Microsoft FREE Trials For Software & Services

Yesterday, I expressed surprise about the things happening at Microsoft – a potentially free operation system and the MS-DOS source code being made available. Here’s another pleasant “surprise”, in case you are not aware of this: Microsoft is offering a free trial for its various software and services.

It’s a basic strategy to entice users who may not have made up their minds about a product or service yet. While Microsoft is the go-to software choice for a majority of users, there are always potential customers, and by offering a free trial, the company can expand their user base even more.

In case you’re looking at purchasing new Microsoft software and/or services, here’s a list of free trials.

• Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013 (free 60-day trial)
• Office 365 Small Business Premium and Midsize Business (free 30-day trial, no credit card required)
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online (free 30-day trial)
• Windows Azure (free 30-day trial and get $200 to spend on Azure services)
• Project Professional 2013 (free 60-day trial)
• Visio Professional 2013 (free 60-day trial)

Before you sign up for your free trial, do take a close look at the terms and conditions, as you never know what might be involved. Additionally, if you are still running on older versions of Windows (say, Windows XP), you might need to upgrade to Windows 7 or Windows 8 for the software and/or service to run properly. Of course, you can always avail of the $100 discount that Microsoft is offering on select PCs (for Windows XP users only).

Just like when you are looking at buying a new car (although there is quite a huge gap when it comes to the price range, I know), it’s always great to be able to test out a product or service before you commit to spending your money to anything, yeah? So whether your needs have to do with word processing, CRM, or cloud storage, why not give Microsoft’s products/services a test drive and see how they suit you?

[Image via Microsoft]