If you did not catch the last sale, here’s your chance. Microsoft recently released this press release with the details.
Here’s the run down: anyone with a .edu email address is able to get 90% off Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate addition. That’s $60 for Microsoft’s flagship Office product. This is truly a great deal. Ultimate Edition includes everything; you even get Outlook’s business contact manager (complete with SQL server).
If you don’t have a .edu email address, ask for one. Most college’s offer .edu addresses to alumni. And just to be clear, even though the press release implies that this offer is only for students, Microsoft has agreed that anyone with a .edu address can qualify.
Go to http://www.TheUltimateSteal.com to make your purchase. Check out this post for more information, which includes notices about similar sales occurring early September. A list of what you get is available from Microsoft here, or you can check out the (Full Price) produce page from Tiger Direct here.
Finally, without wanting to take away from the importance of this sale, I would feel a little remiss if I did not mention that OpenOffice.org offers a full office suite for free, and is really excellent software (I have both MS Office 2007 and OpenOffice.org, and prefer the latter for a whole host of reasons). I will post more about OpenOffice.org soon, so stay tuned. In the mean time, don’t feel quilty about Office 2007–it’s an incredible offer.
[...] world runs on Microsoft, and this deal really cannot be beat. For more details, check out my post here. Div.additions {text-align: center;} SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Get Microsoft Office at 90% [...]
Tommy, I used MS Office 2003. Would and upgrade to 2007 be worth it, even at $60?
Jason, it really depends on what programs you use, and what you want out of your software.
The core of Microsoft Word hasn’t changed all that much since 1997, but the interface has. The new version is a lot prettier. The only major upgrade I can think of is the new OOXML format, which MS has promised will be an Open Standard, but which no one is actually using.
The only significant upgrade is to Outlook, which is massively improved. But the free Mozilla Thunderbird (with the Lightning plugin) is more powerful still, though not as pretty. A post is forthcoming on this.
Finally, this is the ULTIMATE edition, which includes programs you probably don’t have in your 2003 edition. I edited the post above to provide two links to the list of programs. But, even here, the only ones that you might be interested in using are OneNote and PowerPoint. (Groove is ridiculous. You probably have no need of Access. Etc).
So I would say the upgrade from 2003 is not worth it, but for editions prior to 2003 it is. Personally, I only use MS Office for compatibility reasons—when someone sends me a .doc file that I have to modify and send back—and even then OpenOffice can usually do the trick (with PDF export). There are free solutions that can fill in any Office-2003 holes that might need filled, as I will describe in a forthcoming post.
Thanks Tommy. If I wanted pretty, I’d use a Mac, and I believe I can save files with some kind of add on in OOXML format for 2003 files, is that correct?