Students that are 13 years old or older in the US will now be able to quickly gain access to a free version of Microsoft's Office 365 suite of productivity apps.
Previously, students had to rely on their schools to give them the free Office 365 account, but today Microsoft announced that US students that attend a school that has already purchased Office for all of its faculty and staff can simply go to the Office 365 for Students website and enter a valid school provided email address to get their own Office 365 account.
This will give students a way to officially install Office apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and others on up to five Windows or Mac PCs and up to five mobile devices, along with 1 TB of free OneDrive cloud storage space and Office Online. Microsoft says:
"These changes not only make it easier for students to get Office, but it makes managing the services easier on school IT. In the past, organizations were required to initiate the service, create accounts and order the free licenses on behalf of their students. All this needed to be done prior to students being able to access Office and OneDrive. The new self-service model removes all of that unnecessary friction and delay by simply allowing eligible students to sign up for the service themselves, while maintaining the same level of control, flexibility and security institutions have come to expect from Office 365."
This offer will be extended to other students worldwide later in 2014. Do you believe this move is a good one for Microsoft?
Source: Microsoft
