Good News For Students (from Microsoft):

[Guest Reimar]

That's maybe good news for Students in some countries for those who need MS-Office!

September 12, 2007 9:42 AM PDT

Microsoft says college students can 'steal' Office

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."

Microsoft tried the promotion earlier this year as a pilot program in Australia, before deciding to offer it in the U.S.

[britmaveric]

Hmmm my firm gave it to me for a tenner.

[cdnvic]

Or they could get Open Office for $0

[Hmmm]

This deal has already come and gone in some countries. It's questionable whether it's a 'bargain'.

Students, and others, would be best advised to avoid Excel 2007 in the Office 2007 package. It is totally unusable for any serious spreadsheet work, especially involving charts. Most of the problems seem to lie in the new charting engine. Google for "Excel 2007" and "slow" to see that everyone is having these problems.

Excel 2007 is the single worst 'upgrade' I have seen in my years of computer work. Tasks that completed very quickly under Excel 2003 take up to tens of minutes under Excel 2007, if they complete at all.

There has been one hotfix that eased some problems, but did not make the product usable for most power users. It looks like we'll be waiting until Excel 2009. :-(

Also, the new ribbon interface for all of Office 2007 takes several weeks to get used to. Expect a big hit to productivity until you find where all the old menu options have been moved to.

Edited September 15, 2007 by Hmmm

[RKASA]

I was going to say there is still good stuff cheaper, I think M$ wants to get'em hooked on their systems. Like the $35.00 thai eidtion of XP, it's still $35.00 and the linux tle is still totaly free. I have a copy of the linux (tle) thai laug. eidtion, if I only had one more drive that was not to full or another PC I might get a look at it. latest stable release is rated pretty good.

[Tony Clifton]

This deal has already come and gone in some countries. It's questionable whether it's a 'bargain'.

Students, and others, would be best advised to avoid Excel 2007 in the Office 2007 package. It is totally unusable for any serious spreadsheet work, especially involving charts. Most of the problems seem to lie in the new charting engine. Google for "Excel 2007" and "slow" to see that everyone is having these problems.

Excel 2007 is the single worst 'upgrade' I have seen in my years of computer work. Tasks that completed very quickly under Excel 2003 take up to tens of minutes under Excel 2007, if they complete at all.

There has been one hotfix that eased some problems, but did not make the product usable for most power users. It looks like we'll be waiting until Excel 2009. :-(

Also, the new ribbon interface for all of Office 2007 takes several weeks to get used to. Expect a big hit to productivity until you find where all the old menu options have been moved to.

We installed it on two computers. It was uninstalled the very same day when something as simple as the File menu couldn't be found easily. Back to 2003.