Microsoft Office ebay prices

[dannyboy]

As I am treating myself to a new laptop next week, I thought I would get the 2016 Home and Student version of MS Office, as I have been using the 2010 version since, err, about 2010. My query is this - a physical disc of the programme is around £120 in Argos and yet, on ebay, I can appear to buy the Office Pro Plus version for around £7. I realise that the ebay description states that it is a download and licence key, but why the price difference?    Would I be getting the genuine article for £7 - any pitfalls to this? 

[ntpntpntp]

£7 for a licence key sounds dodgy to me.

I switched over to Office 365 a couple of years ago, so I get a licence for 5 PCs (covers all the family laptops and desktops).  OK so it's about £70 a year, but we use it all the time and of course it auto-updates as-and-when required.

[ntpntpntp]

Unless you need to use any of the new features introduced since 2010 there is no need to upgrade.

That is indeed very true for many people.  If I remember correctly we only upgraded due to my lad's school and college work being created on newer versions of Office. Probably PowerPoint or something like that.

[Graham Walters]

I use Libre Office,  its free ( donations are accepted) and it has all the functionality of MS Office and can read all the files created in it.

[Railwaygun]

I'm still on Win7 +Office 2003- does all the simple things very simply!

Although this was done on my Big Mac with Office 2011- too many icons though.

[njee20]

I tried using Libre office for a while, it was just different enough to make me really frustrated every time I used it, but then I use Excel a lot and am probably more used to it than many.

Re: the £7 licence key, it'll work just fine I'll wager, but it won't be entirely kosher.

[dannyboy]

Having looked on both ebay and Amazon, there certainly seems to be an awful lot of people happy with the system of downloading the programme. Certainly food for thought, although I must admit I am happy with how my Office 2010 is performing. I am not sure how many laptops since 2010 I have installed it on, but I will see if I can install it on the new laptop. Thanks for all the replies. 

[njee20]

It may be kosher. You can get similar deals though Amazon resellers for Microsoft Office 2016 Professional plus, I'm sure Microsoft would force Amazon to remove these listings if it wasn't all above board. The fact that they are for the Professional version would indicate that the seller has some kind of volume licensing deal with Microsoft. A company I worked for a few years ago had a deal with Microsoft where employees could buy an installation disc and a license cheaply to install on there home computer.

There are so many outlets Microsoft will never shut them down. They may well have a legitimate deal to buy licences in bulk, but that won't extend to flogging them on the web cheaply!

Like I say, it'll work fine, and it could be all fine, but ask yourself... why would these be available given the true retail cost  of the software? As long as you're happy then I'd say fill your boots!

[PaulCheffus]

Hi

I paid £9 for Microsoft Office 2013 through work as we had a special arrangement with them so it is possible to get it very cheap.

Cheers

Paul

[Graham Walters]

Just saying, if it works, but you suspect it may not be 100% Kosher, turn automatic updates off. If you don't Microsoft can detect it is a rogue copy when it updates !   You will get an email and an invoice for the correct amount.

[Graham Walters]

Just saying, if it works, but you suspect it may not be 100% Kosher, turn automatic updates off. If you don't Microsoft can detect it is a rogue copy when it updates !   You will get an email and an invoice for the correct amount.

Thats not quite true.... imagine them knowing what enail address is yours!!
😂🤣☝️

the bot will detect if it is kosher copy by the digital signature, at worst it will backdate the software to a trial copy, and give you 14 days or so.
It's a simple DLL file that you have to upload, but if you don't turn off updates you have to keep swapping the DLL file

[njee20]

To be clear, when I say it's not legit, I don't mean it's a fake and you're actually getting Microsaft Orifice, or there's anything actually wrong with the code, it's that you're almost certainly buying something which has been procured through slightly nefarious means.

Yes, there are plenty of employee advantage programmes which enable you to buy a copy for a nominal sum (I've done it at two separate organisations), but the point of those isn't that you can sell them on, which is what these folk are doing.

Like I say, it's such a widespread problem they'll never stop it, and it's possibly part of what's driving Microsoft towards a subscription model. Fill your boots, I would, just know that someone is breaking copyright law somewhere along the way.

[Malc]

I bought Windows 10 Pro + Office from Software Geeks while they were having a run of special offers.