Running XP? MS Office for MAC 2008?

Running Microsoft Office for MAC 2008? Time to either upgrade, or find a replacement I'm afraid;

Mac fans wedded to Microsoft Office face a stark choice on April 9 – upgrade or continue running the unsupported Office for Mac 2008.

April 9 2013 is the date when Microsoft will stop providing new code and security fixes for Office for Mac 2008, which launched in January 2008.

Redmond is urging Mac users to take out an Office 365 subscription, which includes Office for Mac 2011 and future upgrades to the suite.

The scheduled end of support came after it emerged Microsoft had quietly hiked the price of Office for Mac, with Office 2011 Home and Student hitting $139, up from $120.

An Office 365 sub will now officially set you back $99.99 a year, or $9.99 per month, compared to $139.99 for Office for Mac Home & Student.

Read more*
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/08/office_2008_mac_ends/

NB: There are a handful of replacements for MACs;

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/free-office-software

Oh and tip: If it's anything like the Windows version, LibreOffice is nothing like Office, unless having a word processor, spreadsheet etc counts as being "Just like MS Office" (and I'm sorry but in my world, it just doesn't, it takes more than that (and nope, not referring to the god awful ribbon, bloating, social network integration, it would actually be more like it if it had those things too (though LibreOffice did seem guilty of being a resource hog when I last tested it)))

MAC users will likely know quite a few more potential replacements, just be as wary of their forums as you would be a Linux forum - they're not exactly known for being kind to newcomers (or for that matter, those that simply have a different viewpoint than they do (does make for interesting and very cheerful reading though)).

Windows XP users however, do at least have another 12 months to upgrade (I'd recommend Windows 7 over 8 personally)

Today marks the start of the 1-year countdown of when we stop supporting Windows XP. Many of you saw the post this morning on the Windows For Your Businessblog. Over the past few months I have gotten a lot of questions on what that means exactly. Here are some answers to help explain what end of support is and what you need to do to move to a modern OS like Windows 7 or Windows 8.

Microsoft will end Extended Support on April 8, 2014. Why?

In 2002, Microsoft introduced its Support Lifecycle policy based on customer feedback to have more transparency and predictability of support for Microsoft products. Per this policy, Microsoft Business and Developer products – including Windows and Office products – receive a minimum of 10 years of support (five years Mainstream Support and five years Extended Support), at the supported service pack level. Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 will go out of support on April 8, 2014. If your organization has not started the migration to a modern desktop, you are late. Based on historical customer deployment data, the average enterprise deployment can take 18 to 32 months from business case through full deployment. To ensure you remain on supported versions of Windows and Office, you should begin your planning and application testing immediately to ensure you deploy before end of support.

Read more
http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/springboard/archive/2013/04/08/365-days-remaining-until-xp-end-of-support-the-countdown-begins.aspx

* Unless you're a fan of "Microsoft bashing", you'll not want to bother with the comments on the article on theregister.co.uk - sadly, articles even remotely mentioning Microsoft, even if indirectly, always results in a flood of anti-Microsoft comments, and rarely anything but that (there are still alot of great commenters on El Reg though, but amongst the floods, they're sadly, few))