Microsoft Office 2010 University vs Office 365 University

I got a new laptop and am looking to upgrade my version of office. Microsoft switched to the new subscription based plan and I was wondering if I should get the subscription for office 2013 or buy a perpetual license for office 2010. The 2010 University edition is $79-$100 (depending on where I can still find and buy it) for one perpetual license and the University 365 costs $79 for the latest version/updates and 2 transferable licenses for 4 years. Any opinions/experience?

 

Don't confuse Office 2013 and Office 365. They look the same but they are not the same underneath.

Office 2013 is delivered just like Office 2010; install from a disc or USB or exe or whatever. It's a locally stored program, just like all your other locally install programs. As with previous Office, you pay once.

Office 365 is the subscription service. It is partially local, partially cloud. It has more relaxed installation allowances (basically you can install it anywhere you want) and for some reason they present Office 365 to Macs as Office 2011 (if you need such cross-platform, you got it!)

It's very possible that sometime in the next three years another Office will be released, and if your subscription covers migrating to that, then it is the better deal down the road.

 

4 years gives you quite a run for the money. The trend is that there is a new version of office every 3-4 years, so by going with the 365 University edition, chances are that by the time it has expired, there will be a new edition anyway. But if you do that and aren't a student in 4 years, you'll probably be looking at full price in future.

Would you prefer to own your car or lease it?

 

I definitely prefer owning the perpetual license in case I don't need to upgrade in the for more than 4 years. Does anyone know if Office 2012 University comes with a FPP license or a PKC license? l would prefer the 2010 version if I could install it on multiple computers (not at the same time).

 

Traditionally, 2010 comes with the optical media for installation and is not a download, so I believe it's FPP (full packaged product). But you still need to provide Microsoft with the necessary credentials (I think either a student email address or faxing a student I.D. suffices) in order to receive an activation key to install it.

But, it's only for 1 PC/User. I don't think University offers multi-user licenses.

 

Not exactly on topic but thinking a lot of eyes here would be interested:

Office 2013 licenses can now be transferred to another PC | Microsoft - CNET News