx and file format conversion? Last I use Oo_Org it still choked when jumping formats resulting in text formatting breaks...Oo_Org's spell/grammar check was also rather primitive compared to Office.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Can't really say it makes too much difference. Honestly the price difference for anyone buying the educational version vs the regular outside a campus store is minimal. Couple that with no outlook and it basically eliminates the value. Just buy it off some place like buycheapsoftware and get the full version for very little more.
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Ummmm...depends on campus I guess.

My institution's Office 2010 academic license for faculty/staff is $19USD...Versus the $80-$90 for the University edition online.
 
Office 2010 is $10 for a two-PC license through work. No worries!
 
I hear so many folks say "Oh I really need Outlook!"

Really? Why?
 
I just bought Office 2010 for $10 through my work and Microsofts "Home Use Program".

Unfortunately I could only get one copy, or I would have got another one for my wifes mac...
 
So what happens when

1) You buy an academic version as a student
2) You graduate and loose your student status
3) You have to reinstall office, or worse the OS

You're screwed on something you paid for.

Nyoce.
 
My Office XP install is broken as well. It refuses to connect to the verification servers AND it list no phone number for call in.

Don't tell me that wasn't intentional.
 
DigitalGriffin said:
So what happens when

1) You buy an academic version as a student
2) You graduate and loose your student status
3) You have to reinstall office, or worse the OS

You're screwed on something you paid for.

Nyoce.
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Well, you're no longer a student, so technically your license should be null and void anyway, and you need to graduate to buying a big boy license. :p
 
Paid $35 for my academic edition of Office 2010 (plus a $30/year fee as long as I'm a student)...comes with Access/Word/Excel/Outlook/InfoPath/OneLook/Sharepoin/Publisher, but not Visio (used Publisher for one class but needed to use Visio in a few classes so I had to use the school computers...which suck ass). The bundle comes on 3 discs with product key and a note from my school that basically says not to bother with one of the discs unless your class(es) need the stuff on that disc.
 
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