The moment you’ve been waiting for? Last year we ran a promotion called “The Ultimate Steal”, which offered a full copy of Office 2007 Ultimate Edition to students for £38.95. And, finally, it’s back!
In a nutshell, The Ultimate Steal is:
These days most students have a laptop or desktop computer, but they don’t always have the right software on it to help them with their studies. And our research said that they typically think that Office costs £100-£150 for a basic version. So instead of spending the money, many of them “borrow” a copy from a friend or parent.
We’ve always made lower cost Academic licences available, but very few students know about them, or how to buy them. So that’s why we run The Ultimate Steal – it’s a way of helping students buy the right software, at the right price.
Like last year, we're not going to spend lots of money advertising this - for one thing, it is only available to students with a .ac.uk email address, and so putting adverts all over the media isn't going to work. Most students found out about the offer from a friend, or from their college – many emailed their students to let them know about the offer, or put links up onto their intranets & VLEs
Buying on http://www.theultimatesteal.co.uk is easy – register with your student/staff email address, and then login and go.
Shortly, I’ll post up a standard email that you could use to let your students & staff know about the offer.
Rayfl,
I am a student in the US going to the University of Phoenix. I was unable to download the copy of Vista offered to US students due to restrictions on my internet connection, I went ahead and bought the DVD. I oredered this on the 11th day of December and they sent confirmation of shipment to me only after I had to ask why I had not received it yet. to make an otherwise long and boring story short, the first shipment was lost in the mail, 14 day wait before they would believe me that I never got it, they shipped it 7 days after the 14 day wait and when it finally arrived I pulled a copy of Office 2007 Ultimate Edition out of the package that I don't have an activation key for. Now I am assuming that since nearly 3 days have passed since I accepted the delivery I will have to wait another 14 days before they will.... I sure hope they treat you better in the UK.
I am so fed up with These people I am on a personal crusade to discredit these people in an effort to bring this to the attention of Mr. Bill Gates himself.
You all have a fine day and good luck.
Well, it's January 2009 now. Any update on the Mac version becoming available yet?
Hi Mark,
Bad news: Sadly the Mac version has had some difficulty in making through the electronic download route of Ultimate Steal, so it's not going to be available in this round of offers.
Good news: You can buy it directly from two of our partners that sell directly to students.
Both sell it at £34.70 (so that's a better price too!)
Either
http://www.rm.com/thebasement/basementrange.asp?cref=br1063770
or
http://www.software4students.co.uk/Office_Software-list.aspx
Ray
Ray,
Those two partners do not sell to Open University students, only schools. This is why I was originally pointed in the direction of the Ultimate Steal in the first place by the OU.
I would gladly pay £50 for the Mac version.
Please, just because we don't use Windows, why do you continuously penalise us Mac users?
Apologies Ray,
I've managed to find Open University in the institutions list of Software4Students. The RM website seems to only be for schools.
Regards
Mark
I have a pc, laptop and a net book would I only be able to install it on two? and will it run on both xp and vista?
Hi Pupski,
The answer is a little further up in the comments:
This licence is different from the retail version (which is labelled "Home & Student") as it contains much more - it is licensed in similar ways to the business versions. This means it is a single licence, which can be installed on a main computer, and a 'companion' computer - eg a laptop - used by the same person.
The Home & Student version can be installed on 3 computers in the same household.
In certain circumstances then, you might find the H&S licence better for you, but in most Ultimate Steal is still the best deal.
Hi Ray,
I registered on The Ultimate Steal website today and got sent the confirmation e-mail that I am elegible to purchase from The Ultimate Steal, however when I submit my order with all the details then the website displays that an error_problem occured... SYS000006.
Could you please advise why this might be and how to overcome this issue?
Thank you in advance.
Margit
Hi,
I have had problems with purchasing the Office Ultimate from The Ultimate Steal website. After submitting my order with all the required details an error message appears -
Server Error
Error:
Your data was not saved. Please try again. We apologise for this inconvenience.
Error Number: SYS_000006
Could you please advise if and when this problem will be fixed?
Thank you!
Hi Margit,
Have you tried contacting the Ultimate Steal support team? (The link is at the bottom right of the web page at http://www.microsoft.com/student/discounts/theultimatesteal-uk/default.aspx)
I'm afraid I can't help directly, but they will be able to.
Hi Ray
I love this deal which I purchased last year, ultimate has been fantastic on my last laptop. I now have a new laptop however and im trying to install ultimate on this machine which will count as my second device on single licence i presume. My difficulty is that the registration key was emailed to my college account last year which was reset for new collge year. I am trying to recover this code however i cant find it. I cant remember my order number either and my card i payed on has changed since then so i cant use digital river help. Could you offer any help on this matter? I really need to get office up and running asap
Thanks for your help
Luke
Hi Luke,
What a pickle.
First, advice for everybody else - your licence key is like the keys to your front door - if you lose it, you can't get it back easily. Which is why we (a) email it to you and (b) tell you to write it down somewhere safe (NOT on your computer!) just in case you want to re-install (or install on your laptop too).
And for Luke - you've exhausted all the routes that would normally work (bizarre that your college kills your email inbox every year!). If you didn't write the licence key down, and you didn't email it onto another email inbox, and you can't find your login to the site, or order number, or credit card, then I think your cheapest and quickest solution will be to buy another copy (which should be possible if you bought it LAST academic year). That's actually cheaper than paying for support calls...
im a little confused because first you said that you can install it on 2 computers but then you said you can install it on 3? so what exactly is it? im in college right now and so is my twin brother, we both have laptops and a main computer at home. so will i be able to install it on all 3?
~dor
Hi Dor,
I think you're confusing two different answers about two different versions of Office.
The version you buy in a shop (Office Home & Student) allows you to install it on 3 computers in one household.
The version on the Ultimate Steal website is a different version (it has many more packages in it) and allows you to install on one main computer, plus a companion laptop.
So in your scenario, you and your brother would need to buy an Ultimate Steal version each OR buy one copy of the Home & Student version from a retailer.
Hope that helps
I find myself in a similar situation as Luke. I backed up the file but I am at school without access to it. For the moment I am completely unable to locate the confirmation email. Does anyone know what address the confirmation email came from?
Thanks in advance,
Sean