By downloading Fasthosts Microsoft Office, customers will get a full version of the Microsoft Office 2007 suite including Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint applications. The price rises to £14.99 a month plus VAT for business users.

The release uses the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model to let customers pay gradually for expensive software, avoiding the up-front costs of a boxed copy while still benefiting from free updates and support. There are no contract ties to the software.

For the moment, customers have to be connected to the internet to use Fasthosts Microsoft Office, but the company will launch an offline mode soon.

A more advanced version of the software, Fasthosts MS Office Professional Plus, features Microsoft Publisher 2007, Microsoft Access 2007 and Infopath 2007, and is priced at £6.99 a month plus VAT for a household with a user in education, and £19.99 a month plus VAT for business users.

To receive the cheaper education prices, customers have to prove they are in full- or part-time education, on a course that will deliver an academic qualification publicly recognised by the relevant national government education department. You can find more information at Microsoft's Who Can Buy Education Licences? page.

In a separate scheme, university students can get free access to web hosting to aid their studies, under a partnership between Microsoft and web host WebFusion.

All science, technology, engineering, mathematics and design (STEM-D) university students within the UK will have access to the offer for free hosting throughout 2008. To find out more about the academic hosting package, visit www.microsoft.com/uk/freestudenthosting.

www.fasthosts.co.uk

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