Provide MS Office at Reduced Rates

[Compbck]

A common complaint from customers when purchasing a new PC or laptop is, where is Word or Excel, I need it for my busines. As result, when re-building defective PCs or providing new machines I always offer a copy of MS Office Home & Student 2007 at a reduced rate.

In order to make this profitable, I bulk purchase copies of MS Office Home & Student 2007 (3-Licence version) and share the licences between 3 customers, and charge each a percentage of the full package, ensuring that there is a small mark-up for the business.

Most users only require MS Word & Excel, and PowerPoint is there for the students who require it for school presentation work, so it works for most customers, and of course it ensures that they have at least a legal copy of the product.

Purchasing the office packages at economic prices provides sufficient profit, and of course customers love it, which enhances the whole repair or makes a new PC a useful tool from the outset, without the need to install a lot of unwanted trial software. It also removes the temptation from customers who may consider acquiring a Pirate copy, something I am constantly disusading my customers from doing so.

The only downside to this process is the need to keep an accurate record of the Product Keys distributed to each customer, but the can easily overcome with a simple Excel file.

 

[Kitten Kong]

Hi there..

Can I ask, why you wouldnt install Open office?.. it is free to use, and compatible back and forth with m$ office..

 

[ProTech-MN]

In order to make this profitable, I bulk purchase copies of MS Office Home & Student 2007 (3-Licence version) and share the licences between 3 customers, and charge each a percentage of the full package, ensuring that there is a small mark-up for the business.

Most users only require MS Word & Excel, and PowerPoint is there for the students who require it for school presentation work, so it works for most customers, and of course it ensures that they have at least a legal copy of the product.

Umm.. you really need to read the licensing terms - you can't legally distribute those licenses across different customers.

Purchasing the office packages at economic prices provides sufficient profit, and of course customers love it, which enhances the whole repair or makes a new PC a useful tool from the outset, without the need to install a lot of unwanted trial software. It also removes the temptation from customers who may consider acquiring a Pirate copy, something I am constantly disusading my customers from doing so.

While I don't think it's really your intent, you yourself are guilty of distributing illegal copies of the software to your customers... Here's a little excerpt from the Office 2007 Home & Student Edition license agreement (take note of item 2.a):

AS DESCRIBED BELOW, USING THE SOFTWARE ALSO OPERATES AS YOUR CONSENT TO THE TRANSMISSION OF CERTAIN COMPUTER INFORMATION DURING ACTIVATION, VALIDATION AND FOR INTERNET-BASED SERVICES. IF YOU COMPLY WITH THESE LICENSE TERMS, YOU HAVE THE RIGHTS BELOW FOR EACH LICENSE YOU ACQUIRE.
1. OVERVIEW. These license terms permit installation and use of a copy of the software on three devices, along with other rights, all as described below.

2. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. Before you use the software under a license, you must assign that license to a device. That device is a “licensed device.” A hardware partition or blade is considered to be a separate device.

a. Licensed Device. You may install one copy of the software on three licensed devices in your household for use by people who reside there. The software is not licensed for use in any commercial, non-profit, or revenue-generating business activities.​

The full details of the license are available here.

I understand the desire to keep costs down for your customers, but you put your entire business at risk by doing this. I think you need to take a serious look at this and find an alternative solution.

-Randy

 

[vdub12]

Also don't you have to be in school to use the student edition.

I just install OpenOffice.org on my custoemrs systems. If they want office they need to pay for it.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

While I don't think it's really your intent, you yourself are guilty of distributing illegal copies of the software to your customers...

Yeah, the purpose of MS selling copies in bulk is for one client distribution among multiple machines. It' not meant to be a bulk purchasing option for cutting costs for multiple single license distribution. That's just like we sell quite a few copies of Office for Mac for many new and existing customers. A family pack is 5 licenses and is considered highly unethical to divy up copies of a family pack between customers. The Office Ultimate editions can be purchased cheaper by the students themselves if they have a student email address and go through The Ultimate Steal option. So if your customers are students you might actually be ripping them off by wanting to grab some profit off of being the one to sell them Office.

 

[Alan22]

A common complaint from customers when purchasing a new PC or laptop is, where is Word or Excel, I need it for my busines. As result, when re-building defective PCs or providing new machines I always offer a copy of MS Office Home & Student 2007 at a reduced rate.

In order to make this profitable, I bulk purchase copies of MS Office Home & Student 2007 (3-Licence version) and share the licences between 3 customers, and charge each a percentage of the full package, ensuring that there is a small mark-up for the business.

Most users only require MS Word & Excel, and PowerPoint is there for the students who require it for school presentation work, so it works for most customers, and of course it ensures that they have at least a legal copy of the product.

Purchasing the office packages at economic prices provides sufficient profit, and of course customers love it, which enhances the whole repair or makes a new PC a useful tool from the outset, without the need to install a lot of unwanted trial software. It also removes the temptation from customers who may consider acquiring a Pirate copy, something I am constantly disusading my customers from doing so.

The only downside to this process is the need to keep an accurate record of the Product Keys distributed to each customer, but the can easily overcome with a simple Excel file.

Compbck, I really wouldn't be posting this in an open forum...or anywhere else. I agree with everything ProTech-MN posted. To add to it, you need to provide the COA along with the original disc when you install the software on a clients box.

 

[iisjman07]

Yup, this is a very common issue. A significant number of customers think that you get office with a new pc, and as a result assume we're trying to scam extra cash out of them (and office isn't exactly cheap...). I have a cd of openoffice that I made that has a tiny batch file which auto-installs openoffice, which I use on customers pcs if they get annoyed.

 

[emsbronco]

Additionally, Office Home and Student is for "Non-Commercial Use Only". If you are setting up businesses with this version of Office, you are putting your business customers in a tough position. If they ever get investigated, they will also be liable for license infringement.

I keep Office H&S on the shelf in my store and offer it as an upsell on every home computer I sell. It's an easy upsell, between being cheaper than the full office package and getting 3 home use licenses.

For businesses, when I sell a computer, I offer OEM licenses of Office or OpenOffice, depending on their needs. I do explain that if they decide to go with Microsoft Office after the sale, it will cost more to get the retail version instead of OEM at the time of the system sale.

 

[Compbck]

Thanks for your words of wisdom Gents - In view of the comments of many of you, I no longer install MS Office, and now only offer the FREE! OpenOffice package to my regular customers. If they want an MS Office version they will have to pay the full going rate for their own licences.

 

[Pc Fixed Right]

wow that is one of the worst ideas I have ever heard. It is illegal and not a smart way to make money. You can of course always become an affiliate with Microsoft's Ultimate Steal Program and earn revenue by having people purchase it using your affiliate link. You can also charge for the installation service, you can even charge to make a disc for the customer by burning the ISO for them thereby avoiding all the legal ramifications of the original poster. Thats three different possibilities and no legal mess and you will make more money.

 

[mkeathley]

Thanks for your words of wisdom Gents - In view of the comments of many of you, I no longer install MS Office, and now only offer the FREE! OpenOffice package to my regular customers. If they want an MS Office version they will have to pay the full going rate for their own licences.

Wow, what a great response. You took the advice given, weighed the options, and a made a decision to err on the side of the law.

Keep that up and you'll do well here.

 

[parttimetechie]

Ems,

How do you go about buying the nesecary copies of MS Office? Do you buy them from a retail store and then mark them up or do u buy them from a wholesaler?