University Edition of Office 365 Offered Via Subscription

[CommanderFrank]

College students actually buying Office 365? That’s so last year. The new thing is a subscription license for your four year stint at the university for $79.99, including automatic software updates. Next stop: general public.

Office 365 University will include the new versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access.

 

[/usr/home]

Good on them. That way they can limit the freeloading of students who continue to use academic licensed software outside of school and after they graduate.

 

[ktk]

Gdoc .

 

[Tudz]

I can safely say if I didn't get a licence of Office 2007 that I knew was upgradable to 2010 when it came out for about $80, I just wouldn't have bought it in the first place.

There's very little reason why a University student actually needs MS Office when there are other alternatives. I don't think I bought MS Office until 3rd year, and only because it was a good deal with the free 2010 upgrade and enough licences to get me by (I'm not sure if they reset after a certain time or they jsut gave lots of licences, but I've installed it on 4 or so different computers now).

 

[[Spectre]]

Gdoc .

If you want horrible functionality and formatting that is broken....sure.

 

[Grentz]

After seeing how terrible many peoples Office skills are and how vital they are in most business environments, I am all over them making it easier for students to run the latest and greatest at a decent price.

 

[Tudz]

After seeing how terrible many peoples Office skills are and how vital they are in most business environments, I am all over them making it easier for students to run the latest and greatest at a decent price.

Well this is actually worse than previous options. Previously MS would give student sales where you'd actually get a licence that you could use for as long as you want for the same price as they're now offering for a 4 year licence.

 

[IRSmurf]

Gdoc .

If you want horrible functionality and formatting that is broken....sure.

As a college student, I can confirm that Google Doc's is incompatible with many of my assignments. Last week, gdoc screwed up the formatting on one the formulas on an assignment and caused me hours of grief. The formatting it screwed up prior to this example was tolerable. However, when it failed to correctly format mathematical formulas, I swore it off. This four year license is a very reasonable price. I'll certainly buy it.

 

[Tudz]

As a college student, I can confirm that Google Doc's is incompatible with many of my assignments. Last week, gdoc screwed up the formatting on one the formulas on an assignment and caused me hours of grief. The formatting it screwed up prior to this example was tolerable. However, when it failed to correctly format mathematical formulas, I swore it off. This four year license is a very reasonable price. I'll certainly buy it.

Just learnt latex, that'll solve all your equation problems! (and introduce about 50 others )

I think Universities should be encouraging the use of open source software instead of making students feel like they have to buy MS Office.

 

[Skripka]

Just learnt latex, that'll solve all your equation problems! (and introduce about 50 others )

I think Universities should be encouraging the use of open source software instead of making students feel like they have to buy MS Office.

How though? Office is the professional tool of choice... you expect faculty to waste time familiarizing and trying to ensure compatibility with non professional tools?

 

[heatlesssun]

I think Universities should be encouraging the use of open source software instead of making students feel like they have to buy MS Office.

For what school costs these days students should be encouraged to use whatever will make their college careers successful. $80 over four years to make life easier is a no brainer.

 

[Tudz]

How though? Office is the professional tool of choice... you expect faculty to waste time familiarizing and trying to ensure compatibility with non professional tools?

Yes, I expect faculty to waste time. I'm sick of academics who don't put any effort in to teaching.

But the simple fact is, for 95% of projects, something like OpenOffice is absolutely fine. You just get lecturers who want their assignments in .doc or .docx format so if you used OpenOffice there is a reasonable chance it'll fuck up the formatting when they save it and open it in MS office.

If lecturers were told to not ask for MS formats of files and computers in labs came preinstalled with OpenOffice or an alternative instead of MS Office, that would stop students needing to buy MS Office and it'd be little to no extra effort for faculty.

For what school costs these days students should be encouraged to use whatever will make their college careers successful. $80 over four years to make life easier is a no brainer.

I paid zero dollars up front for college. I wouldn't have been able to afford to go otherwise. After first year where I bought all the "required" textbooks only to discover half of them weren't used, in subsequent years I was very careful about not buying things unless it was explicitely said "you NEED this".

MS Office should be an unnecessary cost since there's plenty of open source alternatives out there. Something like CAD software for an engineer is a little bit less optional because there aren't really any good open source alternatives.

 

[Unknown-One]

Well this is actually worse than previous options. Previously MS would give student sales where you'd actually get a licence that you could use for as long as you want for the same price as they're now offering for a 4 year licence.

How is this worse?

Old option, Spend $119 and get:
- Word + Excel + Powerpoint +OneNote of a specific year.
- A single license, usable on only one PC at a time, requires phone support to re-activate.
- ...and that's it. You can use it forever, but that's all you'll ever have.

New option, Spend $79 and get:
- Word + Excel + PowerPoint + OneNote + Outlook + Publisher + Access
- Free upgrades from Office 2010 to Office 2013 and eventually Office 2016+
- Licenses for 5 PC's that can be easily activated/deactivated from your Microsoft account page.
- 20GB of cloud storage ON TOP OF your current SkyDrive storage limit.
- Credit of 60 Skype minutes added to your account every month.
- Office On-Demand, allowing you to stream-install the full desktop version of Office to any PC that has internet access.

You have to renew every once in a while, but if you were already buying a full copy of Office every few years anyway...this seems like much better bang-for-buck.

 

[heatlesssun]

MS Office should be an unnecessary cost since there's plenty of open source alternatives out there. Something like CAD software for an engineer is a little bit less optional because there aren't really any good open source alternatives.

When you look at all that He Office suite does and the fact that it is so prevalent in the business world and I assume that most college grads will want jobs when they graduate, there really isn't any alternative to Office.

 

[Tudz]

How is this worse?

Old option, Spend $119 and get:
- Word + Excel + Powerpoint +OneNote of a specific year.
- A single license, usable on only one PC at a time, requires phone support to re-activate.
- ...and that's it. You can use it forever, but that's all you'll ever have.

New option, Spend $79 and get:
- Word + Excel + PowerPoint + OneNote + Outlook + Publisher + Access
- Free upgrades from Office 2010 to Office 2013 and eventually Office 2016+
- Licenses for 5 PC's that can be easily activated/deactivated from your Microsoft account page.
- 20GB of cloud storage ON TOP OF your current SkyDrive storage limit.
- Credit of 60 Skype minutes added to your account every month.
- Office On-Demand, allowing you to stream-install the full desktop version of Office to any PC that has internet access.

You have to renew every once in a while, but if you were already buying a full copy of Office every few years anyway...this seems like much better bang-for-buck.

You get it on sales as a student, they do them (or used to do them) once every year or so. I've installed my copy of Office which I bought in 2009 at least 4 times on 3 different computers, 4 if they count a hard drive change as a different computer).

 

[Skripka]

Yes, I expect faculty to waste time. I'm sick of academics who don't put any effort in to teaching.

But the simple fact is, for 95% of projects, something like OpenOffice is absolutely fine. You just get lecturers who want their assignments in .doc or .docx format so if you used OpenOffice there is a reasonable chance it'll fuck up the formatting when they save it and open it in MS office.

If lecturers were told to not ask for MS formats of files and computers in labs came preinstalled with OpenOffice or an alternative instead of MS Office, that would stop students needing to buy MS Office and it'd be little to no extra effort for faculty.
I paid zero dollars up front for college. I wouldn't have been able to afford to go otherwise. After first year where I bought all the "required" textbooks only to discover half of them weren't used, in subsequent years I was very careful about not buying things unless it was explicitely said "you NEED this".

MS Office should be an unnecessary cost since there's plenty of open source alternatives out there. Something like CAD software for an engineer is a little bit less optional because there aren't really any good open source alternatives.

Guess what? You go out into the real professional world-you use MS Office. That is how it is. OpenOffice, has lots of problems, not the least of which being the spell/grammar check is downright primitive-a salient flaw considering how badly most undergraduate students write. Hell, OpenOffice isn't even the same anymore and has been forked as Oracle took over; to support OO or LibreOffice? Given that syllabi and assignments can be very format heavy, Office is the easy winner. Last I checked, the formatting abilities in Writer were almost as lacking as the spell/grammar check.

Most students are warned to blow $600+ on textbooks each semester of undergrad...what is $100 for four years in comparison? It is a professional tool. Hell I don't like spending the money either, but it is the tool of the trade.

You go to photography school or graphics design school, guess what you'll use Photoshop. Not GIMP. Photoshop. Office is to printed documents what Adobe CS is to graphics. Photoshop or Adobe CS cost FAR more than Office.

 

[Tudz]

When you look at all that He Office suite does and the fact that it is so prevalent in the business world and I assume that most college grads will want jobs when they graduate, there really isn't any alternative to Office.

It's all the same shit. Unless you are actually using it for specialised tasks beyond Word to write reports and Excel to write spreadsheets/graphs/whatever like most students would be, the "retraining" time is bugger all, the only thing you have to get used to is the ribbon

I will give you there are specific courses where the use of a specific platform is beneficial, but that's only a small subset of students and courses. It's only very specific courses that should require MS Office over any other office suite.

When it comes to computing, education should be general, not specific, you should be taught to use spreadsheets, with the focus on the technique rather than the program you're using to do it. Programs change, if you were taught on MS Office 2003 and then go to work in MS Office 2007 with ribbon, you'd be no better off than someone taught in Open Office and going to MS Office 2007.

 

[Tudz]

Guess what? You go out into the real professional world-you use MS Office. That is how it is. OpenOffice, has lots of problems, not the least of which being the spell/grammar check is downright primitive-a salient flaw considering how badly most undergraduate students write. Hell, OpenOffice isn't even the same anymore and has been forked as Oracle took over; to support OO or LibreOffice? Given that syllabi and assignments can be very format heavy, Office is the easy winner. Last I checked, the formatting abilities in Writer were almost as lacking as the spell/grammar check.

Most students are warned to blow $600+ on textbooks each semester of undergrad...what is $100 for four years in comparison? It is a professional tool. Hell I don't like spending the money either, but it is the tool of the trade.

You go to photography school or graphics design school, guess what you'll use Photoshop. Not GIMP. Photoshop. Office is to printed documents what Adobe CS is to graphics. Photoshop or Adobe CS cost FAR more than Office.

Well like I said in the above post, it's all the same shit. If you learnt Open Office and struggle to learn MS office, I feel very sorry for you. I went Office 2003 -> Open Office -> Office 2007 without breaking stride, the only real problem was I thought ribbon was a piece of shit, but it's not like it took significant time or effort to learn how to use it.

As I said above, I'm sure there's some specific courses that need specific functionality of MS Office over other office suites. I don't know much about photoshop, but my guess would be that's why it's used instead of GIMP, it has core functionality which would limit actual education, because you can't teach X technique if the program is incapable of performing it.

But for most students, the core functionality of MS Office and Open Office are the same.

 

[[Spectre]]

Just learnt latex, that'll solve all your equation problems! (and introduce about 50 others )

I think Universities should be encouraging the use of open source software instead of making students feel like they have to buy MS Office.

That would be great, if the open source software didn't suck ass. There is a reason why MS still dominates when they charge money for a product others give away. And not it's not because they are MS, it's because when you really need something to work right you DON'T use Google (Beta) or other open source office applications. Once that issue is worked out, then sure. Otherwise, having students be beta testers for Google et al only hinders their transition to the "real" world.

 

[BladeVenom]

Good on them. That way they can limit the freeloading of students who continue to use academic licensed software outside of school and after they graduate.

How dare they use software they purchased. That's almost as bad as students who used their textbooks after college.

 

[/usr/home]

How dare they use software they purchased. That's almost as bad as students who used their textbooks after college.

If you read the Eula it was meant to be used for academic purposes only. Same as people using their old edu address to get cheap software when they are out of college.

 

[Vashypooh]

I got office 2010 from my college for 40 bucks DVD included. Included everything.

This is indeed a bad deal.

 

[Nicterys]

If you read the Eula it was meant to be used for academic purposes only. Same as people using their old edu address to get cheap software when they are out of college.

Then blame the universities for letting us keep our .edu addresses or Microsoft(along with other companies) for being retarded enough to want just a .edu e-mail address for student verification. People will take advantage of a discount every chance they get.

Also...thanks good laugh on thinking university students, much less the general public, actually read software EULAs.

 

[acidic]

why aren't you using latex for math ?! Seriously learn it if you ever want to write a thesis or a dissertation

 

[Makaijin]

I'm not sure about other universities out there, but my uni actually integrates Microsoft Live services into their systems, giving us access to Office 365, Skydrive to store our assignments and such, even have Outlook for our email, the full works. Can even login and use 365 at home. Guess what, it's all free and I don't have to pay a single penny to Microsoft ourselves.

 

[SkribbelKat]

If you want horrible functionality and formatting that is broken....sure.

Google docs probably also monitors every keystroke for advertising potential.

I had to use it and I do not like.

 

[/usr/home]

Then blame the universities for letting us keep our .edu addresses or Microsoft(along with other companies) for being retarded enough to want just a .edu e-mail address for student verification. People will take advantage of a discount every chance they get.

Also...thanks good laugh on thinking university students, much less the general public, actually read software EULAs.

Just because you blindly accept something doesn't make it legal to misuse it...

 

[babixg]

the university edition seems like it's only available for install on 2 computers instead of 5 in the home edition.

 

[rudy]

Just learnt latex, that'll solve all your equation problems! (and introduce about 50 others )

I think Universities should be encouraging the use of open source software instead of making students feel like they have to buy MS Office.

Universities should prepare people for the real world not some mythical fantasy land. I used OOo extensively to try to save money on office then a friend of mine tried to stick with google docs. All of us admit it was no where near as good, and it was never much fun but we just did it to save money. But when you consider that each semester a single one of 3-5 books cost as much as office it really is nothing to buy it.

 

[rudy]

Also MS does not care if people use their old .edu addresses to game the system, they know that if you dont do that many of those people will probably use OOo or Gdocs or whatever that horrible junk apple has is called. For MS they would rather you pay half price. The reality is MS has always tried to create an artificial price barrier to separate their business clients from the home users because they know the home users cannot afford the higher price or much bigger contracts.

 

[FYMbyIce]

Guess what? You go out into the real professional world-you use MS Office. That is how it is. OpenOffice, has lots of problems, not the least of which being the spell/grammar check is downright primitive-a salient flaw considering how badly most undergraduate students write.

So the main competitive advantage is that it helps upgrade 3rd grade writing level to 7th grade? If the average college graduate needs office to fix their grammar then we have problems.

 

[rudy]

So the main competitive advantage is that it helps upgrade 3rd grade writing level to 7th grade? If the average college graduate needs office to fix their grammar then we have problems.

Doesn't matter its an efficiency gain, people do not need to waste as much time learning proper spelling of thousands of words, it is one extra thing to help make, really you can complain about whatever, its like in science you have old timers who complain about how younger people will just google things instead of going to the library, but at the end the younger guys just start out running the older guys because they get so much more work done in less time using the tools available.

 

[Chilly]

If you read the Eula it was meant to be used for academic purposes only. Same as people using their old edu address to get cheap software when they are out of college.

You reading the same Eula's I am?

Most academically licensed software (at least from microsoft anyways) enables students to keep using said software without limits after they graduate with few exceptions(can't be used in commerical enviroment for example).

 

[c3141hf]

For what school costs these days students should be encouraged to use whatever will make their college careers successful. $80 over four years to make life easier is a no brainer.

That would be LaTeX then, not Word. LaTeX is used in academia because it is a far more powerful tool with far more control over your layout. I, for one, do not like a software program that assumes that it knows what I want and forces me to fight it or to spend time unchecking dozens of settings that it assumed I wanted on by default.

 

[Jagger100]

When you look at all that He Office suite does and the fact that it is so prevalent in the business world and I assume that most college grads will want jobs when they graduate, there really isn't any alternative to Office.

When Microsoft introduces a change like Ribbons on current users, your sales pitch talking point is meaningless.

 

[Mr. K6]

I wonder how this is going to work out for Microsoft as a business strategy. My Office 2010 is free to use for the rest of my life. Looks like in addition to not getting Windows 8, I'm also not getting Office 2013.

 

[Skripka]

That would be LaTeX then, not Word. LaTeX is used in academia because it is a far more powerful tool with far more control over your layout. I, for one, do not like a software program that assumes that it knows what I want and forces me to fight it or to spend time unchecking dozens of settings that it assumed I wanted on by default.

Most people don't know what they want, and most people are in a hurry and don't mess with the defaults. Was one of the maddening things about OpenOffice, the formatting defaults are damn screwy even compared to Office.

I wonder how this is going to work out for Microsoft as a business strategy. My Office 2010 is free to use for the rest of my life. Looks like in addition to not getting Windows 8, I'm also not getting Office 2013.

They'll change the EULA and the next Office "update" will change you from Office 2010 to Office 365 for educational licensees, which is well within their rights to do. They did the same thing with institutional Office 2010 to Office Professional Plus 2010. Guess what, you'll get it whether you like it or not and if your usage is outside of the new EULA you're bricked, unless you use torrented software activation bypassers.

I had an old ed license Word copy that got bricked by that. Pissed me off, for sure. But oh well.

 

[heatlesssun]

When Microsoft introduces a change like Ribbons on current users, your sales pitch talking point is meaningless.

Sales pitch? I'm simply pointing out that in the business world Office is all over the place.

 

[SkribbelKat]

Sales pitch? I'm simply pointing out that in the business world Office is all over the place.

To be fair, most of your posts can seem like promotional efforts. The word choice and presentation makes a lot of us interpert them as marketing language. I'm sure you've heard that before and have been dismissive of it since our opinions are not as informed or as valuable as yours given that your personal experience is more vast than any other person on this particular forum.

 

[heatlesssun]

To be fair, most of your posts can seem like promotional efforts. The word choice and presentation makes a lot of us interpert them as marketing language. I'm sure you've heard that before and have been dismissive of it since our opinions are not as informed or as valuable as yours given that your personal experience is more vast than any other person on this particular forum.

Too be fair, that's just you and others making up whatever you want to rather than actually reading the text comprehending what I and others say. I've been working in the business IT world for 20 years now, mostly in the financial industry. Word, Office, Outlook and PowerPoint are simply the defacto standards in the business world. And it wasn't due to any supposed sales pitch of mine. Some of you guys have a difficult time with reality.