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That's good to know - I've never upgraded my Office on my Macs before, all I have experience with is in a previous job with Windows/PC Office, done by the IT department via remote push... in those cases it was "don't use Office today, and when we're done, you won't have the old version any more," hence my caution...

Just want to chime in - I have 3 versions of Office installed on my Mac, so not an issue. Also, Office 2011 is a much better product than 2008 by a huge margin. Make sure to install the service packs, which essentially are a big mid-cycle upgrade.
 
New Business Model like this is not good for me :)

I will stuck with OLD version
 
Office for Mac 2011 subscriptions

I contacted MS to find out how to buy Office 365 University (4 year subscription for 2 computers, Macs or PCs, for $79.99).

I was told that although I already had a MS account, I would have to create a new one using my .edu email address to be able to purchase Office 365 University.

I did so, purchased the product, and received an activation key. The product downloaded and installed. Then it prompted me for the key to activate the product. I entered the key but the product called it invalid.

Contacted MS support and the support person told me that to activate a subscription I would not use the issued key but rather my MS account login and password. He also told me the following:
  1. I did not need to create a second MS account to purchase the Office 365 University subscription.
  2. I would be prompted to input MS account login and password monthly to keep re-activating the account for the duration of the subscription.
Since I am interested to buy Office 365 Home Premium (1 year subscription for 5 computers, Macs or PCs, for $99.99) to outfit the other macs in my household, I asked if I would have to do the monthly reactivation in the other five macs with Office 365 Home Premium. He said that goes for every one of their Office subscription services, to account for reinstalls after hardware failure.

This does not sound like a good idea. I do not know why MS cannot allow the purchaser to activate/deactivate computers from his/her MS account as we can do with iTunes, rather than have the purchaser re-activate each machine monthly, or give their MS account credentials to all the other users in the household.
 
There IS a lot of confusion here over what Office 365 actually is. Unfortunately, the only way to figure it out is to migrate the maze that is the Office 365 website.

There are multiple ways to subscribe to Office 365. Some involve application subscriptions, some involve email hosting, and some involve both.

I recently moved a few domains to Office 365 email hosting from Google Apps. MS Office subscriptions weren't involved as they weren't needed, yet.
 
You can run both Office 2008 and Office 2011 at the same time.

Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint & Outlook) are the same for the retail Office 2011 and O365. O365 does include OneNote for iOS, more SkyDrive space & free Skype minutes plus the option to install on a Mac and/or PC.

O365 Mac Office is not identical to O365 Windows Office. You are limited to the current features for the platform. O365 for Windows has Office 2013. Mac installs Office 2011 which is older, Outlook Mac is way behind Outlook for Window.

Number of installs for retail will depend on what pack you buy. For example: Business One user/One computer or One user/two computers. We used to be able to use a license key on one dekstop and one laptop. No longer applicable in Office 2011.

H&S Office 2011 retail does not contain Outlook where the Home Premium of O365 does.

If you want the Exchange account for Business you'll need the H&B version. It's a violation of the EULA to to Home version for a business.

One big gotcha for the Academic version is if your computer dies, you replace your drive or get a new computer, you cannot transfer your license.

It's all a big confusing jumble.
 
Office 365 = Latest Office?

So... From what I can tell, Office 365 is basically a rented licence for the latest version of Office, whatever that may be on your platform. So if you are on Windows, it would be Office 2013 because that is the latest Office for Windows. On a Mac, it would be 2011 because that is the latest Office for Mac. Continuing from there, doesn't that mean that the Office 365 licence would be changed to Office 2014 once that version of Office for Mac comes out?

I also hope that in the spirit of making Office 365 complete, Microsoft makes Publisher and Access for Mac as part of Office 2014. I don't have much use for Access, but Publisher would be nice. Office for Linux would be nice too. :p
 
So... From what I can tell, Office 365 is basically a rented licence for the latest version of Office, whatever that may be on your platform. So if you are on Windows, it would be Office 2013 because that is the latest Office for Windows. On a Mac, it would be 2011 because that is the latest Office for Mac. Continuing from there, doesn't that mean that the Office 365 licence would be changed to Office 2014 once that version of Office for Mac comes out?
Correct.

I also hope that in the spirit of making Office 365 complete, Microsoft makes Publisher and Access for Mac as part of Office 2014. I don't have much use for Access, but Publisher would be nice. Office for Linux would be nice too. :p
It's hard to say. Historically Microsoft has dragged their feet in updating the Mac version of Office components. But, things might be changing... I was quite surprised to see OneNote for OSX so it is possible.
 
Correct.
It's hard to say. Historically Microsoft has dragged their feet in updating the Mac version of Office components. But, things might be changing... I was quite surprised to see OneNote for OSX so it is possible.

Microsoft announced recently that a new version of Office for Mac will be released later this year.

The new iOS apps while free require activation with a subscription to edit.

Office for iPad – how to activate

http://www.officeformachelp.com/2014/03/office-for-ipad-how-to-activate/
 
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