Looking to Purchase Office 2010/2013 (frustration mounts)

[DeaconFrost]

I'm the IT Manager for a small, non-profit. I need roughly 35-40 licenses for Office, or an Open License that allows that many installs. In years past, I always purchased these things from TechSoup. However, we are no longer eligible. We are a 501(c)5, and organizations like TechSoup only give discounts to 501(c)3.

Microsoft's website directed me to several vendors, but they either tell me we're ineligible (given our charitable status) or they give me an outrageous quote, especially for our size non-profit. Dell, for example, quoted me $13,326 for 40 licenses.

Am I completely out of other options? Back when TechSoup still considered us eligible, I was able to buy a volume license key for Office 2007...same key for every install. Is that still an option, because it seems like Dell is just giving me 40 "off-the-shelf" licenses, aka 40 keys.

I'm frustrated, because I can't believe a non-profit this small would have to pay that much.

 

[jc836]

If you are dealing with that tight of a budget, might I suggest you consider switching to Apache Open Office. Functionality is pretty much the same.

 

[DeaconFrost]

One of the main reasons I was hoping to stick to MS Office was our extensive use of a SharePoint 2013 Intranet. I'll definitely download OpenOffice and play around with it. It has to be easy to use, because my users aren't big on learning new things.

 

[whs]

Did you check whether Office 365 might not work better for you.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Honestly, I haven't. Can you store documents locally and work on them using Office 365? I'd also have to look into how you'd open and edit a document from our SharePoint site (which isn't hosted by Microsoft).

 

[Mark Phelps]

because my users aren't big on learning new things.

Then ... switching to ANY open source alternative to MS Office is not going to go well. Even though these other products do MANY (not ALL) of the same things as does MS Office, the menus and screen layouts are different. For example, someone used to using the Ribbon menus in Office 2010 or 2013 would have considerable relearning to do in order to become equally skilled at one of the Office alternatives.

Then, there is the issue of "compatibility" with Office component file formats. All the Office alternative claim compatibility, but that is based on how THEY measure it. The one that is probably the most compatible is WPS Office (the renamed version of Kingston Office); others fall off from there.

And finally, the more complex your MS Office files, the poorer the compatibility results using the alternatives. For example, a simple MS Word 2007 ".doc" file will probably render quite well. But, bump that up to Office 2010, or even worse, Office 2013, and then add a few embeddings, and you get a rendering mess when using the Office alternatives.

Sorry, but the simple fact of the matter, is that the product that is most compatible with Office files is -- MS Office.

 

[DeaconFrost]

I didn't realize that some packages of Office 365 come with the installable version of Office, aka the Desktop Apps. We already have a CRM system in place from Microsoft at the non-profit discounted rates, so this may be a better fit!