Office for £60-a-year subscription

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 14 Oct 2008 at 14:25

Microsoft is bringing its Office 2007 subscription service to the UK.

Dubbed Equipt, the package wraps Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, Windows Live OneCare and various Windows Live tools into one annual subscription package.

The Equipt suite will cost £60 for a one-year subscription and customers are automatically upgraded to the latest version of any of the software upon its release.

Equipt will initially be sold exclusively in PC World stores in the UK. The package has been available in the US since the spring.

Oddly, Microsoft isn't the first company to offer its Office suite on a subscription basis. Fasthosts launched an Office 2007 subscription service for £5 per month earlier this year, but Microsoft subsequently claimed the deal breached its licensing terms.

Fasthosts continued to insist the deal was legitimate, but the Office offer mysteriously disappeared from its site in July, with Fasthosts pinning the blame on a "a technical hitch with new sign-ups".

Three months on, and there's still no sign of the Office deal on Fasthosts' website, suggesting that's either one hell of a technical glitch or Microsoft's lawyers proved victorious.

Microsoft is making a concerted effort to get its products to as broad an audience as possible, and recently made Office 2007 Ultimate Edition available to students for £39.