[Repsol]

Originally Posted by .HEM

My friend got me a office 365 from a US website(azdigitalsoft) for $2.99, they say its 100% genuine.

Originally Posted by swami

I was also curious and I went to the website and purchased an account for USD 3.

I consider the $3 as a sunk cost and will never use the account in the future.

Really sorry to hear about your purchase. Indeed, consider it as a lost $3.

Based on the above post, I too went and checked the details of that offer (seemed too good to be true). That's when I read the below details in the description. Simply left it there !!!

[R2D2]

Originally Posted by Repsol

Really sorry to hear about your purchase. Indeed, consider it as a lost $3. Based on the above post, I too went and checked the details of that offer (seemed too good to be true). That's when I read the below details in the description. Simply left it there !!!

IF you buy one of these cheap accounts on different sites including eBay you should be aware these are either enterprise/business or school level subscriptions that allow for 1000s or 10s of thousands of users. Some people possibly administrators with few ethics are known to sell these online for a few dollars as you have seen. Please note:

a) The account can and will be terminated at any time when either MS and/or the parent organisation is made aware of the theft of licenses
b) Administrators and super admins can and do snoop into your pvt. emails and files under some circumstances
c) Forget about privacy. Do NOT upload personal data to those OneDrive cloud storage accounts.
d) You can download and use the desktop apps without fear but making sure you never save to the linked Onedrive cloud drive only to local storage OR your own personal account on OneDrive or Dropbox or Google Drive.

How do I know? Well, I have business (and family) level Google and MS subscriptions paid for by me. And I also purchased several of these shady accounts as a test many years ago. And to my surprise some still work!

[NiInJa]

I got the student license back in 2015 which gives me Word, PowerPoint and Excel, which are enough for my needs. I am not a big fan of subscription for such apps which you are going to use throughout your lifetime.

For professional use, I have no other alternative than using MS Office as most of my work involves using an Excel Add-in.

[jmshaw]

I too wrestled with this question back in 2017 when I left my corporate job to start on my own. Which meant no more free software

Free alternatives were tempting, but then while dealing with PPTs, Word docs and Excel to be shared with clients, I could not afford clients saying not compatible or not displaying correctly..

So decided to stick to MS Office. Next decision..Subscribe or buy?
I was getting the Home Office edition for 3-4k in 2017, thought it was a no brainer. Plonked down that money and haven't looked back.
Last December, a windows update broke my laptop and i was forced to reinstall Windows. When I reinstalled MS Office, it refused to accept my original Licence code. I was mentally prepared to fork out money for another licence as I didnt even remember which reseller I purchased from Amazon.
However, did go through my purchase history and contacted the reseller without much hope. But..Surprise surprise! He sent me another free Licence for MS Office and worked perfectly well!
Was real happy for once that I had put that money down that time on genuine software, so I was able to get access back with a smile on my face

[vsathyap]

Voted for the Subscribe option. I usually end up buying a 5-user (from last year) or a 6 user licence (till recently they had this option) every year and share it with my family members and a friend. Works out very well and the added cloud storage is a fantastic bonus. My dashcam / action camera video recordings go to the cloud now and its good to watch videos from older years - specially those on wonderful stretches of road.

When we spend 2-3K on a tank full of petrol that lasts around a couple of weeks without even blinking or thinking twice, I'd say an office 365 subscription for something close to 4-5K and one that lasts for a full year is totally and completely worth the peace of mind and the familiarity of usage it offers on all my PCs (and to its users).

Take my money Microsoft!

[Route66]

Subscription it is.

I purchased the 5 user subscription which is shared within extended family.

When my iPhone memory became full, i was thinking of purchasing additional iCloud storage which i think was around INR 200 per month. My brother-in-law was also in same situation. We did some research and got MS Office 365 subscription, we get 5 TB storage across 5 accounts for that same amount and MS Office suite Free of cost.

[vamsi.kona]

I believe it depends on the usage. If someone uses MS only for occasional word processing and PPT then alternatives can be fine. But for users who use Excel heavily, I would say one can buy MS Office just for that. I have used Google Sheets and other alternatives, but when it comes to heavy excel functionalities, didn't find them as user friendly as MS Office.

Also the easiest way to save the docs to Cloud is downloading google Drive onto the PC and create a Folder for it to Back up. All documents that need to be accessed anytime on multiple devices are saved in the folder, which automatically backs the file to Drive. If at all one has to collaborate extensively, that too very frequently, then Office 365 it is.

As of now, I believe the alternatives work very well for moderate users.

[arunns]

I have purchased MS Office via the corporate plan, its a flat fee of $10 per personal system. One needs to procure the license using the corporate mail id. Its part of the Microsoft Home User Program (Microsoft HUP). It validates your corporate mail address and then allows to you procure the license at a literal throw away price. Sometimes these corporate level tie ups are the eligibility of the reduced price license is not very well publicized. If you are part of a large company that uses MS products, do check once. I have seen many in our Org who were not aware of this program though it has existed for years now.

[GrandTourer]

For work, Office 365, no two ways about it. Nothing can beat the sheer capability and functionality MS Office products possess.

However, if it is for personal use, look no further than Google Suite. It gives a lot of flexibility using APIs and comes close to MS Office. Nothing your personal work will throw at it that it can't handle. I personally don't feel the need for MS Office for personal stuff.

[parambyte]

Use a Mac and have been using Apple Numbers, Pages and Keynote without any problem for years now. All three open MSOffice files and export to MSOffice as well as standard formats so sharing with other folk is not a problem.

I stay as much away from Google as is possible.

[roamer012]

Originally Posted by arunns

Sometimes these corporate level tie ups are the eligibility of the reduced price license is not very well publicized. If you are part of a large company that uses MS products, do check once. I have seen many in our Org who were not aware of this program though it has existed for years now.

Thanks for the info and same can be checked at this link. I checked (with my corporate email id) and i received following mail:

Hello,

Thanks for your interest in the Microsoft Home Use Program. Unfortunately, you‘re not eligible to participate through your current employer. Eligibility is determined based on your employer’s relationship with Microsoft. Please make sure your corporate email was entered on the Microsoft Home Use Program eligibility validation page.


If you have questions about your eligibility for the Microsoft Home Use Program, please reach out to your employer’s HR or IT administrator.

Sincerely,
Microsoft Home Use Program

[KGS]

My company recently shifted from Google Suite to Microsoft suite. Both suites have their own pros and cons.

While Outlook, Word, ppt are strong points for O365, I loved the ease of use for Excel by Google. It even had the feature to track who modified it, when and what was modified. This helped us to keep a close eye on doc version. Also Google excel is much easier to manager for average user. As I am not a pro or advanced user, I will not be able to comment on the advanced aspects.

Overall, if asked to vote for one option, I will definitely go with O365 for complete peace of mind.

On a side note, Great thread guys. While I was joining this forum, I thought I will be bombarded with threads about Petrol, Diesel, EV, How to service your own car and similar car related nerdy stuffs only. But in reality along with the super helpful car and some bike threads, having an all-round discussion on general life, gizmos, software, investment, etc. make this forum even more unique and lovable. Hats off to the moderators and members for managing such a high quality forum.

[anumod]

I would recommend you to go for the subscribe option. The multi device syncing and the Machine Learning which is used to give you prioritized documents in your devices and browser will save you lot of time.

(PS : I work for Microsoft, and for Office division, so my observation might be biased, but most probably right )

[EightSix]

I have a Mac desktop, a main Linux computer with a windows virtual machine and an iPad. I use G-Suite for school, pages-keynote- (and seldom numbers) for personal projects and we did have a pirated MS OFFICE on the VM.

G Suite still remains the best for its ease of use and of course because it is free. We used libre office too for a while when we had not entered the Apple eco-system, but it was boring and had compatibility issues. Only after that, I used Google Docs (G Suite) and also WPS Office on the Linux for quite some time and then there wasn’t really any need to pay for office suite. For current Libre Office users, I recommend they look at WPS Office

These days we use G-Suite for Education, but I have observed that the iPad and mobile apps have limited functionality. Same thing with Office Online which I tried for a while.

(I’m posting this after GSuite became Google Workspace BTW.)

Bottomline: I like to experiment with softwares and such applications. When there’s free alternatives around, I see no reason why I should pay. Yet, I’m only just a light/moderate user and if you’re like me then you can save that extra money you’d spend on MS Office.

[prasi55]

Reviving this thread.

The biggest benefits of the Office 365 subscription, as I see it, are the 1TB cloud storage space and MS Excel. I am an intermediate-advanced user of MS Excel and it does have features and usability beyond what's available with the alternatives.

But for personal users who do not require that much cloud storage or MS Excel, it seems any of the free alternatives would work. Is it worth paying close to INR 7000 per year? This number will only increase in the coming years.