Microsoft office

gjchester

loulou41 wrote: »

I do not mind buying a one off for personal use home edition but I do not want to pay yearly subscription. Currently I have got office 2007, I cannot remember renewal subscription with previous ones. Will office works if you apply for jobs, will it open job applications with no problem. My friend said she cannot open some jobs applications on her laptop. Thanks

Office 365 is the one that needs a subscription. No-one knows yet if the next Office will be a subscription or standalone product.

Its one of the ways that the industry is going, look at Adobe, you now cannot buy Photoshop as a "box" that will work forever offline, only as an online subscription service. It runs like other software but checks in every so often and if you cancel (or it can't find the server) then you have limited access to the software.


Generally the Free office variants should be fine for opening all Microsoft formats, even if it can't save them in the same format.

Fightsback

gjchester wrote: »

Office 365 is the one that needs a subscription. No-one knows yet if the next Office will be a subscription or standalone product.

Its one of the ways that the industry is going, look at Adobe, you now cannot buy Photoshop as a "box" that will work forever offline, only as an online subscription service. It runs like other software but checks in every so often and if you cancel (or it can't find the server) then you have limited access to the software.


Generally the Free office variants should be fine for opening all Microsoft formats, even if it can't save them in the same format.

Very good point, looks like a lot of software is going that way as it's more profitable for SW companies, software as a service(SAAS) alternatively known as software as a shakedown. Expect a big push in that direction with Windows 10

almillar

Then my 'friend' must've been extremely lucky

Your 'friend' is very lucky, yes. I guess he/she is pretty tech savvy too, and knows what malware looks like and how to get rid of it if infected, and is willing to take the risk.
Your original post didn't mention the risk, nor the piracy. 'It's overpriced, steal it' is wrong - 'it's overpriced, don't buy it' is right.
OP has been advised of free alternatives that provide almost all the functionality of MS Office.
I think that LibreOffice is based on OpenOffice, and is now kept more up to date, so unless you're a die hard OpenOffice user, you should be starting on LibreOffice at this point.

gjchester

Fightsback wrote: »

Very good point, looks like a lot of software is going that way as it's more profitable for SW companies, software as a service(SAAS) alternatively known as software as a shakedown. Expect a big push in that direction with Windows 10

Depends on your use and how you fit int he brackets they sell product in.

Office 2013 is £100 or so for the 1 PC Home and Student Version, and lets say It will "last" 3 years before the next office is released

Office 2013 is £200 or so for the 1 PC Home and business Version, which adds in Outlook.

And the "full fat" Office 2013 is £400 or so for the 1 PC Professional Version, which adds in Publisher and Access..

Office 365 is £5.99 a month (or £60 a year) for the 1PC version.

If you need the basics, Word, PowerPoint, Excel then the boxed copy is cheaper. But the 365 sub includes All the software of the Pro version, so really your comparing a £180 3 year Subscription Vs a £400 product.

Remember also Office is licensed on one PC, where as you can get a Household licecne for Office 365 for 5 devices for £8 a month or £80 a year. If you need office on more than two devices it actually become s cheaper than buying it as a boxed product for a PC. The Basic office on on two PCs is £200 or so, for three is £300, and at that point the subscription looks more viable.

Now in real life its not that simple, people don't always upgrade to the latest version as it comes out, maybe getting 4 or 5 years form the version of Office they have, but you can see that a subscription may actually be cheaper in some circumstances.

If you need to put the Full office on all five devices in a 365 sub it would be around £2k for the 5 licensees, vs an Office 365 sub costing £80 a year subscription, at that price you need to buy the sub for 25 years to see the same outlay. And the Office 365 allows you the latest software, a bought product has to be paid for to get it upgraded..

DoaM

gjchester wrote: »

Now in real life its not that simple, people don't always upgrade to the latest version as it comes out, maybe getting 4 or 5 years form the version of Office they have,

4 or 5 years? I'm still using Office 2007 at home (and at work too). Not found any reason to need to upgrade as yet.

Mr_Toad

DoaM wrote: »

4 or 5 years? I'm still using Office 2007 at home (and at work too). Not found any reason to need to upgrade as yet.

And no reason why you should as long as it works for you.

Even older versions are still fine as long as people with the later versions are willing to use .doc rather than .docx

I'm using Office 2011 on the Mac which is, I believe, basically 2007 in a Mac frock.

giraffe69

Remember also Office is licensed on one PC, where as you can get a Household licence for Office 365 for 5 devices for £8 a month or £80 a year.

£67 from Amazon.

Even older versions are still fine as long as people with the later versions are willing to use .doc rather than .docx

If you use an old version then you can get a free compatibility pack from the Microsoft website so you can open docx and xlsx files.

4 or 5 years? I'm still using Office 2007 at home (and at work too). Not found any reason to need to upgrade as yet.

Plenty of people and offices find the upgrade cycle too frequent and don't always want or need the new gizmos. 2013 works better with the cloud so for those who save files there that is a plus. It works better than earlier versions on tablets. You can edit pdf files easily which you can't on older versions. I'm sure there are many who need none of these advantages and are happy to stick with Word for DOS v5 and if it works for you it is undeniably cheaper.

gjchester

I don't doubt that there are cheaper than RRP prices for office and people may not change every year, simply countering the point that a subscription service is not always more expensive then full boxed product...

BikerEd

Just to come back to OpenOffice and LibreOffice, both of which have been mentioned here.

LibreOffice is based on OpenOffice. It was created by a group of people who didn't have confidence that the new owner of the free OpenOffice product (Oracle who had just bought Sun Microsystems) would "do the right thing" with the product. Since then both products have carried on being developed on parallel tracks, but opinion within the free software community is that LibreOffice has continued to have the edge in terms of quality and innovation.

I use LibreOffice.