Office for Mac 2016 Retail Version Released, but only via Office 365?

[olletsocmit]

Ok so i finally say office for mac 2016 is out! I was looking around the net and everywhere takes you to the Microsoft site under Office 365. Even when you go to buy it you need to make a Office 365 account and pay 6 to 10 bucks a month... Is this the only way you can use office now a days? Just like the New Adobe Master Collection, only available if you pay monthly for it. If this is so, this really sucks! I just want to download it and use it. Not have a monthly bill and have everything liked to a office 365 account! I know its prob because everyone Torrents and they figure they will make more $$ charging monthly but Christ...

I just wanted to ask and also inform everyone else who did not know. I know a TON of you guys were looking forward to Finally updating your office for Mac. Guess you now just have to uninstall the current and have a stupid account to use Word now....

 

[olletsocmit]

UPDATE: Nevermind, its just for now. The regular "box set" that you download will be released at the end of the year.

MODS, PLEASE DELETE THIS THREAD.

 

[zone23]

TBO I was really confused by MS licensing for Office. Like you I don't want a subscription I just want to buy it and be done. People I have talked to who are sending their kids to college want to know if they really have to buy office every year. The way it looks too me the answer is yes you really do. Just another college expense like buying books.

 

[SuperMatt]

I downloaded the trial of Office 2016 when they had it available as a beta and it's still working for me. I guess at some point they'll disable it and make me buy a full version?

 

[Mcmeowmers]

Then you by the university edition that lasts 4 years for about $80. Has Word, Excel, PowerPoint and I think Outlook. You also get 1TB of OneDrive storage. I also got a $25 gift card. Quite a good deal!

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

TBO I was really confused by MS licensing for Office. Like you I don't want a subscription I just want to buy it and be done. People I have talked to who are sending their kids to college want to know if they really have to buy office every year. The way it looks too me the answer is yes you really do. Just another college expense like buying books.

Two points: If this is all you know about MS licensing, this is the tip of the confusing iceberg that is MS licensing. There are so many flavors of it, the only person that understands it all within Microsoft is some guy that lives in a cave on an island in slightly off center of the Indian Ocean that can be reached on the fifth Tuesday of the month.

2nd Point: I'd buy the Office 365 Pro: It's $100/year, but you get 5 computers worth of licensing, so the kids get a subscription, and you (or the parents that are sending the kid to school) can use it for a year. $400 for 5 computers for 4 years isn't a bad deal, especially when, if you buy the version that comes with the computer, the license lives and dies with that computer (it isn't transferrable - I mean the one that says, when you purchase the computer, it's installed for 30 days, then says, "Hey, if you really want to use me, you gotta cough up $129." It seems like a good deal until you get a new computer and want to transfer it there. Same with the O/S. The only time you can transfer it is if the computer dies, and you have a direct replacement from the manufacturer. It's a PINTA, though.)

 

[campyguy]

Then you by the university edition that lasts 4 years for about $80. Has Word, Excel, PowerPoint and I think Outlook. You also get 1TB of OneDrive storage. I also got a $25 gift card. Quite a good deal!

Then pay several thousand dollars for tuition and housing and food and then you buy the university edition that lasts 4 years for about $80.

There, fixed that for you. My alma mater costs about $14k per year, plus housing/books/food/utilities. I also got a degree in tech writing to go along with my dual engineering majors, so I also fixed that typo... (I ignored the grammar, since this is the internet, after all...).

 

[campyguy]

2nd Point: I'd buy the Office 365 Pro

There's no "Office 365 Pro", never has been. The "Home" and "Business Premium" versions include up to 5 installs, not including mobile devices - per account. I have one account of each subscription. The installs are transferrable, given that they're registered with MS via the account's Office 365 portal - the installs are mapped to the MS account; again, that's reflected in the account's Office 365 portal. I won't get into the OS license transferring, other than to offer that I've transferred my Windows 8 key number (32-bit) to several VMs, including a Win 10 64-bit OS that's running just fine (with an Office 365 installation, no less...).

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

There's no "Office 365 Pro", never has been. The "Home" and "Business Premium" versions include up to 5 installs, not including mobile devices - per account. I have one account of each subscription. The installs are transferrable, given that they're registered with MS via the account's Office 365 portal - the installs are mapped to the MS account; again, that's reflected in the account's Office 365 portal. I won't get into the OS license transferring, other than to offer that I've transferred my Windows 8 key number (32-bit) to several VMs, including a Win 10 64-bit OS that's running just fine (with an Office 365 installation, no less...).

Point taken... I used the wrong verbiage for the Office versions. You're absolutely correct with the Office 365 licenses being transferrable, but my point on the Office installations that come with the computer (I mean, you don't have Office 365 account; you buy the Office 2013 with the laptop - Windows World here) lives/dies with the computer. That is a good selling point for Office 365.

I guess I didn't make the other point about Microsoft licensing being a briar patch, however, this conversation is doing it well.

 

[campyguy]

Point taken... I used the wrong verbiage for the Office versions. You're absolutely correct with the Office 365 licenses being transferrable, but my point on the Office installations that come with the computer (I mean, you don't have Office 365 account; you buy the Office 2013 with the laptop - Windows World here) lives/dies with the computer. That is a good selling point for Office 365.

I guess I didn't make the other point about Microsoft licensing being a briar patch, however, this conversation is doing it well.

One more clarification, just to be helpful. I/We have several non-Office-365 licenses of Office - 2007/10/11/13 - including the fairly rare Office Professional 2011 with 2-licensed installs that belongs to me. All of those purchases - digital and boxed - came with a 25-digit Key Number, and not one of them is tied to a PC or Mac but, rather, the Key Number and MS's authentication system; I've had to call in a couple of times when we've sold a PC or Mac and are installing Office on a new device to authorize the install.

You're describing the OEM license that comes with a PC, which is a different type of license altogether and, AFAIK OEM licenses have never been issued with Macs - and I've been buying Word for Macs since version 4 and Office for Macs since "version 6". I never use an OEM-issued license for Office as we don't buy crapware-infested PCs; we keep that OEM license in the PC box and it goes with that PC when it's sold or donated, opting to install our own licensed SW. It's my company, so that's what we do!

My MS rep related to me recently that MS will be hosting several events in September and October for HW and SW, and it's likely the new standalone Office licenses for both platforms will be announced about the same time, and that's when we'll upgrade our older licenses; I'm demoing Office 2016 for Windows and it's still a work in progress and my rep believes that the backend change for Outlook.com (the portal, not the application) should be rolled out by then. I've been living with subscription SW for 25 years (like AutoCAD), it's just a fact of doing business but I also want the alternatives you want - heck, Office 2007 is still working just fine and is pretty much Ribbon-free... Cheers!

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

One more clarification, just to be helpful. I/We have several non-Office-365 licenses of Office - 2007/10/11/13 - including the fairly rare Office Professional 2011 with 2-licensed installs that belongs to me. All of those purchases - digital and boxed - came with a 25-digit Key Number, and not one of them is tied to a PC or Mac but, rather, the Key Number and MS's authentication system; I've had to call in a couple of times when we've sold a PC or Mac and are installing Office on a new device to authorize the install.

You're describing the OEM license that comes with a PC, which is a different type of license altogether and, AFAIK OEM licenses have never been issued with Macs - and I've been buying Word for Macs since version 4 and Office for Macs since "version 6". I never use an OEM-issued license for Office as we don't buy crapware-infested PCs; we keep that OEM license in the PC box and it goes with that PC when it's sold or donated, opting to install our own licensed SW. It's my company, so that's what we do!

My MS rep related to me recently that MS will be hosting several events in September and October for HW and SW, and it's likely the new standalone Office licenses for both platforms will be announced about the same time, and that's when we'll upgrade our older licenses; I'm demoing Office 2016 for Windows and it's still a work in progress and my rep believes that the backend change for Outlook.com (the portal, not the application) should be rolled out by then. I've been living with subscription SW for 25 years (like AutoCAD), it's just a fact of doing business but I also want the alternatives you want - heck, Office 2007 is still working just fine and is pretty much Ribbon-free... Cheers!

Thank you for the clarification! How is Office 365 for Windows? I'm looking to update the VM's to it; the one thing I'm hoping for is wider 64 bit apps, especially for Excel and Access. I have yet to write the 2GB Word file.

Yeah... I have been typing these between meetings, but I forgot what the OEM version was called. Thank you for the well written clarification!

 

[campyguy]

Thank you for the clarification! How is Office 365 for Windows? I'm looking to update the VM's to it; the one thing I'm hoping for is wider 64 bit apps, especially for Excel and Access. I have yet to write the 2GB Word file.

Yeah... I have been typing these between meetings, but I forgot what the OEM version was called. Thank you for the well written clarification!

No worries. I too, have been typing and chatting between calls and client meetings - it's a good way to sometimes learn and sometimes help, and to blow off some steam.

I have mixed feelings - no formed opinions yet - about the 64-bit version of Office 2013. MS has been "steering" users toward the 32-bit version because - from what I've been told by my rep and tech support - so many of the add-ins are still 32-bit, and that was part of the rationale for leaving the Mac version at 32-bit since so many of Mac users aren't aware of the little Get Info check box. I understand, but IMHO I've been offering MS a big, fat "whatever...".

To get you some feedback, 64-bit Access is an impressive beast - plain and simple. 64-bit Excel flies and spits out results before I can press the "Return" key, or so it seems - I can't envision using this tool in college 25 years ago when I started performing environmental modeling and graduate-level engineering statistics (I was the only undergrad in that program, and I did have a life too...). But, we haven't dialed in any of our Add-in modules yet, resorting only to data storage and some light number crunching as tests. FWIW, we're getting our fastest results using Win 7/8.1 in a Boot Camp partition on a rMBP with 1TB SSD and 16GB of RAM - and I know how to make a PC scream. The upcoming 2016 Windows sweet improves on 2013 considerably but it's still a bit buggy in its current build - only Word seems to be nailed down and I don't use PowerPoint any longer (or Publisher or any of the other ancillary cruft included with the Win suite).

I've got 64-bit Win 10 installed in a Parallels VM, and it's a big improvement over the 32-bit version in terms of stability and speed so far but I'm only about a week into Win 10 and not investing any time or money in porting to the new OS until the first "service pack" equivalent comes out - I saw a major update come out just a few days after Win 10 was released and read "major bug fix" into that. Win 10, once sorted out, will be a nice platform for the upcoming Office suite. I've archived my 32-bit VMs for now and am using only a couple of 32-bit OS installations on physical PCs; I DLed the 64-bit Win 10 OS trial into Parallels Desktop, then "upgraded" it to Win 8 64-bit, then Win 8.1 64-bit, then the latest OS - but now I have workable, activated clones of each OS.

If I hit a snag or get a revelation, I'll post it here - but, if you have a chance to test the 2013 64-bit Office suite and don't have add-in conflicts, I'd offer a "go for it, and you won't regret it". I wish that the Mac team could just port that suite over. Sigh.