Microsoft Office 365 University launched for college students

Microsoft is targetting the top 55 education institutes in India, 563 universities and 34,000 colleges

Microsoft on Tuesday announced its product Office 365 University would be available for both full-time and part-time students of accredited colleges and universities in India. The product would be available only through online purchases, a first for the Indian market.

With this product, the company is targeting the top 55 premier education institutes in India, as well as 563 universities and 34,000 colleges.

Through a four-year subscription, students have to pay Rs 4,199  — around Rs 87 per month — for access to Office products such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access. The suite of offerings also includes Office on Demand (which lets users use the office suite even on PCs which don't have the software installed, if it is connected to the internet), additional 20 GB SkyDrive storage and default save to SkyDrive. A single user can install Office on two personal computers.

Office 365 University, available with immediate effect, would also be accessible to faculty members of accredited colleges and universities. Students in the final year of a course would also be able to secure Office 365 for four years.

“The special pricing for students will help provide them opportunities and empower them to develop the necessary skills to be successful in the fast-paced campus environment, making them future-ready as they join the workforce of tomorrow,” said Ramkumar Pichai, general manager, Microsoft Office Division, Microsoft India.

Sukhvinder Ahuja, director (cloud and office), Microsoft India, said for some time, Office 365 University would only be available online, as this would avoid misuse of the product. “We have a whole list of education institutes in India and, therefore, identifying students from colleges would be easy. In case a student is not able to register online, he/she can send us a scanned copy of the identity card or report card and within 72 hours, he/she would get access to Office 365,” he said.

“The student community is the largest user of pirated software of Microsoft. This pricing and offering will ensure a high number of users start using this version. So, from zero revenue, they will start making some money in this segment. Second, if students like the offering, it would be huge mouth-to-mouth publicity,” said Vishal Tripathi, principal analyst, Gartner.

Ahuja said the offering wasn’t for school students or young professionals. “If the student passes out of college and does not want to use Office 365, he can still access their data and take a printout, but cannot edit it. We are very clear that this offering is not misused by anyone,” he said. Those who want to continue using it can avail of Microsoft’s services offering at $12-24 a month.

“This is certainly a strong proposition from Microsoft. They have come out with a good strategy. It is clearly not about getting market share, but a future-ready market for the Office 365,” said Alok Shende, founder and director, Ascentius Consulting. He added though Microsoft had been a tad late with its Office 365 offering, it had come out stronger. “This offering shows its serious efforts to curb piracy,” Shende said.

Analysts say for once, Microsoft might just have a better strategy than its competitor Google. “From an advantage point of view, Microsoft gives you constant user experience across platforms. On the flip side, I think the user base it is targeting is not high. If Microsoft can come out with such an offering for consumers, it would clearly have a better usage of paid consumers,” said Tripathi.