Worth it to buy Office 2010?

I have been a beta tester of Office 2010 and I really like Office 2010. I have no other version of Office so I defenetly want to buy it. I am looking to get the retail full(with media) version of either Home and Business or Professional from a place like Newegg or Amazon. Right now the Home and Business is going for $239 and the Pro is going for $459. My version of beta Office 2010 is set to run out in October, if I remember correctly. So, I need to make sure I have a version of office before that runs out. So my question is, would I get a better price if I waited till October or should I buy now? Thanks.

 

It is way expensive man, 239,456$ is a lot to pay for word processing and so on.Just use Open Office,it is free,stable and just does the same job.No license worries,it is free and that should be what you would look for.

 

I second OpenOffice. I've been using it for school work for over a year now, and it does everything I need it to. The interface is the same as MS Office 2003 (before they went to the ribbon), which I personally find to be the best and most convenient. Everything is in a labeled menu, no hunting around for which picture does what.

It also has .docx support, in case you're wondering.

 

I don't want to get into a huge flame fest with OO vs Office. I have used OO for years and am quite familiar with it. I don't want to use it anymore, I want an official full version of Office. It is expensive, but support for Office is usually for like 10 years, so it is worth it for me. I just want to know if the price would go down by October. If not I will just buy it now and not wait. Less headaches the better at this point in my life.

 

It's really hard to say. They might come up with special offers and then again, they may not.

 

If you have a .edu e-mail address you can get Office Professional Academic 2010 for $80.

Microsoft Office Professional Academic 2010

 

I don't. Thanks for the link though.

OK, then tell me this. Will it get any more expensive then what it is now? Amazon has a strike through the MSRP and then they show the current price, indicating it is one sale of some sort.

 

An Option: Open a MS Technet subscription - Office (all versions) are available as are various versions of MS OS.
About the same money as one of your versions you mention above but you can download and use so much more.

 

Thats an interesting option. I have heard of technet but have never been a member. I looked it up for a bit but it seems strange. It say the software is for evaluation purposes only, but all the software is not limited in features or by time. But it also says that the software is not for production use

I have no idea what they are talking about.

 

No, it will not get more expensive.

 

OK, great then, that helps me. Then I am not in any hurry. I will just wait till my beta expires in October and in the mean time see if any deals come up. Thanks for your help.

 

The value of MS software rarely fluctuates within its lifetime. As Padme says, it won't get any more expensive. If anything, it'll get slightly less so if you can catch the occasional sale, but for the most part, it'll pretty much stay constant. Just look at Microsoft Windows' prices for example.

 

The technet subscription is an unlimited software intended for evaluation and test purposes, as opposed to production. Basically, this is a way for Microsoft to license you software as an IT person so you can become accustomed to its use, learn how to use it, evaluate it, and then turn around and service it or recommend it to others.

If you are not evalating for purchase or learning it and given its depth (you are always learning it thanks to its depth) you would technically be in violation of the licensing agreement.

For a simple example, you are in an IT deparment and everyone in the company has Office XP; except the company president has a new laptop with Office 2010 and he writes a memo and sends it out for everyone to read, but no one can read it because your president is too dumb to be able to SAVE AS Word Document 97-2003.

The IT department has a technet subscription, so they download a version of Office 2010, install it, take the memo and convert it XP version. Since the company president will never, ever bother to learn to use SAVE AS, it is a legitimate reason to keep the version on a machine for the next memo. The IT Department might also use it and learn it because they will invariably field dozens of questions a day from the President who is too dumb to learn how to use it properly. They may even use it to evaluate it to try and sell the president on purchasing a volume license for the entire company.

What they cannot do is use the Technet License to install it on the entire board of directors computers so they can all send DOCX files back and forth.

It does not sound like your's would be a legitimate use of technet (not that that has stopped anyone in the past).

 

I would set the money aside and keep looking for a sale. It will not go up by October, but you may catch a deal between now and then, especially with back-to-school sales at the bigger retailers.

 

I don't agree completely. With the Windows OS, that seems pretty true but I did see Office 2007 go down in price a lot recently, granted it was it's end of life. I didn't however keep up with what the price of office 2007 was when it was first released, so I don't know what trend 2010 will follow as far as pricing.

Thanks, that was a quick helpful nutshell of Technet. I think you are right, it doesn't seem appropriate for me.

Thats a good point. I forgot about the back to school time. Maybe there will be a sale then. But I am not sure if a sale would affect the price of Home and Business or Pro, since it is either of those two that I would be buying. In any event the cut off date for me is October, since I can't really be without a functioning version of Office.

 

Keep an eye out for the Notebook and Tech Bargains forum especially for Dell deals.

Lately they have been wheeling and dealing on videogames, computer accessories and software.

 

I work at Staples so I can assert that where I work at least(including the competition like Best Buy and Future Shop) that the price of Office did not vary significantly during its life cycle, there were fluctuations but nothing noteworthy. As you stated the price dropped because it was nearing the end of its life (also note most of these had "upgrades" to 2010). Windows Vista DVDs are also quite cheap nowadays

 

As I said I didn't follow the life cycle of 2007 so I don't know, but as it got old and 2010 was getting closer to be put out the price dropped. For example, office home and student was $150 and went on sale for around $75.

BTW - Where can I find the EULA for the various versions of Office 2010? I googled to no success. I would like to read the license terms, which would help me decide on Home and Business and Pro.

 

License Terms

 

Which of course is explainable by it nearing its life cycle. Fact is, I doubt you'll wait until Office whatever-year-the-next-one-comes-out before buying 2010 so this will be a moot point for you.

 

Man i'll tell you what, OpenOffice 3.2.1 is pretty slick. I've decided to use this instead of MS Office, takes care of my needs pretty much. What I like is the speed of the Suite and how fast things launch. I also prefer the look of it more so than that of Office 2007 and the Ribbon. One other thing I appreciate is how all of my spreadsheet's did not need any modifications. Everyone looked the way they were created in Office 2007.

Anyway it is free and should be worth a try. One other thing and I know i'm not alone is that I can't comprehend how a program like Office 2007 which requires less than 1GB initially will bloat out to around 4GB with all of it's patches and security updates.

 

Took me about two hours to figure out how to do everything I wanted to do in Openoffice 3.2.1, but I love it now that I've played with it a bit.

Any MS product will be quite different anyway.. if you have to put up with different.. might as well be Open office.

One function I love that MS office can't do is scan straight from the printer into a document.
That function has been tossed since office 2003.. now you have to copy to a graphic, save it to hardrive, the import it an... if you do many at once, they get all mixed up and unless your meticulous on naming them perfectly, you will lose track of which is which.. plus then you have to go back and delete all the stored graphics you had to create.. what a figgin pain!

Its a no brainer..... Office 2010 is a non upgrade product this time..... care to spend close to 500.00 for the works?

With open office you will always keep cutting edge updates for free.

 

I normally use OpenOffice, but I got a deal for MS Office 2010 Pro for $9.95 through my job. I just couldn't pass that up.

Mike

 

Wow!... yes that's a give-a-way.
Even at that, I'm burnt with them because just about the time your totally comfortable with them they change the game and attempt to charge you serious bucks to continue.

I know that's the way they make money..... but for peets sake.. its just a word processor and spreadsheet!.. And that is all I ever use.... why don't they have a scaled down version for the common folk that cost 30.00 bucks?.

But no, they want to force you to buy the full glory to keep compatibility with it all.

Another attempt to consume and rule the world so all peoples bow down to the image.

When MS got into the market they "were not" the best word processor.... but they had great marketing.

They knew how to get into every home, school and workplace by bundling their product into every computer bought.

The competition followed suite to some degree but by then, everyone already had MS on the tip of their lips and it appeared to be the norm so that's what everyone bought as they were lured into the web of peer pressure and the press to think they were getting the best.

But because they were "are" arrogant and don't meet the needs of the common folk but rather cater to the needs of big business where the money is, they lost support from the common lay person and so Open office was created by the masses.

Good luck suing the masses Microsoft!

Open office is our product and no one can take it away.
We don't have to worry about update costs and being held over a barrel to have compatible tools for the rest of the world.
And it actually works better in so many ways.
A couple of delightful things I"ve already found...
You can not only scan directly into a document now from your scanner, but when your in the spreadsheet you can copy and paste...... 10 minutes later, your copy function still works if you want to copy the same thing... in MS you have to start over.


I just enjoy supporting it... even if MS were free at this point, I've already defected from the motherland and am enjoying my freedom!