So the bad news is, you’ve gotta update that Office 2000. You’ve slid by for 13 years now. The good news is, you’ve got options! For the first time, Microsoft is allowing you to rent Office with its Office 365 option. You basically pay a monthly subscription fee to use something nice you might not be able to afford. Kind of like I do with my house.
The Office 365 option allows you to have the latest version of Office for $100 a year. You can still buy Office 2013, but you’re looking at about $140 for Home and Student versions. Office 365 offers a bigger bang for your rental fee. It includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, and Publisher. Office 2013 limits you to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.
Now, the more computers you have, the cheaper the cost per PC. For two PCs, you’re looking at $50 a PC. If you get up to a 5 PC subscription, you’re down to $20 a PC, with some extras thrown in for free like 60 minutes of International Skype per month and 20 GB of SkyDrive storage.
Office 365 also offers an interesting option called Office On Demand that allows download of a virtualized version of Office apps to a PC that’s not yours…like a friend’s. You can run Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Access, and Publisher, but only on Windows PCs.
Now, the more computers you have, the cheaper the cost per PC. For two PCs, you’re looking at $50 a PC. If you get up to a 5 PC subscription, you’re down to $20 a PC, with some extras thrown in for free like 60 minutes of International Skype per month and 20 GB of SkyDrive storage.
Office 365 also offers an interesting option called Office On Demand that allows download of a virtualized version of Office apps to a PC that’s not yours…like a friend’s. You can run Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Access, and Publisher, but only on Windows PCs.
Obviously, Microsoft seems to be stacking the deck to push buyers towards Office 365. Frankly, it’s a better deal monetarily, you get more bang for your buck in the short term, and as long as you stay up on your subscription fees, you’ll always have the latest version of Office. Office 365 is improved in that it’s now a Web based platform paired with cloud storage. It seems like the pundits out there would push you towards Office 365 as well.
But wait! There’s always more, isn’t there? There are other options out there…
IBM Lotus Symphony is a free alternative with document, spreadsheet, and presentation programs, and a number of plug-ins available. Compared to other options, it is limited, with a lack of mobile, cloud and collaborative support other options have.
LibreOffice is a popular open source option, with a portable option. LibreOffice supports standards including Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Open XML, Open Document Format, and PDF.
There’s also Google Docs, for you Google fans. It’s a great cloud based option that allows you to work with documents, presentations, and spreadsheets, and access, edit, and store via the Web, all integrated with a Google account.
But wait! There’s always more, isn’t there? There are other options out there…
IBM Lotus Symphony is a free alternative with document, spreadsheet, and presentation programs, and a number of plug-ins available. Compared to other options, it is limited, with a lack of mobile, cloud and collaborative support other options have.
LibreOffice is a popular open source option, with a portable option. LibreOffice supports standards including Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Open XML, Open Document Format, and PDF.
There’s also Google Docs, for you Google fans. It’s a great cloud based option that allows you to work with documents, presentations, and spreadsheets, and access, edit, and store via the Web, all integrated with a Google account.
Then there’s Zoho, another cloud based option. Zoho is a document management system that will allow you to word process, work with spreadsheets and presentations, and utilize note taking and organization tools.
There are open alternatives to Office as well.
OpenOffice was once the king of the open source productivity alternatives, but when Oracle bought Sun Microsystems, OpenOffice took a hit, and didn’t look like it would last. It’s still around though, now part of the Apache Software Foundation. Oxygen Office Pro is an enhanced version of OpenOffice, that includes some extra goodies.
There are open alternatives to Office as well.
OpenOffice was once the king of the open source productivity alternatives, but when Oracle bought Sun Microsystems, OpenOffice took a hit, and didn’t look like it would last. It’s still around though, now part of the Apache Software Foundation. Oxygen Office Pro is an enhanced version of OpenOffice, that includes some extra goodies.
Calligra Suite seems to be a nice cross platform option for desktop PCs, tablets and smartphones.
So, there are always…possibilities, and there are always options. Whether you like to get your Office in a box, you want to consider your wallet and go with Office 365, or you want to stick it to the big corporations and go open source, you’ll certainly be able to find something out there that will help you be more productive in your wording, spreadsheeting and presenting.
So, there are always…possibilities, and there are always options. Whether you like to get your Office in a box, you want to consider your wallet and go with Office 365, or you want to stick it to the big corporations and go open source, you’ll certainly be able to find something out there that will help you be more productive in your wording, spreadsheeting and presenting.
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