Before I start this week’s column I want to say, “Thanks!” to those of you who wrote in reaction to the last column.  Many of you wanted the latest version of Internet Explorer but have slow internet connections.  This kept you from completing the large download.  The $5 CD for IE turned out to be a great “workaround” for you.  I have even gotten one email from a reader who has already received their CD via first class mail.  That was quick since I just wrote about it last week.  I make every effort to help you as much as possible with “Double Click” and will keep at it.

Today I have an important announcement that may save money for you all of you college students and/or their parents.  I know the college year has already started for many but hopefully you have not purchased Microsoft Ultimate Office 2007 yet.

For at least the last 15 years (as long as I can remember) Microsoft has had a special deal for students with regard to MS Office.  The best I recall was when Office sold for a little over $169 and had a student discount to about $99.  This serves two purposes.  One is to help students defray some of the high costs of education.  The second is a little more self-serving on their part.  When those students graduate and become the business leaders of tomorrow they will incorporate the MS products from college into their business.  This yields more profits for MS.

Right now if you go to TheUltimateSteal.com and you are a college/university student at a “Registered” and “Approved” school you can get MS Office for $59.95.  MS says that this is 91% of the regular price.  Now that would mean it costs over $650; however, you have been able to find it much cheaper than that for quite a while.  Still, that price is excellent.

This version has not been shortchanged either.  According to the site this version includes all of the normal Office products plus InfoPath, Groove, Publisher and OneNote.  You must have either a school email address of other required documentation to prove the “Studentship” of the purchaser.  You can find out all of the pertinent details on the site.

Also, note that MS has changed their requirements a bit.  In the olden days (5-10 years ago) you could also purchase the “Student” edition if you were a higher school teacher, administrator or high school student so those features have changed.

I believe that one reason it has been this significantly discounted is that Office 2010 will obviously be available next year.  Next year you can do it all again and hopefully I will find out about this a little sooner in the school year.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 at 5:57 am and is filed under Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.