Microsoft Microsoft Office Professional 2010 Key Card by Microsoft

Worked as advertised..
was able to download copy of software as described in product.

I bought this version of Office about a month ago because I needed to learn and start using Access. So far I am pleased with the software and am quite impressed by Access. What I am not impressed with is the extreme overpricing of this, and all Microsoft products by a behemoth software monopoly whose wealth is more than that of some countries. This is not the only, reason that Office 2000 was the last version of Office I’ve purchased until now. Overpricing and the ridiculously restrictive licensing and activation foolishness that’s grown like a cancer in all Microsoft software products over the past decade, as well as most other software companies commercial software these days, make me glad that, with any luck, Ill be retired before having to purchase another version of Office. The product is good, but not worth the price. Shame on you Microsoft.

I’ve used this product (MS OP 2010) for over 30 days, on the heels of close to a year using IBM Lotus Symphony, (which has only 3 parts- word, spreadsheet, presentations) a totally free version of office suites, (based on Open Office, but vastly improved over OO), thus lacking in some utility, with only three of the segments of suites. For me, it is fascinating to compare the two. Both are sophisticated in presentation and function, generally. No comparison to Open Office, in sophistication and ease and especially speed of use. However, while I needed the multiple suites, Publisher, Power Point, Access, I am surprised at the lack of any superior speed (over Lotus Symphony) in the basic suites, the bulkiness, of Word, and while the IBM version lacked some robustness, and stability, which MS has more of, for all the high cost of the MS 2010, I felt it overpriced, in value, by at least double. Not an Amazon issue on price, but an MS issue. It is worth something over the Lotus Symphony, but not the premium prices MS currently charges, even the price for just one computer. Reality says, pay the piper. I did, and I’m only just mildly satisfied (and not impressed, at all) at improvements over Office Pro 2003, or so. Amazon is great, but I consider MS overpriced, by MS.

I believe more competition is needed in this market, perhaps IBM can show the way with further improvements. I am not a fan of Google office suite entries (although I love some of their products, especially Earth and sky, and Picasa, which are superb, and Google Talk, which is ok, (Skype superb)), nor cloud based systems of suites, since they are dependent on connections, for speeds, which will be highly and unacceptably variable for at least 5 years, throughout America and the world, can’t work offline as well, and tend to a somewhat different look and feel, than Lotus and MS. And security, well, there is no security that is perfect and absolute, and cloud security has a ways to go.

Overall, there is tremendous room for growth, in most areas of IT, including office suites applications, and one product I’d like to see, is a way to have quick, accurate, and versatile speech translations that work, between two different language speaking nationalities, so one can carry on a two way speaking connection by computer based VOIP. I’d like to see accurate, dependable and versatile speech recognition to text applications, many do not even work well on quality telephone connections, let alone on speech to word computer applications. And my own speech is metered and un-accented, pure Midwest style, spoken with clear annunciation, as some people have exclaimed, like sounding like a TV news anchor, and saw major failure years ago of the over hyped speech recognition apps.

I ordered this because my company still uses Office 2010 and I needed an additional license for a new computer. Product was exactly as described and activated no problem. The Microsoft Authenticity seal was intact (it’s a sticker that breaks once you open the package, so this means the key is legit). If you aren’t sure whether to get this or the disk version, here are the differences:

Product Key Version: You must download the software yourself (unless a trial version is already pre-installed on your computer). Then you use the 25-digit product key printed on the card to activate the software. This product key (license) can only be installed on 1 computer, and the license is not transferrable. This means when you replace this computer in the future, you must buy another Office license. However, if your pc crashes and you want to reinstall the software on the same pc it was installed on originally, you may do so. If you have any problems activating the software after reinstalling it, Microsoft will be happy to help you over the phone once you explain you are reinstalling on the SAME pc.

Disk Version: Can be installed on 2 computers (e.g. a desktop and a laptop). License is transferrable if you replace either of your computers. So say in a year your laptop dies and you buy a new one. You can use the same product key to install Office on the new laptop. It may give you trouble since you already activated this license on 2 computers, but again Microsoft will be happy to help you over the phone once you explain that your old computer died and the license is only being used on 2 computers.

The Product Key Card is the way to go if you only need this on one computer and you don’t think you’ll be replacing your computer for a while.

The Disk version is the way to go if you want the ability to install on 2 computers and/or you want the assurance of knowing you can re-use the software if you ever replace either computer.

P.S. – When I bought this software it was sold by Galactics and fulfilled by Amazon. So my review is based on the product I received from Galactics. If the seller is different, I would check out their ratings and proceed with caution. Based on the other reviews it sounds like there are some sellers sending illegitimate key cards.