Only 15,000 people buy Office 2007 for $75

old_misery:

"Only" 15,000? Considering this was only open to Australian university students, I'd say 15,000 sales was a success. Anyone know how many university students in Australia there are?

I know of three people that have taken advantage of this, and I know for certain that at least one of them was using a unlicensed copy of Office 2003.

Johnnno:

Well that's not very good seeing in like Melbourne alone there would be probably 100,000 University students! And Microsoft is selling to the whole of Australia!

Duffman:

According to the 2001 census there are actually 722,125 university students in Australia. This means that Microsoft has sold this to 2% of uni students, not much at all.

Mike T:

Even if they were paying me to use it, I didn't want to give Microsoft my uni student details, home address and credit details, for any price.

Adam:

This doesn't disprove the fact that pirates would buy it if it were cheaper... I have not seen a SINGLE commercial on TV about this special pricing AND the whole website looks like a SCAM. The few people I've shown said it was a fantastic price but they didn't trust the website.

I am a pirate and I'm willing to pay $75 for software.

Disclaimer: I am not actually a pirate nor am I involved in the illegal distribution of software.

Neil:

I agree with Adam's comment.
While I purchased the Office 2007 offer I was dubious about the website because it looks like a scam.
When I did a dig and tracert on the website address I was expecting it to go back to Microsoft web servers, but it was not the case.

Regardless I took the risk and purchased it for the awesome price and it was fine.

I tried to recommend it to other people but some people were put off by the dodgey site.

My current job is a network administrator so I would not say I am a naive user, but even I thought this site looked shifty.

Nick:

The website looks clearly legit to me. I'm not sure a dodgy website would be so fastidious in it's use of the registered trade mark symbol after "Microsoft"!

MrFloppySocks:

Mate, I've got some bad news for you about those emails you got from Paypal asking you to confirm your password...

Geof-math:

When, where? how much!!?
If I knew that Office 2007 was on sale for $75 I would have lined up for that but I never heard boo about it. Otherwise it would have been at least 15,001 customers who bought it.

fatredwombat:

I realise that the packaging etc. is a costly excercise but to say that it was worth ~$700 is a bit rich.

On a side note 15000 copies is really quite good considering that I didn't hear about it from my uni (who, really, should be telling students where to get cheap stuff)but on a forum.

From my experience at uni, the majority of my classmates don't even frequent forums....

Fred_404:

I would get a copy of it if they offered it for tafe students :(

Fred_404

tin:

Offering Office 2007 "cheap" to uni students doesn't prove people who normally pirate won't if the price is lower.
Many have said MS Office 2007 really doesn't float their boat.

Also, MS are farting out some pretty poor lines when they claim they pass on the savings from the lack of media, etc... Last quote I got for a run of 1000 DVDs (with cases and all printing) was about $2 per copy. At 2000 copies it was $1.82 per copy.
Even with $5 postage, there's still a heck of a long way before they can make claims like that.

Matthew:

If Microsoft did a better job of actually marketing and advertising this promotion, they probably would have sold 5 times the number they did.

I only found out about the promotion through APC online, and even then i may not have seen had i not visited APC at least once a day.

One has to wonder about the logic behind Microsoft's decisions...

RoNaN:

Open Office costs $0 and is an excellent package, plus your not giving microsoft money :)

Wes:

Yes, it could be a case that some students now use OpenOffice and therefore have no need for Office even if cost $75. However, if you would like to do a bit of programming
enhancements -the VBA stuff, its a lot easier in Office than with OpenOffice and in that case you would need Office.

Ken:

VBA? Give me a break. I've worked with VB and it was quite simple. Got to tinkering with VBA to make an interface for an Access project I was working on and almost nothing worked.

BobC:

15000 honest students now that surprises me.

I'm at uni in Taiwan and get free legal copies of Vista and Office 2007 (English and Chinese). We access the files with our student details and uni pays for a license that covers students as long as they remain students.

It seems better to do this, get money and make sure that the students are locked in, rather than try and get any money out of students who will mostly pirate it anyway.

If MS were smart they would automatically offer to rent the software for 20 or 30 dollars a month once the students graduate.

Potoroo (User):

The offer was not download only. I purchased the DVD for an extra $14 (plus GST of $1.40 which was not included in the total price as is required by Australian law).

raindog:

The whole student discount thing is a bit of a joke and a cynical exercise on Microsoft's behalf and to target a hopeful mindset lock-in at what is arguably the nations brightest minds is destined to fail.

$75 to a student trying too scrape up fees, rent on a share house and fuel for an aged laser is equivalent to the national debt.
Microsoft's offer was download only, and as much as it may surprise overpaid MS marketing types, battling university students are less than likely to be able to download giga-bytes of data from basic dial-up or metered university accounts.

The take-up of of this offer probably reflects the all over acceptance of Office 2007, with Open Office being closer to what's been a know standard than Microsoft's latest offering.

And why lock-out Tafe students or for that matter primary and secondary school students? Either its an academic discount or it's not.

Microsoft's contempt for all sectors of it's marketplace is unlikely to attract many new and grateful MS True Believers any time soon.

Ads:

I dont know about Australia, but for 15000 students on their incomes to purchase Office 2007 is an outright success as that half of our weekly study allowance back here in NZ.
Open that offer for a month to people who use it often and you'll see what success it will be. Microsoft has things the wrong way round we can buy vista premium oem here for $150.00 NZ but office is triple that. Kinda like paying $5K for a holden commodore and getting charged $15k for cruise control??....

Stephen:

Why bother using microsoft office at all when open office is free & works just as well if not better. I was sceptical at first(being a long time microsoft office user) but have now been using it for 3 months & can not fault it.

Wow:

I applaud the smartie at M$ who thought up this scheme. They just made $1m from giving out serial numbers. Now thats easy money.

smellyoulater:

I also agree that it has been a clever money spinner for Microsoft, and has probably helped in improving their image somewhat.

Just FYI, Sydney University advertised the promotion on their WebCT site for students. USyd also offers free downloads of StarOffice for its students.

cv:

www.openoffice.org

Save $75

Jeff1:

CD's are available on campuses, but they go very quickly once they are distributed. I have left many in the library and computer labs & they don't last long. Flinders Uni. (Adelaide) also has some that students can borrow in the library.

I have used it and it is great! $75 is excellent for those who want to own it legally... like office 2003, everybody's going to have it soon, so might as well get it while it's cheap!

Mal:

If only uni students could pay $75 they might take up the offer

Adam:

I tried to purchase it, but their system had an error, and when i went back and tried again, it said my uni e-mail had already been used, therefore i was ineligible. I sent an e-mail to their support site, and all i got was an auto response saying "we will respond in 48 hours"... i'm still waiting.... and when i called microsoft, they would not have anything to do with it.

Noel:

Had the offer been publicised properly- or available to a wider audience; I'm sure there would be more recipents.

I don't think Microsoft intended to make the deal too obvious. They would want as many people paying full price as possible.

Reactor:

I have a friend who payed $250 for the student version just before I could mention to her about the $75 deal. I purchased the $75 copy, and was amazed to see it was Office Ultimate, with no student-like limitations. If there was more advertising for it, I'm sure a ton more people would have grabbed it.

On a side note, as good as OpenOffice is, Office 2007 is a fair amount better, especially if you use Powerpoint, or want a program like Publisher.

evanmit (New user):

Microsoft are running the same promotion for 2008. The website is still ItsNotCheating.com.au and it's still only $75 for a lifetime licence. I wonder how many people will take up the offer this time around...