- Microsoft Office Mac Perpetual License Key
- Microsoft Office Perpetual License For Mac
- Microsoft Office Mac License
- Microsoft Office Mac Perpetual License Key
There are plenty of free Office utilities out there. But in this article we’ll look at commercial licenses that still exist as both perpetual and subscription.
Office ‘perpetual’ This applies to any business users who have purchased Office licences with a ‘one-off’ payment rather than an annual subscription plan. Microsoft is using the term Office ‘perpetual’ which is a little strange because the term ‘perpetual’ isn’t used in any of Redmond’s own product listings. Microsoft on Monday released Office 2019, its 'perpetual-license' product for both Windows 10 and the Mac platform. However, the Office 2019 product is only available now for Microsoft's volume.
It is amazing to witness dramatic changes that have occurred in the software industry over the past five years. With the rise of active players such as Google and Facebook, the way we compute has changed significantly. Microsoft, being the defacto standard for office productivity suites for nearly 25 years, has been challenged by the dynamics of the Cloud and how software is acquired, delivered and used. The Office tools that Microsoft continues to charge for are free from Google, Apple, and even Microsoft, too.
I remember 15 years ago, our family invested in an upgrade license for Office 2000 Premium, at the time the cost was $350. Keep in mind, this was an upgrade, not a full license and it was only for one PC. This meant you needed to have a qualifying previous version of Office or a competitive suite such as Lotus SmartSuite or WordPerfect Office. Thankfully our IBM Aptiva had Lotus SmartSuite 9 which was used for the eligibility check. A year later Microsoft released Office XP, for us being naïve and enamored with having the latest and greatest spent another $330 just for the Professional edition. That was near $700 spent in just one year on Microsoft Office suites. No wonder it became Microsoft’s biggest cash cow.
Fast forward to 2015, you can now pick up an Office 365 subscription for just $7 (per month), but it’s interesting how much Microsoft is making Office even more accessible by making it affordable and easy to get, whether you are running OS X, Windows or even just a web browser. If you don’t need all the whizz-bang features of the suite, you can settle for the free Office Online, which includes essential features. The focus of this article though is not the free version, but commercial licenses that still exist as both perpetual and subscription. First of all, let’s define the two:
Perpetual – also known as a one-time purchase. Before Office 365, this is how everyone acquired a license for Office. You bought the suite from a brick and mortar store or an online merchant website such as amazon.com, which came in a shrink-wrapped box containing install media, a license, and thick user manual. You inserted a disc and installed the suite and used it forever on that computer or if the computer died or you got a new one, you transferred the license to that machine and continued using Office. You can still get Office this way, but it’s becoming the least preferred route.
Plan – with the introduction of Office 365 in 2011, Microsoft introduced a subscription model for the Office suite for the first time. The company has played with the idea of a subscription for Office as far back as Office 11 but never brought it to market until now. Subscriptions work like most utilities; you pay for the service for a certain amount of time. You can purchase Office 365 on a monthly or annual basis.
Office 365 is available in eight editions, but we will focus on the core versions available to consumers that include the following:
Personal | Home |
Microsoft Word | Microsoft Word |
Microsoft Excel | Microsoft Excel |
Microsoft PowerPoint | Microsoft PowerPoint |
Microsoft OneNote | Microsoft OneNote |
Microsoft Outlook | Microsoft Outlook |
Microsoft Publisher (PC only) | Microsoft Publisher (PC only) |
Microsoft Access (PC only) | Microsoft Access (PC only) |
1 PC or Mac | 5 PCs or Macs |
$70 per year or $7 monthly | $100 per year or $10 monthly |
For the perpetual license (one-time purchase), Office is available in the following editions.
Home & Student | Home & Business | Professional |
Microsoft Word | Microsoft Word | Microsoft Word |
Microsoft Excel | Microsoft Excel | Microsoft Excel |
Microsoft PowerPoint | Microsoft PowerPoint | Microsoft PowerPoint |
Microsoft OneNote | Microsoft OneNote | Microsoft OneNote |
Microsoft Outlook | Microsoft Outlook | |
Microsoft Publisher | ||
Microsoft Access | ||
1 PC | 1 PC | 1 PC |
$150 | $230 | $400 |
Fifteen years ago when we purchased Office 2000 Premium for our IBM PC at home, that was the only computer we had in the house until we got a donated Zenith GT workstation. I had to lie to Microsoft Product Support to get Office 2000 activated on that second PC (product activation was not introduced into Office 2000 until Service Release 1).
My brother who was away at college had to depend on his old trusty Office 97 Professional license and my other sibling had to purchase Office 2000 Professional for his family PC at the time. For many families or households, this remained a reality for a long time. I should note; Microsoft introduced a Teacher and Student edition with the release of Office XP in 2002 which included rights to install on 3 PCs within the same household, but this was a complicated version requiring appropriate verification to qualify and did not grant upgrade rights to future revisions of the suite.
Today, it’s not surprising for a single person to own multiple computing devices such as a desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone and something in between. If you were to purchase an Office perpetual license for all those devices, it would probably be so overwhelming that it could push you to consider piracy. I am sure Microsoft does not want that, and they don’t want you using free alternatives either which is a good enough option for many. Microsoft doesn’t want you to run older versions on your devices either. It was a standard approach for users such as myself to hand down versions of Office to another computer if we had more than one device.
This is where the value of Office 365 subscriptions comes into play. Instead of making Office more expensive and hard to choose, Microsoft makes it easy to install on multiple devices and maintain the latest version across all of them. Another significant difference is support for non-Microsoft platforms such as OS X, iOS, and Android. If you own an HP computer, MacBook, iPad, and a Samsung Galaxy Note, you could purchase an Office 365 Home subscription and have Office on all those devices. With a license to spare for just $10 per month or $100 per year versus paying $400 for a single Office Professional license and having it stuck on one PC. In contrast, a perpetual license would limit you to a PC-centric device only. We all know, that’s not the reality of how we compute, it’s not surprising for households to have a mix of platforms in their home too. Managing Office 365 licensing is much easier. With Office 365, users have a portal where they can assign, revoke the license from machines they are installed on which removes the chore of product reactivation.
Microsoft Office Mac Perpetual License Key
Another significant aspect of Office 365 is the cloud. Although one-time purchase Office provides access to cloud services such as OneDrive, the real value is the ability to store more. With an Office 365 subscription, every device gets up to 1 TB of storage while perpetual Office tops out at 15 GBs, which is still significantly a lot for some users. Then again, Microsoft had to throttle the service after a user abused its unlimited plan by storing up to 75 TBs of data, which would prove persons are embracing the cloud. I love using OneDrive and having access to my files anytime, anywhere, any device. Skype is also another benefit that Microsoft adds to Office 365 giving users 60 minutes a month of free calls for each user.
Probably the greatest value Office 365 over its perpetual counterpart is the fact that it’s a living suite. You are always up to date and are entitled to the latest versions of Office when they become available. Microsoft revises perpetual versions of Office every 18 to 24 months. Office 365 gets features the minute they are available. So a perpetual license user would have to wait two years and purchase another full license to get new features that an Office 365 user would have gotten within two years of being on a plan.
The cost also upfront, remember I mentioned earlier our situation when we bought Office 2000 in 2000, then ended up having to purchase the latest version Office XP a year later. With Office 365, scenarios like that do not happen. Everybody gets the latest version and latest features. Regardless of these valuable benefits is there any value at all of still choosing perpetual Office?
One immediate advantage is the licensing scheme (if it even matters at all). Office 365 subscriptions are licensed for Home Use only unless you move up to one of the business plans where it starts getting expensive, and you don’t even need those versions because of the features they carry. Office 2016 Professional can be used for both home and business purposes. I honestly don’t see Microsoft coming to your door to find out if you are compliant with how you use the suite. I am not saying you should ignore it, but it’s something to keep in mind. If you do end up running a small business, you probably will see the value in moving up to one of the business plans which adds support for Microsoft’s business mail server software.
Microsoft Office Perpetual License For Mac
If you are a user who does not like the upgrade treadmill and likes to stick with a version much longer, then a perpetual license remains the best option. Microsoft will usually make significant changes to functions in the suite with certain versions, and this can be a limitation for users who have developed an inside/out knowledge of using a version of the suite. Internet connectivity is also another aspect of owning and using Office 365, to get those regular updates; you need to have a decent Internet connection. For someone such as myself living in a rural area, updates can be a pain with Office 365 but not significant enough to make it a deterrent.
Those are small trade-offs, though, and it’s clearly evident, Office 365 is the future of Microsoft Office. Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella described Office 365 as the company’s most important API. The subscription is growing each quarter too with more and more users opting for it, as of October 2015 there were an estimated 18 million subscribers. Overall, I think the best way to make a decision that to choose is based on pricing, paying $400 upfront versus $70 for a one-year subscription? You could get four years’ worth of subscription with access to new revisions and features as soon as they become available and still have change left over. It does not get any clearer than that.
Microsoft is aggressively pushing customers to Office 365 subscriptions by changing its support requirements in October 2020.
The future of Microsoft Office is subscriptions. That sums up what the company confirmed recently in a blog post notifying users about its plans to wind down support for standalone versions of Office aka perpetual licenses; which want to connect to its Office 365 cloud services. That means versions such as Office 2010, 2013 and 2016 will no longer be able to access O365 cloud services such as Exchange Online, Sharepoint Online, OneDrive for Business or Skype for Business by October 2020.
The company is not ending development of perpetual versions of the suite, but users will need to move to the latest versions in order to access all of Microsoft’s O365 Cloud services. For example, Office 2016 which was launched in September 2015 will have its mainstream support end in 2020. So, if you don’t cut over to a Microsoft Office subscription by then, it will no longer be supported to connect to Microsoft’s cloud services.
Microsoft Winding Down Support for Perpetual Versions of Office
One of the key benefits of Office 365 versus Office 2016 is the ongoing delivery of new features and functionality. Office 2016 Professional Plus has pretty much stood still since its 2015 release, receiving only security updates. Office 365, on the other hand, has received numerous improvements and features such as improved collaboration, business intelligence enhancements in Excel and Motion Path in PowerPoint. For many users, the standalone suite remains attractive, especially for organizations that need control over access to features in the suite. Here is what Microsoft’s Ron Markezich had to say about the changes ahead.
When customers connect to Office 365 with a legacy version of Office, they’re not enjoying all that the service has to offer. The IT benefits—particularly security—are cut short. And the end user experience in the apps is limited to the features shipped at a point in time. To ensure that customers are getting the most out of their Office 365 subscription, we are updating our system requirements.
Microsoft Office Mac License
- Office 365 ProPlus or Office perpetual in mainstream support required to connect to Office 365 services. Starting October 13, 2020, Office 365 ProPlus or Office perpetual in mainstream support will be required to connect to Office 365 services. Office 365 ProPlus will deliver the best experience, but for customers who aren’t ready to move to the cloud by 2020, we will also support connections from Office perpetual in mainstream support.
- Applies to Office 365 commercial services only. This update does not change our system requirements or support policies for the Office perpetual clients, Office perpetual clients connecting to on-premises servers, or any consumer services.
- More than three years’ notice. We’re providing more than three years’ notice to give IT time to plan and budget for this change. Until this new requirement goes into effect in 2020, Office 2010, Office 2013 and Office 2016 perpetual clients will still be able to connect to Office 365 services. Source
Microsoft Office Mac Perpetual License Key
Users can read further details about the changes at the company’s Tech Community website. Microsoft is slowly nudging users to move to Office 365, which actually offers greater value in the long run by being cheaper up front, plus it’s continually updated with new features and flexible deployment options. Three years is ample notice, especially for versions such as Office 2010, which would have been expected to stop receiving support by 2020.
The dream of Office as a service goes back as far as Office 2003 when Microsoft had originally planned to offer its suite as a subscription, but the market wasn’t ready. Office 365, first launched in 2011 has evolved over the years to become a consistent revenue generator for the software firm. The rest of the industry has followed suit, brands such as AutoDesk, Adobe, and Intuit have also moved their business models to subscriptions.