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Beginning Dec. 1, academic institutions can offer students Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus at no additional cost.

The software includes all basic Office suite programs, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Publisher, Access, Outlook, OneNote and InfoPath. To receive this offer academic institutions must already license Office 365 ProPlus or Office ProPlus for faculty and staff. Tech meets the aforementioned requirements.

Tech is able to receive this Office 365 software, said Rachel Moorehead, System Support Engineer Lead at Tech. We are eligible to get that program for our students and we plan to do that. Tech just needed to be a partner with Microsoft in a fashion that already provided Office to our faculty and staff.

Now, students can receive the benefits of Microsofts cloud-based Office 365 as well as the ability to download the software on up to five devices.

There are no actions required on the students behalf right now to receive this software. Students can go to the Office 365 portal and get started that way. And all of the information is on the Office of Information Technology (OIT) FAQ page, Moorehead said.

By offering students Office 365 at no additional cost, Microsoft hopes to make students skill sets more appealing to the current job market. In 2013, Microsoft sponsored an International Data Cooperation (IDC) study that concluded that U.S. high-growth, high-wage positions require Microsoft Office skills. After analyzing 14.6 million job postings, the IDC concluded that Office skills remain essential rsum components.

OIT predicts Tech students will take advantage of this offer.

We will probably see a large adoption of this software. The bookstore currently sells Office to students at a discounted price, so this will take over this service, Moorehead said.

Some Tech students are thrilled about this upcoming offer.

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Microsoft offers students free Office software

Warcraft Cataclysm Free Software Download

By: kostas jounis

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Warcraft Cataclysm Free Software Download - Video

Following criticism from users, the company says it will add features like customized toolbars and shortcuts to updated versions of the free software over the next six months.

Apple CEO Tim Cook shows off Keynote, an iWork app.

Apple will add new features to its free version of iWork, following user complaints that many were missing in the software's latest release.

The company posted a notice on its site Wednesday that acknowledged the missing features, with a promise to incorporate them in upcoming releases over the next six months.

"In rewriting these applications, some features from iWork '09 were not available for the initial release," the post reads. "We plan to reintroduce some of these features in the next few releases and will continue to add brand-new features on an ongoing basis."

Apple announced free upgrades for its iWork and iLife software last month. But the freebie downloads upset some power users. With Pages -- Apple's word processing app-- for example, users missed the customizable toolbar, endnotes, and many templates.

Apple said it would be adding many features back in for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

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Apple to restore 'lost features' for iWork power users

Diablo 3 In Depth Class Budget And Upgrade Guides Free Software Download

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By Jack M. Germain LinuxInsider 11/05/13 5:00 AM PT

The more mission-critical the open source software, the more necessary it is to acquire paid support, suggested SUSE's Gerald Pfeifer. "Individual users will often tough out solving problems through community help forums, but SMB owners and enterprise users more likely will opt for paid support rather than devoting internal resources to support open source software," he added.

One of the big attractions behind the growing popularity of open source software is the ability to get it and use it for free. In a world of ever-rising costs in pretty much every other aspect of business and life, "free" is an offer that's increasingly difficult to refuse.

Support is one area, however, where "free" may not be all it seems -- particularly for enterprises.

Users of free software typically rely on the generally sizable community of users and developers for help if questions arise. That support can be excellent, and many users swear by it. At the enterprise level, however, it's worth considering more closely -- particularly when many users are involved and the software is mission-critical.

In addition to offering their software for free, most of the big enterprise Linux operating systems and numerous popular applications give users a choice of paying for support from the developers themselves. In some cases, a software developer may even sell a more feature-rich commercial version.

So when does it make sense to spend the extra money? There's no one formula to provide an answer to that common question, but numerous key factors can help you decide.

One potential variable in relying on free community support is the character of the community. Just as open source version options are different, so are open source communities.

"Open source communities can be like a box of chocolates in that the flavors are not always what you expect them to be," Gerald Pfeifer, senior director for product management and operations at SUSE, told LinuxInsider.

An enterprise's own in-house staff, of course, will also play a key role.

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FOSS in the Enterprise: To Pay or Not to Pay?