Microsoft office home and student

wDG_ · 1 Feb 2011 at 15:06

Not sure if this is the best place to enquire about this product in terms of legal usage... but I am looking around the internet trying to buy a laptop for a small business, and I was wondering if it's infact legal to use a home and student edition within a household for business work?

Sounds relatively trivial, but I'd rather spend the excessive £120-170 on a home and student edition that can be installed on 3pc's rather than just the one. Anybody aware if I should be worried about the legal issue of using a home and student version for business work within the house? (They will not be company bought or owned laptops, personal purchase only).

stoofa · 1 Feb 2011 at 15:31

If I may give you a link to the US store for this product:

http://store.microsoft.com/microsoft/Office-Home-and-Student-2010/product/C7A370CA

Right down the bottom you'll find the following information:

**Licensed for installation on up to three home PCs. Not for use in any commercial, nonprofit, or revenue generating business activities, or by any government organization.

So basically no, you can't use it for business use.

edscdk · 1 Feb 2011 at 15:35

should you use it for business? NO

Will they ever know or be able to tell? NO

do you really need MS office can you use the free open office instead? Probably

is it right to rob the milti billion $ company MS of £50 revenue? <insert your answer>

wDG_ · 1 Feb 2011 at 16:30

Thank you for your responses...

I would personally use openoffice, but it is not for my use.

stoofa · 1 Feb 2011 at 16:44

edscdk said:
should you use it for business? NO

Will they ever know or be able to tell? NO

do you really need MS office can you use the free open office instead? Probably

is it right to rob the milti billion $ company MS of £50 revenue? <insert your answer>

Sigh

So why bother PAYING for any version of Office just to break the license agreement?
This is the bit that gets to me.
You're effectively saying "Yes, go ahead and buy Office Home & Student and use it for business use".
What the user has is a piece of software no more legal than something downloaded from a torrent site.
The difference?
The Home & Student cost money, the torrent copy didn't.

Don't speand money to be illegal, just be illegal.