Microsoft lures students to Office 365 with a free trial

SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Microsoft is trying to tempt university students to use its Microsoft Office 365 productivity applications in the cloud by offering a three month free trial.

Microsoft revamped its Microsoft Office 365 suite for businesses last month but the firm is also trying to entice students to use to its subscription based service. To sweeten the deal, Microsoft is offering US students a free three month trial, hoping to get them hooked on the applications.

The Microsoft Office 365 service is intended to be used along with the company's Microsoft Office 2013 applications suite, which was released earlier this year. The firm is trying to get students to use its Microsoft Office 365 service instead of Google's free Google Docs service, which does many of the same things but lacks the price tag.

Microsoft is also offering a further three months free if students share the offer on Facebook. The firm's offer also includes 20GB of Skydrive storage space, which is the key for Microsoft to make money on Microsoft Office 365 once the free trial period runs out.

While Microsoft might be giving away up to six months of Microsoft Office 365 access for free, the firm knows that once data is stored on its public cloud, users will more than likely stick with its services in order to avoid the hassle of migrating data. That said, for years Microsoft has offered its standalone Microsoft Office suite at a discount to students and academics, which is probably a better investment than becoming tied down to a subscription in order to access data uploaded to Microsoft's cloud service.

Microsoft's offer is only available to students with .edu email addresses, meaning only those attending US universities can sign up for the deal.

However for those who want to try a free web based productivity applications software suite outside the US, Google Docs is available. µ