Microsoft Office Prices

[koster]

Isn't there anywhere where I can get a simple overview of ALL the Microsoft Office prices on one clear page so I can choose the most appropriate purchase for our company?

I want to compare small business, home and student editions, single user and multi-licence.

[buildersmate]

No such animal. Prices vary according to customer. It's called segmenting the market - or maximising the revenue for MS.

[vehelpfulguy]

It is not just the prices that are complex but also the packaging. Have a look at this chart and see all the different packaging options.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/suites/FX101 635841033.aspx

So you need to decide what products you want for you company.

So if, for example, you need Access the Basic, Standard, and Small Business versions are no good because Access is not included.

You mention Home and Student but that only includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint and One Note (and is probably not licensed for a business anyway).

Microsoft have loads of Business Partners, why not contact one of them and see if they can help you get the best deal.

Have a search here

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/experts/default.ms px

[koster]

At http://www.microsoft.com/uk/experts/solutionfi nder/default.mspx, what are you supposed to type in the search box and what are you supposed to select in "Microsoft solution type"?

[vehelpfulguy]

I dont think you need to select something from all the fields, just leave that one blank.

I would just fill in your postcode and select a Microsoft Product then Search.

From Microsoft Product select Microsoft Office 2007 System

[koster]

It says, "No solutions found for your search criteria. Please modify your keywords or change search categories."

[ACtheTROLL]

this should help
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/office/howtobuy/

you need to plan your useage .... be honest ... buy for what you DO do - not what you MIGHT do
most people cope quite well with just word and excel (actually better ... excel is far easier to bodge than access for a novice)
and if you just need to look at someone elses work - all the office applications have a free viewer - or save as PDF and you can use a free app like foxit to view.

[koster]

That's all well and good, but it doesn't tell me anything about multiple licences. It tells me I can spend �349.99 at PC World on Microsoft Office for 1 PC. I presume If I want it for 36 computers I don't have to pay nearly �13,000.

[interele]

Have you looked at OpenOffice. Unless you are doing something really unusual then this has 99% of the functionality and costs nothing.

[koster]

I use OpenOffice myself on my own computer and it does most things that Microsoft Office does, but not everything.

For example, yesterday I wanted to do a word count. In Microsoft Word you can do this for the whole document or just a selection, but in OpenOffice Writer you can only do this for the whole document. I also use a very nice toolbar, which is a macro, and it only works in Word (www.teachers-pet.org).

Anyway, that's beside the point. Much as I like free software, the fact is that 99% of computer iusers are familiar with Word and 1% are familiar with OpenOffice. So, if we went for OpenOffice, people would have to spend time learning how to use it and people would ask me lots of questions about how to use it. So, since my time is not free, it would not be free!

Thanks for the suggestion though.

[ACtheTROLL]

koster
you didn't mention multiple licenses

you only get the right answer if you ask the right questions
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/resources/v ol/volumelicensekey/default.mspx

the mind reading section was closed due to unforeseen circumstances.

If you do need 30+ copies ... you'd better see a consultant 'cause your obviously out of your depth

[interele]

Which version are you using - my version ( 2.4 ) does word counts on sections or the whole document

[interele]

One more thing, you say your users are familiar with Office. Which version ? Office 12 is more of a learning curve for a Office Xp/2003 user than OpenOffice.

[koster]

ACtheTROLL,

I did mention multiple licences in my question.

Interele,

I have OpenOffice 2.3. I am downloading 2.4 to see if it is any different with regard to the word count feature.

Interele,

Is Office 12 the same thing as Office 2007?

Thanks again!

[koster]

Interele,

That's great. I have installed OpenOffice 2.4, which has a word count feature under Tools -> Word Count.

I realised I had two versions of OpenOffice installed before, so I might have been looking in the older one. Anyway, it didn't have this feature, just the whole document count under File -> Properties -> Statistics.

[interele]

Yes, Office 12 is Office 2007

The only bad things I've found in OpenOffice is :
1. 2.4 mailmerge isn't as good as Word ( 3.0 which is out soon is much better )
2. Embedded flash animations in powerpoint presentations don't work

One good thing in OO is that backgrounds work how you would expect