Microsoft recently announced the availability of Office 365, a subscription based version of their popular Office software. Office 365 is a bundle of Word, Access, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and would be accessible for up to five devices. What makes this different from the retail and OEM versions of Office 2013 and Office 365 besides the subscription status, is also the amount of computers and devices that it can be installed on.
With retail and OEM versions of Office, in the event that your computer dies and you need to reinstall the retail version of Office 2013 on a new computer, you may run into some issues. Depending on whether you purchase the retail of OEM version of Office, Microsoft's product licensing (in very fine print), allows only one computer at a time and/or one portable device to run the product license key. Most of us don't read the fine print and may have run across this issue in the past. One option would be to go out and spend another few hundred dollars on new Office 2013, for many that a would not be the best option.
Some consumers with stellar negotiation skills are successful with working around the issue by calling Microsoft directly and explaining the situation, after endless interrogation from Microsoft customer service representatives, as one-time courtesies, reminding them to read their fine print regarding product key rules. Another workaround would be to purchase a computer with an identical motherboard.
It's a little known secret that Microsoft Office considers a "new" PC as having a different motherboard. One can either purchase the same exact PC or do some research and find out what computers use the same exact Motherboard. It's important to note that retail versions of Office differ from OEM versions and state different conditions terms per license.
The subscription based Office 365 is a solution for consumers who wish to run the software on multiple devices, or who upgrade their PC or laptop and need to reinstall their Office software. Its cloud capabilities and licensing flexibility allow for an easy way to access personal files from multiple locations.
