Microsoft says college students can 'steal' Office
For college students who want Office 2007, but don't want to pay Microsoft a fortune, the software maker is offering another option: Steal it.
Well, actually Microsoft isn't encouraging piracy. Rather it is launching a promotion, dubbed
The promotion runs through April 30 and starts Wednesday in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. It launches next week in France, Italy and Spain. To be eligible, Microsoft said students have to be "actively enrolled" in a higher education program and have an e-mail address from that school.
"We're listening to students who have told us they need Microsoft Office for their studies and want more flexible ways to get the latest version," Alan Yates, general manager of Worldwide Education at Microsoft, said in a statement. "The Ultimate Steal is the latest in a long history of providing compelling academic offers for students."
Microsoft tried the promotion earlier this year as a pilot program in Australia, before deciding to offer it in the U.S.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Microsoft's proprietary formats.
Even Apple's Pages can read and write to those formats.
And, yes, we have been thinking about dumping Office 2003 to go with OpenOffice. MS should be more forward thinking and target highschoolers as well before they get used to OpenOffice. By college, it will be too late...
Sean Gum
SeanGum.com
monopoly they enjoy now? If we're supposed to be allowing kids to
evaluate and make their own choices, let's not saddle them with the
crap that we are forced to endure by lazy IT departments and brain
dead CFOs/CIOs.
This is the second benevolent thing that Microsoft has done today (the first being the announcement of opening up Vista's search). C'mon people just let it go...
I think OFFICE 2000 is the last M$ OFFICE I'll ever 'use'.
OpenOffice.org ROCKS
also a portable application {no installation required}
http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_portable
Besides, until recently there was no such thing as a document macro virus, only a Microsoft document macro virus. MS Office has been hacked dozens of times with viruses as the result. Add up the security concerns of every other office product on the planet over the last 50 years, and you won't even need your toes to count that high. In summary, the single most effective thing you can do to protect your Windows PC is to use as few Microsoft technologies as possible. When cost of ownership is added in, if MS gave you $60 to use Office it is still more exspensive than Open Office.
you probably can't think for your self ( it's called freedom of choice ) jacked so go cash your welfare check and food stamps. try to have a good day ;>]
account.
I'm thinking there's both, and MSFT is desperately doing everything it can to stop what's coming (as evidenced by this little fire sale of theirs, attempts at corrupting the ISO on OOXML's behalf, etc).
I'm guessing that fear is going to become a larger and larger factor in Redmond as time passes, and their marketshare begins to drop...
/P
IBM just joined the project promising all kinds of support including 35 full time programmers.
If MS can't keep the Office bucks coming in they may find it hard to keep pouring money into their "blackhole" projects like XBOX, mobile phones, search, etc. that are constantly losing money.
KieranMullen
http://360oregon.com
MS must be getting desperate.
http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/07/freetards-in-deep-denial.html
This article is about Linux vs Windows, but very well applies to MS Office vs OpenOffice too
Enjoy!
Look at who it's registered to.
Seriously, do what your advertisers and readers expect: investigate, don't just report. sheesh.
No way that students have said this. In reality they are pirating the software or using Open Office or Google Docs and this is simply Microsoft's response to that.
What crap. As if students ring them up and say "I need Microsoft Office for my studies and want it in more flexible ways".
HA HA HA. Microsoft thinks everybody is stupid. I guess they believe that because lots of people use their software.
I went to theultimatesteal.com on Sep.12 and checked the site during the day until the countdown was 0 but there was nothing new to show. Today Sep. 13 I went to check it again and it says You can grab the steal in: 4hrs 3min... very funny microsoft....
How can we take
bought hotcakes? Actaully, maybe that's a good analogy to use
after all. lol.
this is taken from the microsoft discount site:
http://www.microsoft.com/Education/Eligible.mspx
however i dont know for certain if the discount is for all of these or just college students, i will grab the flier up when i go back to work tomorrow
"Qualified Educational Users:
A) Educational Institutions
Defined as an accredited institution organized and operated exclusively for the purpose of teaching its enrolled students (?Educational Institutions?). An accredited institution must be:
1.
A public or private K-12, vocational school, correspondence school, junior college, college, university, or scientific or technical school that is either institutionally accredited by an accrediting agency nationally recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education or, in the case of public K-12 institutions only, recognized or approved by the Department of Education of the State in which it is located.
OR
2.
A preschool meeting all of the following criteria: (i) is an early childhood program incorporated for the purpose of providing educational services to children between two and five years of age, and which serves minimum of ten such children; and (ii) has been in operation for at least one year.
Eligible programs:
? Academic Edition full packaged products
? Academic Open
? Academic Select
? Campus Agreement (Higher Ed only)
? School Agreement (K-12 Ed or Preschool only)
B) Administrative Offices or Boards of Education
Defined as (a) district, regional and state administrative offices of public Educational Institutions (b) administrative entities organized and operated exclusively for the administration of private Educational Institutions, or (c) other state or local government entities nearly all of whose activities consist of administrative support, of a nature that advances academic learning, for public Educational Institutions.
Eligible Programs:
? Academic Edition full packaged products
? Academic Open
? Academic Select
? Campus Agreement (Higher Ed only)
? School Agreement (K-12 Ed or Preschool only)
C) Full and Part Time Faculty and Staff
Defined as all full and part time faculty and staff of Educational Institutions.
Eligible Programs:
? Academic Edition full packaged products
D) Full and Part Time Enrolled Students
Defined as full and part time enrolled students of Educational Institutions.
Eligible Programs:
? Academic Edition full packaged products
? Academic Student Select
E) Public Libraries
Must meet all of the following criteria: (i) primarily provide general library services without charge to all residents of a given community, district or region; (ii) supported by public or private funds; (iii) make its basic collections and basic services available to the population of its legal service area without charges to individual users, but may impose charges on users outside its legal service area; and (iv) may or may not provide products and services, beyond its basic services, to the public at large with or without individual charges.
Eligible Programs:
? Academic Edition full packaged product
? Academic Open
? Academic Select
? School Agreement
F) Public Museums
Must meet all the following criteria: (i) are a public or private agency or institution organized on a permanent basis for essentially education or aesthetic purposes; (ii) utilize a professional staff; and (iii) own or utilize tangible objects, care for them and exhibit them to the public on a regular basis.
? Academic Edition full packaged product
? Academic Open
? Academic Select
? School Agreement
G) Home-School Program
Defined as a home-schooling program which provides K-12 education to a student or students and which is able to provide written proof that it either (i) belongs to a nationally-recognized home-schooling organization, or (ii) is expressly recognized by a local school district as an acceptable alternative to an accredited or state-recognized/approved educational institution.
Eligible Programs:
? Academic Edition full packaged products
Special note regarding Hospitals, Healthcare Systems and Research Laboratories:
Hospitals, Healthcare Systems and Research Laboratories (including independent Research Laboratories or Research Laboratories affiliated with the Department of Defense or the Department of Energy) are NOT eligible to acquire Academic Edition (AE) products unless they are wholly owned and operated by a qualified Educational Institution as defined above in Section A. "Wholly owned and operated" means that the Educational Institution is the sole owner of said hospital, healthcare system or research laboratory and the only entity exercising control over said institution?s day-to-day operations. Additional information on determining if an entity is wholly owned and operated by an Educational Institution can be found by referring to the: Hospital definition (28 KB Microsoft Word document).
Examples of entities not eligible for academic pricing:
? Non-accredited schools
? Training centers
? Non-United States residents or educational facilities
? Churches
? Hospitals, Healthcare Systems, and Research Laboratories that do not meet the qualifications above
? Non-profit/charitable organizations that do not meet the qualifications above
Note
These organizations may qualify for the
"
I'm uncertain how I go about purchasing this at the $60 price. Or where I go to purchase it.
- Use OpenOffice.org
- by xconsole September 16, 2007 4:59 AM PDT
- if you are going to use (and get hooked on) an office suite start using something you and the ppl you work with, teach, help ...., will be able to use in the future with out paying a fortune (think of the freedom also if you want, which is the most important to some of us :))
- Reply to this comment
-
(34 Comments)use : http://www.openoffice.org/
* at least give it a try *
ps: doesn't this m$ tactic have something with selling drugs, give it for free 1st and get them hooked.....