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Microsoft Office 2013 now available in the UK

by Mark Tyson on 29 January 2013, 15:00

Tags: Office 2010, PC

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Microsoft Office 2013 is now available for UK users to buy online or on the high street. There are three versions of the office productivity suite on offer in the Microsoft online store ranging from the Home & Student one user version at £109.99 to the Professional version for one PC at £389.99. The suite you choose is the same price for the downloaded or boxed shipped versions. Also standalone versions of the Office 2013 applications Excel, Outlooks, Powerpoint and Word are now available for £109.99 per copy.

The latest version of Office has, as you might expect, been built to fit into the new Windows 8 user interface philosophy. The suite is designed to be both mouse and finger friendly with “touch everywhere” control and stylus inking and note-taking. Steve Ballmer singled out the cloud aspect of the new software “The new, modern Office will deliver unparalleled productivity and flexibility for both consumers and business customers. It is a cloud service and will fully light-up when paired with Windows 8.” Indeed SkyDrive, Office-on-demand, Yammer and Skype can help users be more Office-connected via the cloud.

Specific enhancements to the main software components of Microsoft Office are as follows

  • Word: PDF reflow, Live layout and Reply comments
  • Excel: Flash fill, Quick analysis and Recommended charts
  • PowerPoint: Slide zoom, Slide navigator and Merge shapes improved
  • OneNote: Windows 8 Tablet enhancements, Inking improvements, In-sync Skydrive improvements
  • Outlook: Peeks, Inline reply, Social connection improvements
  • Publisher: Swap pictures, Online picture and Mail merge improvements

Microsoft seems to be quite keen to get people to subscribe to the Office 365 Home Premium suite for five PCs/Macs. This costs home users £79.99 per year and provides users the same suite components as the Office Professional buyer but with up to five home users plus the addition of improved cloud services like; 20GB of SkyDrive storage and 60 minutes of free Skype calls per month.

If you have bought a copy of Microsoft Office 2010 since 19th October 2012 (and up until 30 April 2013) you will be elibible to upgrade to this latest version for free.



HEXUS Forums :: 27 Comments

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Got full package through my firm on the HUP for £8.95 :D Totally legit.
Ouch Home and Student has gone up in price (2007 was £60 regularly). I think this is risky by Microsoft - Might push people to start checking out alternatives. I know I've switched to google docs for personal documents.
jnutt
Got full package through my firm on the HUP for £8.95 :D Totally legit.
Ditto here - Office Pro 2013 for £8.95 v's £389. :D Great timing because I had to reinstall my HUP version of Office 2010 and it's now decided that it can't be activated (for reasons unspecified). Speaking of Office Pro though, it also comes with Lync.

Not sure I'm convinced by the latest Office iteration - for a start it looks pretty ugly unless you slap the “Dark Grey” theme on it. On the upside I like the easy cloud integration.
If you have bought a copy of Microsoft Office 2010 since 19th October 2012 (and up until 30 April 2013) you will be elibible to upgrade to this latest version for free.
Anyone got more information on this - I've got the Home&Student pack on the rest of the family's gear - bought last month - and would like to be able to upgrade. But when I checked the page that PC World linked to it seemed like the only game in town was Office 365 at some crazy price (£90 for three machines is reasonable, £90 per machine for the upgrade was not).

EDIT: spoke too soon - it's http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/offer/ (although that website doesn't seem to like Chrome on Ubuntu at all)
I may go for the subscription option, I'd rather have everything and not need it than need it and not have it, though I religiously like to keep my card details from Microsoft lol, I wonder what way they manage the annual renewal…
Not appearing on my technet account yet…hmmm….

Although TBH, the last few versions haven't added anything that I've needed to use……