MS Office 2007 Ultimate for $60 (students only)

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Dec 10, 2005
29,317
14,768
136
Just a note on eligibility:

You must have a valid e-mail address at an educational institution ending with the domain suffix .EDU (ie, leina@contoso.edu) OR have a valid email address at one of the educational institutions listed here.

AND

You must be a student at a U.S. educational institution and must be actively enrolled in at least 0.5 course credit and be able to provide proof of enrollment upon request.

If you are at a school, you may want to check to see if your school offers site licenses for the software. I was able to get a copy of Office 2003 2 years ago for $25.
 

FP

Diamond Member
Feb 24, 2005
4,568
0
0
Between this and the Adobe student discounts I am seriously considering signing up for an intro to computers course at my local community college just for the student ID and e-mail address.

Spend $35 to save $1200? Yes please.
 

The0ne

Senior member
Jan 3, 2006
454
0
0
Originally posted by: gpgofast
Originally posted by: QuixoticOne
Almost nobody with a clue *uses* Office 2007 to *generate* Office 2007 format files because basically NOBODY out there can EASILY read / use them -- this is true even of the numerous people with older versions of Office -- Office 2000, Office XP, Office 97, etc. It is more common for people to be running one of the older program versions than the latest in most business or academic environments, so typically it will be a standard practice even for those using Office 2007 to SAVE any file in the Office 97 or similar format just so basically ANYONE can read it without having to install converters / fonts / viewers / etc. that few people have done or care to do.

In fact in many organizations / environments, people have practices defined whereby they SAVE / SUBMIT work in something even more universal like RTF, TXT, Postscript, maybe PDF, whatever for text documents.

Such being the case, I wouldn't worry too much about using OpenOffice or an older MS Office version. The only major incompatibilities are in some of the macro programming support areas (which are rarely used / enabled these days unless absolutely essential because they're HUGE security risks), and in some of the finer points of the Office 2007 unique formats. There can be minor font / formatting differences too, but generally they're either acceptable or easy to work around.

That said, this is a reasonable deal for a non-free office suite if you quality, though the free ones probably could solve the problem for 99.5% of people if they tried.

I guess we "don't have a clue" where I work.

We went to Office 2007 early due to it's integration with SharePoint 2007. The use of workflows and digital signatures was a no brainer for us in managing official operating documents in our work, which is under Federal oversight with regards to document management. Office 2007 solved nearlly all of our audit issues.

Also, microsoft has a plugin for earlier versions of office to read .docx and .xlsx files. It will prompt a user using office 2003 to download the plugin.

Also, I use Open Office at home and it completely thrashed an Office 2003 document that was in a template format. Completely unreadable to the person that authored the document.

He did say "almost" implying it's not 100% of the people/companies out there. Having said that I can attest to his statements having work for quite a few small to large companies. Even if you have the latest there will always be someone out there that still uses a much lower version. These can be employees in the same company, different companies, abroad, etc. This forces you to always consider your best option to save and distribute your files. And for me, being and Engineer and Manufacturer I distribute files mainly in PDF and Word97/2003. The later only if they need to make changes easily. Here we shy away from the latest and greatest MS OS and Apps because it doesn't make us more productive. In fact, it's quite the opposite when we tried. None of the Engineers like Vista, none like Office2007 (I like outlook hehe). So back we go to Linux, XP Pro and Office2003 :)
 

Wuzup101

Platinum Member
Feb 20, 2002
2,334
37
91
Originally posted by: Sandan
Anyone know if this comes as an ISO file so that it can be burned on a disc???

That is how Visual Studio 2008 came when they gave it away to students (as did the other software that we could download). I should have jumped on this deal while I was still in school! I wonder how likely it is for an MS person to contact me... I still do have the e-mail address :)
 

DefRef

Diamond Member
Nov 9, 2000
4,041
1
81
My work has a Home User program which allowed me to buy Office 2007 Enterprise (everything including Publisher, etc., but not FrontPage) for $20. Not bad.
 

Sandan

Senior member
Oct 9, 1999
558
0
0
Also, I wonder if I can put this on my Laptop and my Desktop. How many systems can one license for Office be installed on?
 

ESQ

Member
Dec 4, 1999
173
0
71
Originally posted by: Sandan
Anyone know if this comes as an ISO file so that it can be burned on a disc???

I ordered it and I had to download a 500+ meg .exe file (not an iso).

I ran it and it installed flawlessly and is running great.
 

Sandan

Senior member
Oct 9, 1999
558
0
0
Wow.....ESQ it was an .exe...Hmm, that scares me. Does anyone know if this can be burned and will you be able to execute it from the burn ? Or can an .exe be broken open like iso?
 

Muadib

Lifer
May 30, 2000
18,127
912
126
Originally posted by: binister
Between this and the Adobe student discounts I am seriously considering signing up for an intro to computers course at my local community college just for the student ID and e-mail address.

Spend $35 to save $1200? Yes please.

Please let me know if this works.
 

xSauronx

Lifer
Jul 14, 2000
19,582
4
81
Originally posted by: 911paramedic
F##k, they have vista ultimate for under $70 in a couple of weeks too, that would have saved me $100. (If it's the 64 bit version.)

This is a download though, I would much rather have a disk in my hand. Or, are you granted unlimited downloads like with steam as long as you use your serial#?

Great buy though...

you can copy the download or order a cd for some extra cash. i bought this last year, i barely use office but have a couple of classes that require it. i hate it, but at least its cheap
 

Wedge1

Senior member
Mar 22, 2003
905
0
0
Originally posted by: Sandan
Also, I wonder if I can put this on my Laptop and my Desktop. How many systems can one license for Office be installed on?

3 PCs.
 

indamixx99

Golden Member
Oct 17, 2006
1,955
0
76
Originally posted by: Sandan
Wow.....ESQ it was an .exe...Hmm, that scares me. Does anyone know if this can be burned and will you be able to execute it from the burn ? Or can an .exe be broken open like iso?

Yes you can. I bought this back in Jan and burnt it to CD. I reformatted a few months ago so used the CD to install office fine. I also placed a txt file with the serial number on the cd so I can just copy/paste it when installing.
 

Cheesetogo

Diamond Member
Jan 26, 2005
3,824
10
81
Originally posted by: Zirconium
In order to get to the page where you can order, all you need is access to a .edu email account at a verified school. You do not even need direct access; if your school provides free email forwarding for life, you can still get to that order page.

However, in the terms, the following is stated:

Microsoft or an appointed vendor may contact you to verify that you are a current student. If documentation is not provided indicating that you are a current student, you will be liable to reimburse Microsoft for the difference between what you paid and the estimated retail price of the software.

Now, how likely is it that someone will contact you? Also, how legally binding are these terms? IANAL, but I'd guess that even if they contacted you, they would have a hard time getting you to pay the difference.

Personally, I'd prefer to take the risk of pirating it over the risk of that happening.