More on Office for $75
As I mentioned earlier, AU Uni Students can buy Office 2007 Ultimate for just $75.
Long Zheng's noticed it too, and thinks it is 'a bomb waiting to explode'.
While I agree some retailers/partners are going to be a little annoyed at first, and heck, even some customers are going to be a little mad, yes…but from Microsoft's point of view, this is a win-win situation.
Case #1: It does explode.
The media goes into a frenzy as somebody kicks up a fuss about buying Home and Student 07 beforehand.
Point is, the media goes nuts about it, and Office 2007 gets a lot of exposure.
Worst case scenario, they refund everybody who bought H&S07 who qualifies for this offer.
Case #2: Partners get angry.
Then Microsoft reminds them that by giving Uni students Office for dirt cheap, they're encouraging them to stay in the Microsoft environment.
Partners realise that the more people that use Microsoft products, the more Microsoft products they can see (such as Vista), or better yet, the more hardware and more third-party software they can sell.
Microsoft creates an environment for third parties to enjoy, so the real money will be with keeping users away from the evil Mac/Linux worlds.
Case #3: Students enjoy this offer for what it is.
Users buy their product (even at a greatly reduced cost), and then…they continue to use Office, rather than Office/Microsoft alternatives, when they enter the workforce.
It also puts yet another positive spin on Microsoft, rather than them being the 'evil corperation' that they've been known to be in the last decade or three.
A very optimistic view indeed :)
You say they could refund everyone who bought H&S. But what about everything up to Ultimate?
It helps to be cheerful? ;)
Yeah, I guess that would be a problem. I suppose they could argue Home & Student was for..well…students, so if you bought the other editions, a big 'smeg you' to them?
I don't know, we'll both have to watch to see where this goes ;)