Microsoft Offers 50% Discount On Pirated Office Installations

Microsoft has apparently found a way to detect illegally copied versions of its Office suite and is offering users of these issues a discount on the purchase of a legal license via a banner in the user interface.

As the portal gHacks reports, in some illegal versions of Office 2019 currently under the “Ribbon” -UI there are messages with a red background, in which it is said that one would like to get a discount of up to 50 percent on a legal subscription to Microsoft 365 can if you decide to do without the use of a stolen version.

From Pirated Office to Microsoft 365 monthly subscription

If you click on the message, a certain website opens in the standard browser set by the user. There Microsoft informs the visitor about the risks of using an illegal version of its software, after all, its users are exposed to risk from security gaps, data loss, and a lack of update support.

At the same time, Microsoft also advertises the promised discount offer on the landing page, with which some users can actually receive a considerable discount. However, you have to log in with a Microsoft account to check whether the discount can actually be used for the respective user.

The whole thing does not seem to work with any Microsoft account. It is currently unclear whether Microsoft is actually able to link an illegally used, unlicensed version of Office to a specific Microsoft account. The office is still one of the most frequently unlicensed Microsoft products, so the Redmond-based company should of course be very interested in reducing the number of illegal copies. However, whether monthly or annual subscriptions for Microsoft 365 are an attractive solution for this is likely to be questionable, even with a discount.