Apple giving huge discounts on Microsoft Office
November 26th, 2005 Leave a comment Visited 22 times, 1 so far today
Apple giving huge discounts on Microsoft Office
Macintosh maker Apple has silently launched a new program to lure more Windows OS user to their platform. They are now offering massive discounts for Microsoft Office with newly purchased systems. The scheme is called ‘Office Bonus’ offer and it will last till the end of January 2006. The scheme gives shoppers 50 percent off Microsoft Office for Mac when they buy a new Apple desktop or laptop.
Considering most of the computer users end up spending a lot of time in the various applications spanning an Office Suite, Apple is perhaps aiming for casual computer users with this special scheme. A lot of people are used to working on MS Office and are not very adaptive to Apple’s own office suite applications.
Consumers buying this discounted package can save from 50 pounds for a Student and Teacher edition, to more than 200 pounds for the Standard edition. Market experts believe that around one million Windows users would be making a switch to Mac platform this year.
Apple iPod is said to be one of the major driving force behind the return of Apple into mainstream software and hardware market.
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November 26th, 2005 at 11:30 pm
It would be hard for people to be very adaptive to Apple’s own office suite applications, seeing as how they don’t exist.
November 26th, 2005 at 11:41 pm
accepted apple does not offer a complete office ’suite’ but it does have independent applications in the form of:
iWork
Keynote
Pages
AppleWorks
FileMaker
November 27th, 2005 at 11:31 am
This is another example of smart marketing on Apple’s part. I don’t know what if anything this is costing them to do this given that they still probably receive licensing fees from Microsft for the windows desktop concept that Apple pioneered (which most people forget – the fees were part of a court settlement and I believe are ongoing) it may also be that they are just taking no profit of sales of Office.
In any case, the strategy is brilliant. While Appleworks does most of what Word can do for most of what a home user would want to do, the full fledged integration of Microsft Office is a nice thing to have on a Mac – noting this from personal experience.
The other option is to buy Virtual PC for Mac and use the Microsoft version of Office if you have a license for it. But, do you have one. This may well be the least expensive way to get Office while upgrading your computer at the same time.
Other things not mentioned. Because Microsoft for Mac came out after the last pre-Longhorn release, it has a few bells and whistles that PC versions do not have.
Next, anything you can print can be automatically converted to a pdf file.
Finally, much is made of the lack of software diversity for Mac. While that sometimes means that programs you would like to have are not available (oops now that I have virtual PC it doesn’t matter) that fact is that the vast majority of software on the market, could well be classified as iterative junk. Inexpensive, true, but junk.
The stuff that is ported over to Mac tends to be the best of the PC world. The stuff that originates on the Mac side tends to be visually stunning because that is where the Mac excells and those who want to work in that kind of playground, play where the ground is best. See Jim Coates review in the Chicago Tribune online today on the new Mac G5 if you want an unbiased review of where Mac is.
I am not one of those to slur Microsoft driven machines entirely, but face it, no matter how you slice it, there is a cost to shut downs, re-starts and problems with network viruses that is very serious and very real and any company that does not have a fair number of Macs somewhere with dedicated printers for emergency use in a virus emergency is just begging for trouble no matter how good they think their firewalls are. Multiple system operation increases safety. Period.
Peter Files, Comedy Blogger – and dual system user since 1984