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This year’s regeneration of Microsoft’s Office tools will be locked to one computer. Once you’ve used your special activation password thing to activate it on one computer, that’s it. No transfers, no hard drive upgrades, no shuffling it onto the laptop.
The move was confirmed in a brief email exchange between Microsoft and Computerworld, with the software giant simply replying with “Correct” when pushed on the subject of the sole computer issue.
Previously, Office users were able to “reassign” the license from one computer to another, allowing for upgrades, breakages and the like. But not any more. The move’s part of Microsoft’s push to force users to use its cloud-based Office 365 Premium service, which does allow multiple installs, and comes with the option of a monthly subscription fee or one-off payment. [Computerworld via Techradar]
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Dunno why they bother, it’s so easy to pirate, all they do is harm the legit users.
That’s fine if it only costs £25. I’m assuming that’s not the case though.
Prices have already been released. Can’t be bothered to look them up though.
It’s the same as before – freaking expensive.
For the moment I am sticking with the consumer preview version. Guess I will have to find a free alternative after it expires
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Libreoffice
So a simple hardware failure means that you’d have to replace the software too? Progress…
Open Office (etc.) anyone?
Yet another reason to avoid M$ at all costs. Libreoffice will fulfill the needs of the vast majority of users.
Open Source FTW
They’re mad.
And the story continues where Microsoft keep sealing their of coffin. They should had made a light version with basic usage for home users and special features like Power Pivot, Power View etc etc on paid corporate version. What a bunch of muppets!
its ok saying about all these other office suites, but kids are trained on microsoft office at school, and businesses use it as its the industry standard
long live keygens and cracks
Schools are robot factories churning out nothing but mindless, corporate automatons. When I come to power, there will be more emphasis on open source computing.
As a teacher, we teach the majority of people what they need to know for the majority of jobs. Teaching Open Source computing would be really useful for <1% of the population.
At my school we offer ICT, Games Design and Computing at GCSE or 6th Form Level. Anyone who wants to go further needs a degree, hence what universities are for.
I suppose it is just a symptom of the M$ monopoly in business. Businesses need to learn that they can do with open source computing what they can do with Office for a fraction of the cost.
Businesses don’t just look at the initial cost, they look at the total cost of ownership. If they have to train staff on how to use the free software, that’s a cost. If the software requires any additional IT administration, that’s another cost. If there’s a single feature that might save users some time, but isn’t present in the free software, that’s yet another cost.
…and then there’s the fact that an IT manager can be held responsible for his choices. Like they used to say back in the days of mainframes, ‘no one ever got fired for buying IBM’, and it’s a similar story with MS Office.
Agreed – I NEED the extra feeling of security of the full, proper suite, it’s pretty much a requirement for my studies.
The last ‘home’ version allowed one copy on 3 PCs ? So it may not be an issue for most.
As for “no hard disk upgrades”; i find that hard to believe. The piece of hardware that is most likely to fail!!!
It’s absolute insanity.
making a whole lot of nothing it seems
they worded the email as so
“Once an Office 2013 retail license is assigned through activation to a PC, it’s connected TO THAT PC, correct? Just as is Windows. That then means it cannot be reassigned to ANOTHER PC owned by the same individual, correct?”
This is common practice otherwise you could just install it on so many pcs without having to activate it againl… You can always ring microsoft and get them to allow activation again as i have done several times… Not once in that email chain did they say you cant transfer it from one to pc to another, they said “no comment” to that section.
If you have an OEM copy it normally costs around 1/2 the price, but then it is locked to that hardware, however a normal purchase you can re-activate it over and over, even though you mignht need to call MS to get them to allow you to activate it again.
Is it just me or does office keep getting more and more complex in terms of different versions, subscriptions, licensing?
Now, I am aware that Numbers is not up to scratch, but even so I can’t see why anybody – with a Mac at least – would pay so much for office when they basically needed basic word processing and spreadsheets.