Customer Reviews

Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003 (OLD VERSION)

5 star:		(109)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I'm waiting for the day when software becomes more expensive than the actual hardware to run it (it should happen soon, considering the trend in computer prices these days, right??). In the meantime, I'm happy that Microsoft at least offers a lower-priced version of their software for those pursuing academic endeavors.

The Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003 is basically identical to their standard Microsoft Office 2003. It contains:
- Excel 2003
- Outlook 2003
- Powerpoint 2003
- Word 2003

What it does NOT contain (compared with the professional and small business versions) is Access 2003, Publisher 2003 and the Outlook 2003 version that has a Business Contact Manager - none of which would be particularly necessary for students.

Microsoft stresses that this version of their Office 2003 is only for non-commercial use. You qualify for this edition so long as you are 1) a full- or part-time student enrolled in a K-12 institution, 2) home-schooled, 3) taking at least 6 credits at an accredited college/university, or 4) a full- or part-time faculty member and work 20+ hours at a school.

It retails at the amazon price, which seems like a lot until you remember that the Standard version is sold for over two hundred dollars more. There is no discounted upgrade price for the academic version, but this is still probably the best price you can get. AND you can use the software on up to three computers, so long as someone in your household qualifies (for instance, if you have a child who qualifies for this version, you can upload it onto your computer as well and use the software even if you do not qualify for the discount).

If you are a college/university student, I would suggest visiting your school bookstore before purchasing this software. Microsoft offers academic volume licensing through a lot of colleges/universities, where you can get the same software for up to 70% off if you qualify. Check out [microsoft website] for more information.

It was hard for me when I originally made the transition from WordPerfect to MS Word/Office, but once I did I never looked back.

The Students and Teachers edition is an excellent value as it contains 4 full versions of programs that cost more individually than you'd pay for this entire bundle.

The catch? First, by installing the software you are agreeing that you are a student or teacher engaged somehow in academia (no, they won't send people to your house to check...it's an honor system kind of thing). The other catch, and the one to really pay attention to, is that you can't upgrade these programs like you could if you purchased the individual program or one of the other Office bundles. This means that if a Word 2004 upgrade becomes available one day you could not install it to upgrade the version of Word that comes with this bundle. You'd either have to buy the next edition of the Students and Teachers bundle or purchase another full version of Word (either in one of the other bundles that Microsoft Offers at substantially more than the S&T edition or as the stand alone program which still costs more that the S&T edition).

Small price to pay, however, as the money you save in obtaining the Students and Teachers edition will still allow you to buy upcoming versions for generations to come and you'd still come out ahead as this bundle is such a great deal.

I thought there was little Microsoft could do to improve Office. After all, a word processor is a word processor. Outlook, however, is a whole different story. This is probably worth the upgrade alone. Not only does it group your email better (today, yesterday, last week, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, last month, older) but it's ergonmically better on the eyes. It now reads like a MS Word document now - full screen - instead of the old "split screen" way with much of the text on the bottom.

There are other little improvements though that are easily overlooked. For example, no more of the annoying "new mail" message poping up in the middle of your screen like in XP/2000. Now the sender and subject of the message "fades in" in the task bar area of your screen, stays there for 7 seconds, and "fades out" if you don't do anything. You can even set the transparency and time to fade out - cool! Let's say you don't want to open it, but know you want to do something with it later. Flag it right there! Just click the flag icon and its selected for "follow up". You can then act on it when you get ready.
You can also set a reminder on a message much like a meeting reminder. It works just the same except now when you open the reminder it opens the email message.

Of course if you don't need Access, the Student/Teacher edition is the way to go. I bought mine at Best Buy and the salesman said they don't ask for ID, or even care for that matter. And keep in mind you can use it on up to 3 computers. If you're like me and you spend most of your day reading, writing, sorting and replying to email, go get this upgrade. You won't be disappointed.

Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003 is the academic-priced version of the "standard edition" of Office 2003. In functionality it's identical to the standard edition and comes with the four major components of Office:

- Word (word processor)
- Excel (spreadsheet)
- PowerPoint (presentation)
- Outlook (e-mail, calendar and addressbook)

Missing from this package are Publisher and Access, but very few home or educational users would need these programs, especially with regard to Access.

While you do not need to prove to Amazon or any other retailer that you are a qualified "academic user" before buying this package -- that's right, *anyone* can purchase it -- you are at legal risk if you are not a qualified user but still use it. A qualified user is:

- any student in K-12 to grad school, full-time or part-time
- any home-schooled student
- any faculty or staff of an accredited educational institution (K-12 and beyond)
- any household member of such an ademically affiliated person

So the qualifying criteria are pretty generous, and the license lets you install the software on up to three PCs in your household. The only other requirement is you not use the software for money-making purposes.

Anyway, Office 2003 as a whole is a minor upgrade from Office XP ("2002"), which was in turn a minor upgrade from Office 2000 (except for XML support, which 99% of users don't care about). The only significant upgrades were in Outlook, which simply gets better and better with time. Outlook 2002 introduced integration with Hotmail, and the new version in this package has better security and more robust e-mail support. One feature I like in particular is the ability to password-protect your Outlook data file, which was not available in Outlook 2000 and prior.

All four applications run smoothly and I'm very happy with both the performance and stability. I never had a problem with Office 2000, and hopefully I won't have any problems with Office 2003. BTW, you must be running Windows XP (either Home or Pro), or Windows 2000 with service pack 3 or later, in order to run the version sold on Amazon, which is the latest version. I also recommend at least 512MB of RAM in your PC, otherwise you'll find running multiple applications (e.g., Word and Excel at the same time) somewhat sluggish.

The software comes on a single CD-ROM and includes a 46-page getting started guide. If you are completely new to Office you may want to get a third-party book like the excellent Microsoft Office Inside Out.

If you qualify, this academic edition of Office 2003 is simply a great value. It deserves five stars for offering a rich and useful set of features and solid performance, and another five stars for being such a great value. If you don't qualify, marry or move in with someone who does! :)

PS: If you wonder whether you should use OpenOffice in lieu of Microsoft Office, let me say this. I've used the latest version of OpenOffice and, one, it's far inferior in design and functionality to Microsoft Office, and two, it's not very compatible with real Office documents, even for some simple Word files. Don't subject yourself to the cruelty of half-baked software. Get the real thing.

Microsoft makes the best office suite - period. However, I still do believe that the price is a bit of a rip-off. I have been using Open Office (Openoffice.org) which is developed by Sun Microsystems and is FREE. It is also compatible with MS Office - you can save the files in Word, PowerPoint etc. format. The more I use it, the more I wish I had it during my undergrad days. If money is not your concern - MS Office is definitely the best productivity suite out there. However, if you are a student and wish to make presentations or documents for school/university work I would definitely recommend Open Office as you simply cannot get anything better for free and it shall suit all your needs. I mean at the end of the day - you are graded on your work not how the slides come flying in. But Open has the flying slides too - though the MS ones still look cooler:) I particularly liked exporting Word Files to PDF format within Open Office. For the record I am not anti-Microsoft - they have some good products - I just wish they would make them more affordable. I hope this helps.

If you are in school (full time or part time, student or teacher or professor, or staff member), if you have a parent who's in school, if you have a child who's in school, if you have a sibling who's in school, if your boyfriend or girlfriend is in school, you qualify for this edition, dude! Each copy you buy can be installed on 3 home PCs. No gimmick!

I was using Office '97 all these years. When a member of my household went back to school, we bought this new version from amazon, and we've all been very happy with the software. Do beware that you should have Windows XP, or else stick with Office '97 or '00. Office '03 runs fast and never crashes on Windows XP, and everything I loved about Office (on-the-fly spell- and grammer-checking, easy mail merge, powerful spreadsheet, lots of presentation options and features, so on) is only improved. I'm also taking my time to learn Outlook 2003. It's one sophisticated program, but it's waaaayyy better than Lotus Notes which my company uses at work. (Lotus Notes stinks!)

To be honest, the "standard" edition costs more than twice as much and I wouldn't have upgraded if I couldn't get it for this cheap. But for a hundred bucks, this is totally worth it. I got almost 10 years use out of Office '97, and I think i'll be set for the next 20 years with Office '03. So that comes out to about $2 a year per computer. Not bad.

I really like this new version of Microsoft Office. Like previous upgrades, there isn't too much of a difference in Excel and Word other than a few things, it is Outlook which has the largest improvements. I really like the new look as it uses "screen real-estate" much more efficiently. The Junk E-Mail filters are better than in previous editions (much better!) and I had no problems working with my previous PST files. Also, the ability to send busy and free times to people not on Exchange is really nice.

However, I do like the changes in Word and Excel, especially as it comes to sharing with other users. It is nice to have control over what is shared and what isn't shared. The improved digital signature is a fantastic benefit as well.

And Access. I use Access all the time for my personal databases. I was really concerned that this might be an upgrade like how 2000 was to 97 where you would need to convert everything over and it wouldn't be backwards compatible. Thank goodness everything is backwards compatible. That is a real life saver. The backup feature is excellent as well!!

My hats off to Microsoft for another great product!!

Usually, when something appears to be too good to be true, it usually is ... but not this time.

These are the full versions of the world standard word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software -- Word, Excel, and PowerPoint -- at a fraction of the retail price. And not only that, you get three licenses of each one of them.

Technically, you need to be a student to qualify, or a parent of a student, but these days that probably covers 90 percent of the U.S. population. I certainly did with two kids, but just taking a class at the local university would have qualified me, too.

Why pay extra to have Office loaded on a new computer at time of purchase when you have this low-cost option available?

The bottom line was I was able to install legal, licensed copies of all this great software on three of our home computers, both of the kids' and my own laptop -- all for less than $50 apiece. That's a super value any way you look at it.

I love MS Office, and I assume that if you're looking at this version you are a student/teacher familiar with office applications.

2003 does not offer enough improvements over Office XP to warrant purchasing this as an upgrade. If you have Office XP, you may want to wait until the next version comes out. You won't be missing much!

Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook are industry standards in office applications. You can save your documents in a variety of formats, including those that are compatible with WordPerfect, Open Office, or older systems (e.g. plain text or RTF).

The only caveat I have is that many of the features that make the 2003 version great require connection to the Internet. If you are connecting via dial-up, or using a non-connected machine, you will not be able to access some help and some media content.

Excellent software. installed fast and flawlessly. since i already was using works suite and outlook the new cd suggested
i select "upgrade" to install this edition 2003 software-i took
the suggestion and in literally minutes i was using the new software. from delivery from aplusadmin in 3 days to actually using the new edition 2003 was a very fast and pleasant experience. the improved programs are more colorful and easy on the eyes. thanks bill, amazon, aplusadmin, microsoft pros. A+