Microsoft Office - upgrade from 2003 - licensing options - help!

Mr. Peri Peri · 13 May 2013 at 22:05

Hi all,

After some advice as someone I know is looking to upgrade Office 2003 and there seems to be many options.

The guy uses Office for business on his laptop (Win 7) and in particular wants to upgrade Excel 2003 - however looking at prices it may be more cost effective to upgrade the entire office suite.

The 3 options I can find are:

Office 365 Small Business 1 year subscription ~£105
As far as I understand this option is essentially Office 2013 with ability to install on 4 other machines (only required on 1) with ability to run apps over the web etc (none of which is needed). With this option he would need to renew each year I think?

Office 2013 Home & Business ~£178
This is Office 2013 on it's own with no requirement to pay a yearly fee.

Excel 2013 ~£90
Standalone Excel 2013 installation

Is one of these the best solution or have I missed something here?

Any advice will be much appreciated.

HangTime · 13 May 2013 at 22:30

If the person knows any people with an academic email address (.ac.uk) he could get them to purchase Office 2013 for him, costs less than £100: http://www.software4students.co.uk/products/microsoft-office-home-and-student-2013
Big hike compared to older versions of Office which used to go for under £40 to students, but still a saving on the retail price.

Students can also get a 4 year subscription to Office 365 for under £60 here but presumably if he is still running 2003 he doesn't upgrade very often so probably a bad idea: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msuk/en_GB/pdp/productID.260260600

Mr. Peri Peri · 13 May 2013 at 22:40

Thanks for that.

Seeing as he would be using Office for commercial purposes that would be against the terms of the license of Home/Student and wouldn't be much different from just "downloading" a copy?

As you can tell I am not totally in the know of the various license options but that is my current understanding.

Pho · 13 May 2013 at 22:55

Does he need Microsoft Office? Could always try LibreOffice which is free and will open Microsoft Office files.

Mr. Peri Peri · 13 May 2013 at 23:08

Arguably no, but he is set on Office as it is what he is used to and what his colleagues use.