There are three different editions of Microsoft Office 2004:
* the Student and Teacher edition
* the Standard edition
* the Professional edition
Of these, the S&T edition is the cheapest, since for ~£90 (Amazon.co.uk),
you get three licenses, which means that you can install it on up to three
different Macs in your household. By the way, you need a license to use
Office, no matter which version you're using. The S&T edition's licensing
conditions are different from the other editions, though: as Shar has
already mentioned, this edition is not eligible for upgrades, meaning that
if you wanted to buy an upgrade to the Standard or Professional edition,
you'd have to pay the full price. Other restrictions are that you cannot use
the S&T for commercial purposes, and you need to be either a teacher or a
student, or the relative of a teacher / student to be able to buy this
edition. Note that the S&T edition contains the entire Office suite; it is
by no means a watered-down version of the Standard edition.
The Standard edition is a lot more expensive and gives you only one license,
while the Professional edition contains Virtual PC in addition to the
regular Office applications. Note that Virtual PC will not work on Intel
Macs, so if you're planning on upgrading your Mac anytime soon, keep this in
mind.
You can check this website for more details:
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http://tinyurl.com/yrn7h>
Generally speaking, the best deal is of course the S&T edition, provided
that you meet the conditions mentioned above and that you do not need to use
Office commercially. The recommended price for the S&T edition is between
£90-£100, but I'm sure you can find it on eBay or other resellers' websites
at a lower price than that.
I want Microsoft Office for my Power Mac G5, running OS X.4 (Tiger).
I've looked round, and I've seen that Office 2004 (which I assume is
the best version for the Mac?) varies enormously in price. - Microsoft
list its RRP at over £360, whereas I've seen it elsewhere online for
as low as £25.
- Why this difference in price? - Is it a licensing issue? - Do you
need a 'licence' to use Office, which is somehow only available in the
expensive versions??
What is a fair price for MS Office for the Mac, and where is a good
place to buy it from (within the UK)
Thanks. All help is appreciated.
--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)
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