Microsoft says Office 2013 licensing is nothing new

Last week a number of sites including TechSpot reported on an apparently new licensing restriction for the retail version of Office 2013 that essentially ties your version of the software to a single computer -- not one at a time,...

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Due to EU law now that you are able to resell software with a perpetual license, I believe that the Microsoft rules unless you purchase for an annual term are illegal in the EU

One good thing that the EU seems to have done!

Therefore all licenses of the package that you purchase for indefinite use have to be Transferable.

Suggest that the story is updated

I sent an e-mail about this to Matthew DeCarlo after his article. I haven't heard anything back from him.

So they wanna tell me that if my SSD with my office installation crashes & I replace it, I'll be screwed?

No, I believe it's tied to the computer itself. Not just the harddrive. So you'd be ok if just your harddrive crashed.

So when I upgrade my rig & do a complete reinstall of everything, then I'm stuffed?

It looks like MS want to persuade users to sign up to 365 in order to cut out the middleman and reduce media production. I wonder how retailers will react to this? I will carry on using 2003 on my PC for the foreseeable future and I am learning Open Office.

As a matter of interest do new laptops still have the starter version of MS Office?

yes.

It could be tied to the MAC address on the computer's NIC card. That can't be changed or transferred, so if you replace your computer's motherboard, you're screwed.

It would seem to affect the self build community the most. This could backfire as that community tends to have a high techie count on whom lay persons often consult for advice.

All what Office 13' improves on is skydrive integration and a metro interface. They made things worse in most cases like taking away definitions (dictionary) and autocorrecting words.

Sorry Microsoft, but if I can't purchase a sub $150 dollar Office (insert version here) and it be transferable, I will not be purchasing your Office product.

Microsoft is not programming for kings and queens, they are programming for common people who has bills to pay. If paying a premium is what it cost to stay with the times, there is no wonder everyone gets stuck in the past with old software.

Edit:
Let me clarify, it took me over two years to get a single business man to purchase Office 2010 because pricing was so high. To make matters worse when they finally did purchase, they didn't purchase the version they were entitled to for business. Microsoft is pricing themselves out of making proper licensing sales. People are not gonna consistently continue to spend their home or automobile payment on Microsoft products just to stay with the times.

Yeah and I bet MS will cut support for MS Office 2010 like they did for Win 7 earlier than you would think to push for their new crap.

Interesting. I wonder if they will do this non transferable product key thing with Windows with Windows Blue. @LNCPapa Not just EU fees, but also they are in a bad stance with Apple also, that is why people are saying Office for iPad hasn't been released and why MS apps havent been updated for the iPhone 5... and such.

To hell with them. Good thing I hardly ever use Office and if I ever need to... Open source here I come.

oh no, not the Network Interface Card card!(sorry I had to) but if it were just the mac address, I'd be interested to see if you could dupe it with a usb wireless adapter.

I'm not sure, but it seems likely. You can spoof a MAC address, but you can't change it. Since most people don't spoof their MAC addresses constantly, it makes sense for MS to tie it a a specific computer that way.