Even the New York Times falls for Microsoft’s spin on Office 2013/365 prices Microsoft has played a clever game with Office 2013 subscription pricing and the media has taken the bait with the proverbial hook, line and sinker. Take this generally positive review of Office 2013 titled “Subscribing to Office,
Problems installing Office 2013 made much worse by a useless error message. Installing Office 2013 as a subscription can be an exercise in frustration thanks to some very naïve decisions by Microsoft. It’s a problem with the ‘Click to Run’ streaming install used by Office 365 subscribers. You click on
Microsoft backs down and lets you move Office 2013 between computers. In an astonishing backdown, Microsoft has quietly announced that Office 2013 retail purchases will now be transferable between computers. The initial retail license terms for Office 2013 had a very different requirement than all the past version of Microsoft
Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint will soon be on mobile devices. One interesting snippet generally overlooked in the Office 365 Small Business announcements was the mention of Office Mobile Apps. There’s been plenty of talk about Microsoft Office coming to mobile devices, especially non-Microsoft devices but the Office 365 announcement
The initial Office 365 pricing is very enticing … maybe suspiciously so. Microsoft has released their pricing for Office 365 Small Business subscription plans. These are plans which give you, at minimum, hosted email with all the benefits of Exchange Server connectivity. At the ‘high’ end you get hosted email,
Moving above the 49th parallel causes magical price changes in Microsoft Office. Canadians get a good deal for most Office 2013 purchases however once you add provincial taxes it might take away any price advantage. The same prices apply to both the English and French versions of Office 2013 sold in
British customers can pay up to 45% more for Microsoft Office than across the pond. Continuing our look at Office 2013 prices across the world, we turn to the United Kingdom where Microsoft continues their practice of charging non-US more for the same product as sold in the USA. ‘Every
Why are Australians still being asked to pay too much for Office 2013? Last week we looked at the Aussie pricing for Office 2013 which is higher than the US prices though that’s hardly anything new since Microsoft has overpriced Office ‘down under’ for as long as we can remember.
Let’s take into account US State Sales taxes and see if it makes much difference In the past we’ve compared the US retail price of Microsoft Office with the Australian price with GST. That was a fair comparison since many people could avoid US state sales taxes by buying online
Australians still get shafted when paying for Office 2013. Our price comparison for Office 2013 shows that Microsoft is still taking advantage of Australian consumers. For Office 2010 the price hike was up to 40% more than the USA on a generous calculation. For Office 2013 the high end is
Office 2013 can’t be moved from the computer you first install it on – we’re quite sure. “I can’t see any other media mentioning the non-transfer rule for Office 2013 retail packages. Are you sure about that?” We’re absolutely sure. It’s true that most Office 2013 reviews don’t mention it
How well are the changed terms for retail sales being disclosed? Now Office 2013 is being sold to the public we’ve been carefully looking for proper disclosure of the new stricter license rules. As regular Office Watch readers will know, Office 2013 retail bundles have very different rules to the
Office 2013 is now on sale – but should you bother? Office 2013 is now officially on sale though it’s been available in trial versions and to TechNet/MSDN subscribers for some time. Is it worth getting? We’ve been using Office 2013 for a long time now and while it has
‘New’ features in Outlook 2013 aren’t at all new. Sometimes the promotion of a new Office either gets too enthusiastic or is deliberately misleading – it’s hard to tell which. For Outlook 2013 there’s two examples of ‘new’ features that aren’t that new at all. Is Microsoft deliberately over-egging the
Choose your Office 2013 trial with care. If you’d like to try Office 2013, there’s more than one choice to make. You can select a traditional download and install OR use the newer ‘Click to Run‘ streaming install. Traditional download You can download Office 2013 Professional Plus trial from here.
Get Microsoft’s Surface Pro and then pay more for Office. Microsoft has announced that their Surface Pro computer will be released on February 9th. We hope it has better luck in the market than the rightly belittled Surface machine with its low disk space, lack of compatibility and high price.
Apple and Microsoft arguing about Skydrive and Office for iPad and iPhone TheNextWeb is reporting that Apple has rejected Microsoft’s update to the Skydrive app for iOS devices (iPhone and iPad). Skydrive is Microsoft and Office’s preferred way to share documents between devices. The current Skydrive app hasn’t been updated
The Intel based Microsoft Surface will cost more than you think or Microsoft pretends. The upcoming Surface with Windows 8 Pro costs even more than it first appears because Office is missing and so is the keyboard. Surface with Windows RT is the ARM chip based version of Microsoft’s tablet
Microsoft’s sleight of hand more than doubles the price of Microsoft Office. Update: we updated this article on 6 March 2013 to reflect the change of heart by Microsoft to allow transfer of Office 2013 retail licenses. The calculations and conclusions remain unchanged. You have to hand it to Microsoft marketing
A full copy of the Office 2013 Software License Agreement UPDATE: On 6 March 2013, Microsoft announced a change to the Software License Agreement to permit transfer of retail purchase Office 2013 licenses. The exact wording of the change is: Updated transferability provision to the Retail License Terms of the
Microsoft Store presents yet another poor ‘discount’ offer. Regular readers know that if you want the highest prices, go to the Microsoft Store. Even their special offers are overpriced. Over Thanksgiving 2012, the Store has been offering US customers a discount on Office for Mac. Sounds great, a $50 discount
Office-Watch.com has a hands-on look at Microsoft Surface We’ve been using the Microsoft Surface since its release a few weeks ago and while our focus on Office RT will come later, here’s a quick look at the new Microsoft device. The device Microsoft Surface is a tablet with optional keyboard
The latest rumor is more like a logical extension of current policy. The latest rumor about Microsoft Office for iPhone/iPad (number 263 in the series) says that if such a program is released it will be as part of an Office 365 subscription. That’s hardly a surprise for several reasons.
Do the claims from Facebook make any sense? Wayne B writes: ” Microsoft claiming a billion users is a bit of a stretch, but not as much as we might think. Facebook says they have over a billion users and there are many people with a PC not on Facebook,
