Should I buy MS Office licenses for my clients and keep the Install CD?

[techsamaritan]

I'm new in the business and it seems like EVERYONE is asking for MS Office for cheap. In my head, I'm thinking, why not buy 3 licenses of Office (whichever version), sell each license at a discount to my clients and if their PC dies, I can could potentially (not sure if this part is legal) reinstall it on their new PC...

Am I making sense or this something no one does? If not, then can anyone suggest where I can purchase these licenses cheap?

Thanks ahead of time for you help.

 

[Xander]

Can you find reference in Microsoft's EULA that says it's permitted to split up a pack amongst unconnected users? If you can... go for it (and please shoot us the URL 'cause we'd all love the update)

I have yet to hear of a company that is okay with that, though. "Friends and family", maybe. "Random customers of a technician"? That'd be new.

 

[ProTech Support]

What eHousecalls is trying to say, is come the end of the day there is no shortcut. If there was, we would certainly have discussed it already. Those amazing sites you find that sell licenses for $10 are not legit. MS does have volume discounts, but nothing worth looking into unless your buying at the enterprise level.

One suggestion I could make (and used to work well for me), is offering your cashed strapped customers OpenOffice, and making money on the labor of installing it. 100% pure profit and just as effective as Office.

Of course there are some other things you can do, like make a note of the serial key as a preventive maintenance when your customer brings their PC in (using a keyfinder) and keep it on file.

 

[classonepc]

Another option would be Kingsoft (previously mentioned here on Technibble).

I offer both to clients not wanting to shell out the MS price.

http://www.kingsoftresearch.com/products.php

 

[activeits]

Another option would be Kingsoft (previously mentioned here on Technibble).

I offer both to clients not wanting to shell out the MS price.

http://www.kingsoftresearch.com/products.php

There seems be a few sites for Kingsoftreseach, some saying it is free, others it is trial and buy now etc http://www.ksoffice.net/purchase.htm

Is it really free?

It looks like a very good product and unless you looked close at it, you would think you are using Office 2003. See links below

 

[Appleby]

I suggest the Home and Student version. It's much cheaper and it allows the users to put it on 3 computers. If they want to split that cost with their family or a friend, that is their business, not mine. But no, I won't sell dole out the licenses one at a time. First off, it's not worth the trouble and it's against MS's terms and conditions.

If they don't really need MS Office, Open Office or MS Works is a great choice. I really like Works and I've found for 90% of people, it's all they need. I REALLY appreicate MS for creating the Starter Edition that is commonly installed now on most new computers. I think that is awesome.

 

[frase]

googledocs? Very good for budget or tight wad clients

 

[joydivision]

If they don't want to pay for Office, it is Open Office or they can find a mug who is willing to install pirated software.

As for Kingsoft, that version of Office looks very much like a hacked version of Office 2003 to me, and being Chinese I would not be surprised if that is the case.

 

[Xander]

While they don't make it easy to find, the free version of Kingsoft Office is at:
http://www.kingsoftstore.com/

Might be fine for new docs. I tried opening up a brochure I've been editing in LibreOffice and it mangled it.