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Australian Students Can Get Office at 95% Off Retail
tora201 writes "Microsoft Australia is offering university students in that country Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate Edition for just $75 Australian dollars, a 95% discount off the usual retail price. Alternatively students can buy a one year renewable license at just $25, or download a trial version that can be later activated. Eligibility is determined through a valid Australian university e-mail address with payment made via credit card."
But the interface of Office 2007 is vastly different from that of OpenOffice. Those students may eventually be employed by someone who uses Office 2007 internally within their organization, and wants new employees to be familiar with it without any training, mandating prior experience. In this sense, the students being allowed to buy Office 2007 for cheap is a Good Thing for them.
Now, perhaps most companies running Office 2003/2007 could also have managed with OpenOffice, but that argument is not going to help a job-seeking student...
Quality, performance, value; you get only two, and you don't always get to pick.
The vast majority of Office users never really use more than a very limited subset of the available features. A univeristy level student should be able to pick those up in a span of a few days, if familiar with Office applications in general.
If you're aiming for a job which requires serious Office involvement it's a good thing to learn MS Office. But for writing papers, etc. buying it makes little sense. Spend a few hours every now and then in the uni computer lab and practice with MS Office instead.
.: Max Romantschuk
If the Ultimate Edition is being given away so cheap to students, why the hell did they ever came up with the Student Edition minus the frills? Which notably, costs more than the discounted Ultimate Edition for students.
"Never try to tell everything you know. It may take too short a time."