Sorry for the wall of text. If TL;DR, I'm wondering if reasonably cheap versions of MS software is misleading or illegal and if legit why everyone doesn't buy it.
I’ve found a few posts talking about video games and one talking about Office for $40 which is duh, illegal. But I am wondering about more reasonable prices of professional software. I am looking at Microsoft Project 2013 Standard Download Only Single PC - 076-05068 as a part number.
Microsoft lists it at $590
CDW has it for $573
NewEgg has it for $540
Bhphotovideo has it for $350
Mychoicesoftware has it for $320
Buycheapsoftware has it for $250
NewZone has it at $105
RushDeals has it at $69
The last two NewZone and Rushdeals don’t use the part number 076-05068 but imply it is the full version. They feel a little fly by night, but if they were really selling pirate software they would be busted in only a few months. Buycheapsoftware says North America only. B&H is in my opinion is as reputable as a used car salesman but still they have been around forever and clearly can’t be breaking the law.
How can there be that much difference in cost for the same part number? It can’t just be greed on CDW’s and NewEgg’s part, there is just too much competition out there to do that. It can’t be volume, CDW must sell more copies of software like Project then all the other vendors combined.
I know MS has a pile of different versions like Charity, Student, Personal, Business, etc, plus they come out with new types of licenses at exactly the rate you can learn about them like Stand Alone, VL, KMS, MAK, MOLP, with or without SA, etc, etc, but they should all have different part numbers, right? If they don’t how can you tell what you are buying?
The software/OS’s we use a lot of we go through the VLSC. But this is just a onetime buy, we really don’t care a lot about tracking/compliance. When I got the quote I was just shocked that Project was so much and started looking for cheaper, now have no idea what is what or how much it should cost or how much I may be wasting on all my other software. If everyone can get it for 1/10th the cost, it would be hard to not just convert over to installing one off versions of software and chucking the VLSC. It would be a pain, but for a 50 person company not a 1000% markup pain.
Nick
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