A few months ago we were racking our brains trying to figure out what a reasonable price would be for a subscription-based version of Microsoft Office Home & Student 2007. In the end I estimated that Microsoft would charge at least $5 per month, but probably not more than $10 per month. The software suite itself retails for about $150, but with a little shopping around you can find it for about $110.
Good news. Today Microsoft announced that in the middle of July 2008 over 700 Circuit City stores around the United States will be selling their subscription-based product dubbed Microsoft Equipt. With it you get full access to Microsoft Office Home & Student 2007 in addition to the Windows Live OneCare antivirus software. The price? It will be $69 per year, which works out to just $5.75 per month. Not too bad considering you’ll always get the latest version of Office and OneCare as part of the subscription.
Here are some screenshots of what the service will look like:
(Click to Enlarge)
Naturally I began crunching some numbers to see whether this was as good of a deal as you might think it is. As I mentioned earlier you can go buy Microsoft Office Home & Student 2007 for $110, and OneCare is already a subscription based program that will cost about $30 per year (MSRP is $50 a year). So the real value depends on how long you’ll have Office 2007 for. Here’s a breakdown for you:
If you have Microsoft Office Home & Student 2007 for [insert number of years] before upgrading it will cost…
- [1 year] = $30 + $110 = $140 per year
- [2 years] = $30 + $110/2 = $85 per year
- [3 years] = $30 + $110/3 = $67 per year
- [4 years] = $30 + $110/4 = $58 per year
What does this all mean? If Microsoft releases a new version of Office at least every three years (and you always upgrade right away) the subscription package is actually a reasonable deal.
Don’t forget the fact that both Office Home & Student and OneCare come with licenses that are good for up to three computers, and the same goes for your Microsoft Equipt subscription. If you have three computers that you would use the software the price-per-PC actually isn’t all that bad.
The interesting thing is that Microsoft hasn’t said anything about this being offered in other countries besides the United States, and for that matter it appears that only Circuit City will be selling it. I’m not quite sure why Microsoft wouldn’t offer something like this for download online?
“The interesting thing is that Microsoft hasn’t said anything about this being offered in other countries besides the United States, and for that matter it appears that only Circuit City will be selling it. I’m not quite sure why Microsoft wouldn’t offer something like this for download online?”
Here we go again! Not available outside of the U.S.
“Here we go again! Not available outside of the U.S.”
and it appears you are from US (specifically U. of Oklahoma). So, what are you complaining about?
Odd that you’re forced to take OneCare. That’s quite a waste of money if another solution is better.. (and OneCare is not really known for how good it is)
I used the O.U. logo because it matches with my name (Omar Upegui). I had no idea it was the University of Oklahoma logo. I’m located in Panama in Central America. Sorry about the confusion.
My guess is that this is just a pilot run to see if the demand is there. If it starts to take off I’m sure it will be offered in other countries as well.
Yeah, but think about the solutions that the consumers have when going to the store to purchase this. It’s pretty much just Norton or McAfee, and so OneCare isn’t all that bad in comparison to those. At least OneCare won’t expire on them assuming they renew the subscription every year, because a lot of people I help are running antivirus software that hasn’t been updated in years.
That’s actually kind of funny. Whenever I saw the logo I associated it with the university, but never really thought about how you don’t even live in the United States.
True, it wouldn’t be worse than an expired McAfee or Norton subscription, but using a good free anti-virus might be better and for sure a lot cheaper. In my opinion these prices are not good enough (except when a new version is going to be released soon), but without the OneCare subscription price they would be great
Although they probably wouldn’t drop the price by much if OneCare was removed. I think OneCare is more like a “freebie” for those that buy the subscription package. Their primary concern right now is to get people using Office 2007 so that making the switch to free alternatives like OpenOffice is more difficult.