Microsoft is offering students in U.S. colleges access to the educational version of Office 365 at no charge.
The offer includes three months of access to Office 365 University, which can be doubled to six months after sharing the offer on Facebook.
A four year subscription of Office 365 University normally costs $80, according to Microsoft’s website, but students can use their .edu email address to take advantage of the free offer, which includes Office on up to two PCs or Macs for use by a single person, 20 GB online storage with SkyDrive, and 60 Skype world minutes each month.
The Office portion of the offer comprises of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access.
“Of course this is beneficial for OU students,” said Brice Bible, chief information officer. “Anything free would not be a bad thing for students; and Microsoft wanting to get students to try it is great.”
At the Tech Depot, located on the ground floor of Baker University Center, Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 for Windows and Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac cost $74.73.
Tara Gremillion, a spokesperson at Microsoft would not comment on why Microsoft decided to roll out the promotion.
According to the promotion website, after the three month subscription expires, the Office software applications enter “read-only reduced functionality mode” which means students can only view or print documents and cannot create or edit new and existing documents.
“Microsoft changed their model from buying a physical product to an online solution,” Bible said. “(At OU) we are working on a new long-term deal with Microsoft that would keep pricing level for the foreseeable future but if students want to try Office 365 now I think it is a good deal on the table.”
bc822010@ohiou.edu
