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We are a small business providing IT products and support for a number of small to medium businesses in our local area. Providing new PCs with MS Office has long been a big part of what we do. With Office 2013 OEM, it seems that activation requires creating a unique MS account for each installation with no obvious way around it.
This is utterly stupid. Office is supposed to activate on HARDWARE - not an individual. Companies that have many computers and a high turnover of staff use the same computer for many different people. Linking Office to an individual's email account is a very bad idea - especially in a business environment where using personal email is not acceptable.
Creating a company-wide MS account to activate all the software seemed like a usable workaround; until MS informed us that each activation had to be with a unique account.
Add on to this the confusion that many people face when asked to create an MS account of their own and activate their software (things that are completely unfamiliar to many of our customers) and MS seem to have created a support nightmare for us front-line support engineers.
And what about re-installing Office in the future? If an MS account is created but only used for the Office Activation, surely it will expire after so long?
And what about customers that have no internet access? They do exist! How are they supposed to use the software?
MS have tried to cut out their long-time sales partners by introducing and pushing subscription-based Office 365, which eliminates the profit we made from selling physical products with machines - and the latest Office OEM versions that we CAN sell have shot up in price to almost unsalable levels. Volume licensing is also not a solution for many businesses that simply do not have the cash flow to purchase large numbers of licenses at once. Customers also do not want to be tied in to subscription services for software that they are used to owning outright with no recurring costs.
We desperately need an easy solution to this - any suggestions appreciated. Or should I just start recommending OpenOffice to our customers now?
Thanks,
Alex
EDIT 12/04/13:
It is even worse than I thought originally. I have just been contacted by a customer complaining that they activated their new Office 2013 using the Administrator account before rolling the machine out to their user, only to find that Office then prompted the user to activate AGAIN when they logged on. it then refused to activate again, saying that it had already been activated!
This is completely unacceptable. Some customers have a large turnover of staff using the same machine; most require at least a couple of different users. What are MS playing at?
Processes in Microsoft 365 for setting up Office apps, redeeming product keys, and activating licenses.
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Really? You have got to be kidding? So a client that has a perfectly good email system should scrap it ot use word and excel?
Office 365 is NOT just Email. You can just buy Office ProPlus without buying email, sharepoint or lync services.
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I just can't believe how Microsoft is screwing this up more and more with Office 2013 for simple one-off system installs.
I have done a few machines in the past purchasing a Product Key Card and then using a "full offline installer" to install and activate in order to get around having to go through all of the Microsoft Account creating garbage to get the installer because I know the users will never utilize that Microsoft Account. Now tonight setting up another system I can install the product fine the same way I did before with the full offline installer but now when I plug in the Product Key Card serial number I am forced to "activate" the product with A Microsoft Account. This is so ridiculous. I just want to activate the dam software that I purchased without having to jump through 10 hoops.
It's just so pathetic that things can work more and more smoothly every year and then they just come out with this brand new horrible looking package with such a messed up activation process. Boggles my mind. These people should be fired for coming up with these stupid ideas.
Welcome to the cloud......Moooooooooooooo..... Mooooooooooooooooo Moooooooooo
We are a service company and cater to companies who are willing to pay good money to not have to fool with this. We won't be in business long if we hand them a key card and say go get 'em tiger.
When will enough be enough with this unscrupulous company.
If you know how to fuss around and where to go, you don't need a separate Microsoft account. You can use your company account and link it with a live-id. (They make this hard to find) Just go to signup.live.com and you can use the existing address.
If you think like a marketing predator (like Microsoft), you see that Small business is ripe for the fleecing as they have already milked the corporate **** dry and the stock won't grow trying to sell upgrades to big business, so now its time to set the cannons on the SMB marketplace. Why do you think you MUST have or associate with a Microsoft account?
1.) we hope you signup with a dummy account and forget what it was. You will never be able to reinstall your software without it. Translation $$$ Go buy another copy because your stoopid to loose it"
2.) OEM gets one install. ONE. Thats it. You get another computer a year from now and try to install it on a second device, Sorry Charlie, you can't move it from your old machine to your new lap. $$$ Translation - go buy another copy $$$$
3.) Your grandma just got a new computer for $350 at Walmart, but alas, it doesn't have Word. She doesn't need excel, access, outlook or none of that, just word. Sorry, you can't install your retail copy on your Grandma's computer, even if you are going to be staying with her for six months and will be the primary user. You get two installs with a retail copy . Your home computer and work computer or laptop. No more passing it around. It doesn't need to call home, it emails your machine ID to Mother Microsoft and unless its the same serial number on the motherbard + serial number on the hard drive + memory manufacturer and type you WILL NOT VIOLATE our licensing agreement anymore. YOU DON"T "OWN our software. You are leasing it any way you look at it so you might as well pay 0365 $15 per month for ever and ever and we will let you install it on up to 5 personal devices, and that covers your grandma, grandpa a couple of kids and you.
Assimilate yourself into the herd....be absorbed by the borg .... resistance is futile.......
(Oh by the way, we WILL need your birthday and your cell phone number for your protection, along with personal information like where you went to school, and who your favorite author was and who was your teacher in third grade to protect..... and compile demographic information on you) Leaving this personal and confidential information out is not an option if you want to use OUR word processor.
Of course, there is also Libre and Sun office for free, and it will do a swell job if you don't want to put up with this ****, but business and people in general are lazy and will be herded right to the Microsoft slaughterhouse and as a valued Microsoft Partner, we want to THANK YOU for turning over all your customers to us so we can sell to them direct and cut you out of the picture. That's why you are VALUED PARTNER. Money is a one way pipeline to Redmond, WA Microsoft.
Office 365 and Click to Run have changed the distribution paradyme (wow, I never thought I'd be able to use that word in a sentence legitimately <grin> rather than the "paradyme shift" cliche") .
For single computer purchases, you can install it without activating it. Just give them the product key and instructions on how to activate.
For multi computer customers you, and they, have to get used using the 365 "Administration Portal" to distribute software in the corporate setting. With Office 365, a new "install" literally takes minutes from scratch. And it can be driven from the Portal or locally after the user has been authorized to install 365. Check out the "Garage" series of blogs. It focuses on installs. They even have a set of stupid stunts showing 365 installs in dumb situations (parachuting ... )
There should be a word for the combination of arrogance and ignorance in this post.