Microsoft has announced that it is making Office 365 available to students around the world for free. The scheme, which was originally only available in the US, extends to Malaysian students from participating learning institutions. All they have to do is use their school-provided email address to register with Microsoft.
The free student copies of Microsoft’s productivity suite is not entirely a new thing; the company has been offering free or discounted copies of Office to students at institutions of higher learning for years. However, this is the first time that it is making the sign up process much more efficient.
These copies of Office 365 subscriptions are not exactly free. What Microsoft has done is allow the schools and universities to buy licenses for the students, teachers, and other faculty staff at a highly discounted price. Once signed up, each student is allowed to installed his or her copy of Office 365 on up to five different computers and five mobile devices. This is essentially the same as a full consumer copy of Office 365, as it also includes 1TB of OneDrive storage. The only difference is the lack of minutes for internation Skype calls.
We’re waiting for a list of the participating institutions from Microsoft Malaysia, but interested students can enter their school-provided email to check their eligibility, while teachers and other faculty members should use the alternative link.
[Source: Microsoft]
