Microsoft Offering Students 6 Months Free Office 365, 20GB Storage

Microsoft is hoping to attract more students to its subscription-based Office 365 offering with a new promotion that will provide them with up to six months of free access.

For $79.99, Office 365 University provides a four-year, cloud-based subscription to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access. There's also 20GB of online storage via SkyDrive, and 60 minutes of Skype calls per month.

Students with a .edu email address can get three months of free access to Office 365 University. But those who share the offer on Facebook after entering an email address on www.officeforstudents.com will get three more months of free access.

Students will also need a Microsoft account to install and manage Office software, which they can create during the sign-up process. The service allows students to install Office 365 on up to two PCs or Macs for use by a single person. That PC must be running Windows 7 or higher, while the Mac requires Mac OS X 10.6 or higher. The service is also accessible on Windows Phone devices running OS 7.5 and higher. For more, see Microsoft's FAQ.

To help promote Office 365 University, Microsoft has hired Parks and Recreation actress Aubrey Plaza as its newest spokeswoman. She has produced two spots, the first of which is embedded below.

For those who no longer have a .edu address, Office 365 Home Premium is available for $99.99 per year or $9.99 per month, and accessible on up to five devices. For more, see PCMag's full review of Office 365 Home Premium.

Late last month, Microsoft also updated the business version of Office 365 and introduced several new pricing plans.

For more, see 10 Things You Need to Know About Office 365.