Microsoft says college students can 'steal' Office

Taken from Cnet via Neowin

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 "Ultimate Steal," in which college students can get the ultra high-end Ultimate edition of Office for just $60.

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."

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

Seems Alan bhai think Openoffice is a threat finally !

As always $60, not a big deal for people in USA / Canada

For us, Rs.25 option is good

OpenOffice in CD lol

OpenOffice is good if u r a single user with no collaboration needed a.k.a student . It will do mos of the things assuming saving time is not important

Very true Din.
I am still waiting for Rs2.5k vista for Indian students.

why are indians left out??!! why does every company do this in countries where piracy is not an issue???? why NOT india??!!

why doesnt MS start this campaign in india? why doesn't dell/lenovo offer linux wid laptops? why the bloody hell is this discrimination against india??!!

gx_saurav said:
OpenOffice is good if u r a single user with no collaboration needed a.k.a student . It will do mos of the things assuming saving time is not important

I am not sure what "complicated" things a college student do with MS Office that can't be done with the latest ver of OpenOffice.

Just another way of making people addict to MS products !! I think Kerala state in India is much better

MS tried their level best to do all these kinda tricks but every school is moving towards Lin n OpenOffice kinda softwares and that also completely !

infra_red_dude said:
why are indians left out??!! why does every company do this in countries where piracy is not an issue???? why NOT india??!!

why doesnt MS start this campaign in india? why doesn't dell/lenovo offer linux wid laptops? why the bloody hell is this discrimination against india??!!

I think the consumers are a problem too ! Well, I remember I had 3 options while buying my Thinkpad. The sales man told me.

1. Lin
2. Original Win
3. Pirated Win

But things are changing and people are more aware of Lin and related stuff now.

Anyway I think Thinkpad / Lenevo still offer Lin laptops. Not 100% sure though.

offtopic: din, i hafnt seen any lenovo laptop wid linux. if u haf any model info then plz do pass it on. coz my fren needs a new laptop and will be working on linux only. rite now, since only acer comes wid linux (or freedos) he's thinking of buying that.

Sure, I will check and tell you. But I am sure the offer was there when I bought it, but that was 2-3 yr back I think (just before it became Lenovo)

Meantime, why Acer ? If he has enuogh money, ask him to go for Dell / Lenovo. Many of my friends usin Acer gave negative feedback on it. Or hes looking for any high-end Acer model ?

60$ ~ 2500 odd rs.still too costly for Indians to make them switch over from pirated software to this...

infra_red_dude said:
why are indians left out??!! why does every company do this in countries where piracy is not an issue???? why NOT india??!!

why doesnt MS start this campaign in india? why doesn't dell/lenovo offer linux wid laptops? why the bloody hell is this discrimination against india??!!

Simple, too much democracy. If they collaborate with say BJP's Education ministry for this, then Left will say "BJP is selling India "

MS does comes forward for these kind of initiatives, but they face lots of resistance from either social bodies or OSS. Remember that seminar in China where some OSS guy entered in the ceremony of MS.

shady_inc said:
60$ ~ 2500 odd rs.still too costly for Indians to make them switch over from pirated software to this...

Its still better then Rs 4,000 for Student & teacher edition. U get full office professional plus for $60 "only". If you can pay, do so. Its not like u will stop using Office 2007 in the year 2009

People will never learn no matter how much they suffer. I have genuine Windows XP Home but use Open Office as I cannot afford Microsoft's so called "Teacher and student Edition" of Office @ Rs. 7500. At the college I work there are a number of versions of office available ;-)

on different PCs. Many a time what usually happens is a presentation made in one pc acts awry when run on our conference hall pc (so much for backward compatibility!). I as a teacher use only Open Office on my pen drive (*www.portableapps.com). I really hope and pray Microsoft cracks down hard on all institutions so that they either shape up or go open source.

@infra freedos is also offered wit the vostro lappys and hcl ones.. Not only acer

N

shady_inc said:
60$ ~ 2500 odd rs.still too costly for Indians to make them switch over from pirated software to this...

think about money spent in development and the usefulness of this.it cant be made to sell at 100 rupees..!

but any chance of its availability in india??

nish_higher said:
think about money spent in development and the usefulness of this.it cant be made to sell at 100 rupees..!

Agreed, but

Just coz MS spent a lot of money all Indians should buy MS Office ? There are no alternatives ? ?

For school and college, OpenOffice is quite sufficient. As NucleusKore mentioned, we can use portable apps (I use a lot of portable apps at office / home) for presentation etc.

And the reason MS bringing these starter / student / teacher / stripped (reminds me of mediator's avtar lol) version is to make people lure and addict to MS product and nothing else. Thats is not because they love students so much

Pure business and this is NOT social commitment

another reason is that piracy rates are too high in india and most people pirated copies so why wud anyone bother to buy ms office even if it was for 200rs?

a lot of ppl wud buy it if it were even for as low as 1k ... the pride and privilege that comes along with a legit copy

N

i think open office is great stuff for clgs and schools.i dont have office and i have used open office for all my documents.i think schools clgs shud settle with it.and the hardcore users i mean corporates and other who earn 4m it-they always have that money to buy it.i certainly want this offer in india too.any chance?

openoffice.org is much bigger than what it was earlier.lot of options.even lot of plugins too.ps -uses debian sid.it throws out around 500 pkgs related to OOo

iMav said:
a lot of ppl wud buy it if it were even for as low as 1k ... the pride and privilege that comes along with a legit copy

i really doubt it

previously microsoft used to give, Windows Xp and Office free for college students.

but definitely not in India, but in US and other Developed Countries.

arey, u ppl don't get it. as imav said, there sure is some pride attached wid legit copies. even 2k is fine for Office. they should not "strip" the product. but they shud attach the "student edition" label to the product. tho the product won't lack any feature it'll be labelled so. let it be embedded in some system dll (like windows xp home/pro/vista labels etc., not registry) so that students can buy this low price but same feature version. in case corporates buy it, they'll get caught in the raid which anyways they wud've if they'd been using a pirated version. is it not so simple? or is it that MS doesn't wanna reduce piracy?

@pathik
what about the inspiron series? no other alternative therE!!! we don't wanna be crippled... why are we left behind, when piracy is so rampant here and thats what needs to be addressed. thats all i'm asking.

abey...kab aayega M$ Office open source edition?koi so raha ke?Linux is eating ur market M$ the marketing genius co..interoperatiblty means office2999 for Linux&BSDs too na?koi shak?after novell -M$ co is assisting? :blurp:

@infra_red_dude, don't get confused reading what Praka wrote

Hes out of control after 'honeybee' !!! LOL

infra_red_dude said:
offtopic: din, i hafnt seen any lenovo laptop wid linux. if u haf any model info then plz do pass it on. coz my fren needs a new laptop and will be working on linux only. rite now, since only acer comes wid linux (or freedos) he's thinking of buying that.

infra don't mind but we have a system of of PM's

please use that from next time

@gary4gar
yes sir. point noted

@din
this honeybee is hovering above prakash all the while. whats this all about???

btw, do MS haf something like this for windows too?

Openoffice is surely gaining ground...
Btw i wd pay max 3k for a os and 1k for a office suite.. Tho openoffice is enuf for my needs as of now..
@din ye honeybee ka kya jhol hai??
Btw guys isnt praka using too much hindi in his posts these days??

Offer is only for MS office. More at - *www.theultimatesteal.com - nice site though !!

Praka and Honeybee !!

praka123 said:
(btwn Honeybee started working very well for me.it rocks!inspirational!)

Thats form Arya thread

Seems Praka is havin enough honeybee these days and thats the reason for all these hindi

I can talk in English walk in English &&&& coz English is a bfunny language :haoooo:

din said:
@infra_red_dude, don't get confused reading what Praka wrote

Hes out of control after 'honeybee' !!! LOL

i c u in each thread getting naughtier and naughtier dr.

LOL, nothing like that

Honeybee - liquor.

Prakash had enough rt now and he do not know what to do, so hes talking a lot in forum LOL

Yep infra that s unfair to us indians..
Btw they reduce the cost of the lappy by only abt 3k if we dont want any os..

yes that coz they buy in bulk. but even 3k is 3k! i can almost get an additional GB of RAM wid that!!!

delivi said:
previously microsoft used to give, Windows Xp and Office free for college students.

but definitely not in India, but in US and other Developed Countries.

wrong dude. MS has MSDNAA alliances in india too. my college is a part of it. we get free copies of Vista, XP, Visual Studio 2005 etc...

@blackleopard92

Free copies to students ? wow, never knew that. Which college it is ? Thought they give it only to MVPs.

Really cool......... But already i've Office 2007 Pro Installed

+1 for OpenOffice.org

blackleopard92 said:
wrong dude. MS has MSDNAA alliances in india too. my college is a part of it. we get free copies of Vista, XP, Visual Studio 2005 etc...

Absolutely free?

The_Devil_Himself said:
Absolutely free?

its 100% free to students. I don't know if college pays for it or not.

I have legal Vista Business edition, and XP pro running on my system, all thanks to this initative with Microsoft.

din said:
Free copies to students ? wow, never knew that. Which college it is ? Thought they give it only to MVPs.

Netaji Subhas institute of technology

www.nsitonline.in