Microsoft Office Discount

[MacRumors]

News.com reports (http://news.com.com/2100-1040-960208.html) that Apple and Microsoft have teamed together to offer a discount on Microsoft Office with a new Mac.

Beginning Tuesday, buyers of new Macs can pick up the full version of Office v. X for $199, or about $200 less than the full purchase price. The promotion ends Jan. 7, 2003.

[beatle888]

im stil waking up...let me have a cup of coffe and i'll get back to you :p
ok ok.
if the user purchased a Windows system instead then microsoft would make
more money off of them. why would they support people in a decision to buy
a mac? especially when Office is a big factor in that decision?
ok so they choose to support apple users with office. but why just office?
is that the only title they have? if they want software sales from apple
users they should offer more software.

[Hemingray]

Maybe this will keep M$'s mouth shut when it comes to whining about Apple not promoting its hardware enough. One reason I've never purchased Microsoft Office v.X is because of the price. If I was buying a new Mac I'd definitely take advantage of this offer. Too bad I'm not buying a new Mac. Back to Word 98... :rolleyes:

[mr evil brkfast]

I will definetely consider Picking up Office for this price when I pick up my new ibook some time in the next month or two.

[robMaurizi]

The date does seem to coincide with MWSF, though, making me wonder if the Apple / Microsoft "friendship" is coming to an end...

We've heard a bunch about IE going away, and a deal on Office suggests to me that Apple wants to unload remaining copies of Office v.X so as not to eat them when the agreement ends...

$.02..

-Rob

[P-Worm]

Does it seem odd to anyone that the offer ends the same day as the MacWorld keynote? Very ineresting...

Maybe StarOffice for OS X? What do you guys think?

P-Worm

[psxndc]

Microsoft, if you're out there:

I do not like you. I don't like your company, and I despise your OS. I do like some of your applications though. I think Word and Excel are the best out there and I think Outlook is fantastic. That being said, I cannot justify paying 1/3 what I bought my laptop for for Office. $500? C'mon.

I was even going online the other day saying, "You know what? I really _need_ MS Word. I am willing to pay around $150 for it". Well unfortunately that is the upgrade price with the full price being $370. I simply cannot justify that sort of expense given that I do not own a previous version of Word.

Do not worry, I will not get pirated copies of your software. I could, but I won't. I have dealt without it this long and as long as the price remains what I believe to be unreasonable, I will. Pirating it just lumps me into a group you use to justify pricing it as you do citing lost profits, etc.

It is a shame really because I was willing to pay X for your product, and X wasn't even half the price. On top of this, I am a professional that makes a decent living. $500 is a ridiculous amount to charge just about any individual. Businesses are a different matter but half a grand for one person? Maybe you should reconsider why Office is not selling on the Mac platform. It is not the slow adoption of OS X I assure you.

-p

[uhlawboi80]

yeah, i'm not really sure why M$ thinks its office suite is really worth $500. Its NOT the best around, and frankly when M$ office managed to pull the rug out from the Corel suite (wordperfect, lotus, etc) i was shocked. Wordperfect et al were much better programs and still are. StarOffice is also a great suite and could easily be adopted by Apple.

all that aside, i simply got M$ office because the idiots give it to students at big schools for 5$...

[iShater]

Well, this should give a boost to Switchers! :D

[MidnightRambler]

MacWorld SF 2003


Jobs takes the stage....


...and one more thing. MS Office X will now be bundled with all new PowerMac and PowerBook purchases.


You heard it here first. ;)

[theaz]

And people wonder how Apple has managed to return to profitability.

It is quite clever the way that they are managing to play off both Sun and Microsoft. Both companies realise that the the Mac platform is profitable and good for business. Microsoft knows it can earn big money by setting big margins, consequently earning more than on a PC sale. Sun knows that if it can get a footing on the Mac platform, then it will boost its market share.

That leaves both companies with two choices: embrace the mac platform and earn money, or ignore the platform and allow your competitor to better develop their footing on it. Microsoft does not want Sun to get a firm footing on the Mac, so amongst all the rumors of Sun developing an office suite for Mac, they are left with one alternative: embrace. And in doing so, due to the high margins on their products for mac, they probably view this to be a profitable move.