Microsoft will no longer give away a free copy of Office 2016 for recent purchases of Office 2013. The one-year free subscription offer for Office 365 has also been limited to a single device.
Last month, Microsoft put the standalone retail pack of Office 2016 for both OS X and Windows on sale. With it came the company's upgrade offer for the latest Office version.
According to the Microsoft Office support page, those who have purchased and activated Office 2011 for Mac and Office 2013 for Windows between Aug. 22 and Dec. 31, 2015 are eligible for a $40 discounted upgrade for an equivalent Office 2016 edition or a one-year free subscription to Office 365 Personal.
Only the Home and Student and Home and Business versions of Office 2011 for Mac, and the Home and Student, Home and Business, Professional versions of Office 2013 for Windows will be eligible for the upgrade offer.
The offer will also be for a corresponding version of Office 2016. Thus, Office Home and Student 2013 will only be eligible for an upgrade offer to Office Home and Student 2016.
Comparing these upgrade offers to the Office 2013 release back in 2012, a clear difference in value can be observed. For the Office 2013 upgrade, Microsoft gave a customers a choice between a perpetual Office 2013 license to the then recent purchase of Office 2010 and a one-year free subscription to Office 365 Home Premium.
If the same perpetual license is offered for the Office 2016 release, it would save consumers anywhere from $110 to $350 , depending on the edition, rather than a flat $40 for purchases across all editions.
Moreover, the offered one-year free subscription on Office 365 Home Premium for the Office 2013 upgrade had a cap of five devices. With Office 365 Personal, however, the subscription is limited to one computer and one mobile device.
In a blog post dated Oct. 1, Kirk Koenigsbauer, vice president for Office 365 client applications, announced that volume licensing for Office 2016 is already available. Office 2016 was also released for MSDN subscription customers on the same day.
Office 2016 installation for Home Use Program (HUP) clients will not be available until Oct. 7.
The Home and Student edition of Office 2016 is currently on sale for $149.99 while the Home and Business and Professional list for $229.99 and $399.99, respectively.
