Equiping the office computers

One of largest expenses of kitting out your office is the upfront cost of required software. There are good alternatives: we use the OpenOffice.org Office suite here which is great and a real contender but we think Microsoft Office is marginally better in some places [1] for the moment.

Most small businesses have under six employees; that is over 95% of UK businesses.

You can buy Microsoft Office 2007 Standard Edition today from a well known high-street PC retailer for £329 (including VAT) per box. It's not an unusual price. Equiping a room of five computers with Office will set you back £1,645 in cold hard cash. Ouch!

Rent it instead

Why don't you rent Microsoft Office instead? Keep the money in your bank account and keep as much of your cost in a form where you can call a stop to it at any time.

Put that same Office 2007 Standard, the very latest, on two office computers [2] for less than the price of a newspaper per day. 49 pence per day each [3]. Microsoft Office 2007 Professional Plus is also available.

Benefits

• Manageable monthly cost.

• Full Microsoft Office suite functionality - no different to the box.

• No contract ties.

• Streamed directly to your PC on-line - no CDs or disks required.

• Latest Security updates automatically installed.

• Always use the latest version of software - with no additional cost - as soon as it is released.

[1] for example, writing macros in the OpenOffice spreadsheet application is not yet garnered with Microsoft's wonderful 'IntelliSense' so the object model is not as easy to use. It's not difficult; just not as easy. OpenOffice will catch up; it's not been around as long as Microsoft's offering.

[2] We're a provider to businesses; but some clients use us for their home needs too. The educational version of MS Office can be on your home PC for 15p per day each.

[3] This prices is aimed at businesses and therefore excludes VAT.