If I recall my MS Licensing details -which tended to change pretty often - the catch was simple.
At first, you could run a license on two computers, i.e. Desktop and laptop, or office and home - provided they were used by the same single user.
If I recall with the subscription licensing, the same applies - one user, if they have more than one computer. (Or there was the Home version, I think up to 5 computers in the home).
The single user requirement made it difficult to have multiple people using a license. The license is tied to a Microsoft ID.
Some enterprises, especially smaller ones, did not do the volume license route, which required a level of central management and IIRC a commitment to volume. It was simpler to buy the retail version as they went along adding new users. When it came time to switch to subscription, there was no savings to “trade in” or upgrade the existing older license - these are licenses that some resellers are now offering for cheap. (i.e. Office 2016) They buy them from business and disposal companies that handle old hardware or software.
The catch was that for a lot of businesses, the bundle offered with the computer was the “OEM” version. The license for this was cheaper, specifically said it was tied to the particular hardware, could not be moved to a new computer. Some businesses, having been burned by the cost when upgrading hardware, opted for retail. Now that subscription is a fixed cost, they could recoup a little by reselling those retail licenses to a jobber. OEM cannot be re-sold or installed elsewhere.
The volume license, OTOH is for a single enterprise. Microsoft obviously can follow the IP of assorted computers being activated. I have no doubt (but no exact knowledge) that they have programs that track activations, and if their program considers that a key has become public and is being activated in too many random locations (by IP address) they will deactivate it. They can also detect if the activating ID is a member of the purchasing domain. So… a random volume license key? Waste of time and money.
You can get the entire Microsoft suite, including 1TB of One Drive space, for less than 100 per year for FIVE devices, it’s called Microsoft 365 and my wife has a subscription. She got it from Costco.
I have one for my small business that costs slightly more but comes with an email address and a few other perks.
So it doesn’t strike me as unusual that you could get just the office portion for that price…they’re just capturing untapped revenue sources at this point.
I have generally held that for the big software vendors they are happy just so long as they got some money out of you. They understand that there is a wide spectrum of users and that there is always going to be a group that, for whatever reason, are not going to pay full price. Leaving the door open for the grey market to address these users will always be preferable to having a black market of cracked software filling the gap.
Even distressed excess corporate licences dropped on the market is better.
Every user that goes in via this route is a user that didn’t go to the opposition. Something that creates a significant barrier to entry for competition.
The big dogs, MS and Adobe et al, get the lion’s share of their income from corporate and professional users. The ecosystem of home users just makes their hold on the money making markets more secure. Turning a blind eye to technical license breaches makes much more sense that attacking all but the most egregious behaviour.
We have this and for $99 a year we get it for five users and up to five devices for each user. I have it on a desktop, a laptop, an Android tablet and my Android phone. That’s just me; my wife and kids also use it. It’s a steal compared to the old buy-once pricing. Plus you are always up to date with the latest features.
The beauty of software is that the marginal cost of selling a license is virtually zero, unless you need tech support. Which is now usually offered on web forums with canned answers, so pretty cheap.
The real answer is that Google is your user manual. If you want to know something, the hard part is sorting through the excessive number of Google answers to find what addresses your particular issue.
Yes, I was looking at that - and it seems to include Outlook for email now. That was one of the showstoppers for buying a Home version back when I was looking - the el cheapo versions assumed you didn’t need the Outlook email suite.
Still, a one year subscription seems to cost about what I paid for a lifetime license.
One of my older PC’s had office 2010 on it. Microsoft has used the excuse that 2010 does not support newer authentication encryption to make Outlook 2010 no longer connect to their email servers - so disabling old Office products as much as they can; similar to the new DOCX, XLSX replacing DOC and XLS years ago to encourage upgrading. Outlook web interface is a pain compared to the program, plus does not do local data files.
Violating the license terms is a civil crime. The license is a contract and violators have breached it.
Adobe, for example, runs regular license checks. If they decide that you are using, as an individual, an OEM license that was issued to a corporation, they will deactivate the license and the subscription you thought you owned legally.
Mind you, you’re not likely to get charged/sued over it: there are far too many instances EVERY DAY for them to be able to afford to do that, but they will make sure you can’t use their programs under that license anymore.
Thought I’d resurrect a nearly 2 year old thread in case anyone wondered the outcome. I got a $50 Visa gift card that Christmas and thought i’ll give it a shot and if I lose my $35, no big deal.
Purchased it, downloaded it and the activation code worked without a hitch. I’ve gotten regular updates over the past year and a half. It’s definitely an Enterprise version because its MS Office LTSC Professional Plus version. Apparently the LTSC means it gets extended support after normal support ends in a few years.
Having the code for the banks safe doesn’t demonstrate that you own the contents of the safe.
You paid for a license, but all you have is a code.
and it appears you have evidence you do not have a license… You are not an enterprise, you can’t own the license for an enterprise version… you just have the code for the safe.
True. Which in this era of digital “piracy” raises the question of whether the goal is simply to avoid being caught, which the OP will probably succeed at and will have a fully functional MS product, or whether the goal is to do the right and honest thing. Such as not buying stolen goods from some guy in an alley or from a shady pawn shop.
I purchased a 2016 copy a few years ago and they sent me a code. It failed on install, their tech support (they have one) said try phone install - activate by phone, where you tell an automated system the code the computer displays and they give you a code to enter. That worked.
As I understand, these are “used” licenses. Under the “first sale” doctrine, the license belongs to the entity that purchased it. They are then entitled to resell it provided they follow the basic logic of a “single-use” license - if they pass it on to someone else, they must remove it from their computer. A lot of these came available as a company, for example, changes from local install license to the subscription model. (Or they downsize, or go out of business, etc.) These are not from what I can tell the bulk licenses where X Corp buys a group license for 1000 users, one code.
Thanks for this explanation. I was wondering how this is legal, and why Microsoft allows it.
This is how I (and many others, obviously) purchased Office in the past. I bought the 2016 version for 25 bucks through my employer and I have installed it on 5 or 6 computers since then. It’s past time to replace it, and I was looking at these ‘single-use’ licenses, but I don’t think I’ll go that route. I’ll probably end up buying Office 365 and buying it again and again and again…
This depends how much you use it. I might open Word once a week or two. For those for whom it is a daily tool for their job, why not pay the subscription? A dollar a day for an essential tool for your work is probably a bargain. But for those of us who just want the same functionality for occasional use, why pay more for that than for the streaming service you watch every day? However, from Microsoft’s point of view (or Adobe, or Quickbooks, etc.) there’s no way to distinguish the occasional home user from the heavy user except by removing features.
Right now it’s the oldest version of Office that can be successfully installed on Win 11. Down the road, I’d rather be a bit ahead of the curve than behind it.
But as far as new features go, no, that’s not the reason.