Is your city one of the lucky five to get a new Microsoft store?

By Mariella Moon Published February 5, 2013

Sure, we’re used to seeing Apple stores all around the world, but many of us probably aren’t used to seeing Microsoft Stores just yet. It looks like that’s starting to change – at least for those who live near the five cities where Microsoft plans to build its new stores this year. In December 2012, Microsoft revealed six locations that’ll be home to the company’s newest permanent stores. Today, Microsoft added five more locations to the list. And the winners are:

Natick Mall, Natick, Massachusetts
Ala Moana Center, Honolulu, Hawaii
Pioneer Place, Portland, Oregon
The Somerset Collection, Troy, Michigan
Woodfield Mall, Schaumburg, Illinois

Several of these newly announced locations (along with the ones announced in December) have been home to Microsoft’s pop-up stores that were meant to operate from October to December last year. No word on whether those former pop-ups were chosen to be permanent establishments because they did so well in terms of sales, but we’re guessing that may have something to do with it. “Our customers continue to tell us that they value our stores for connecting them to the best of Microsoft … In addition, our associates are here to make our customer experience as entertaining, educational, and easy as possible,” Jonathan Adashek, Microsoft General Manager, Communications Strategy, Sales & Marketing Services Group, wrote in the blog post.

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No exact opening dates were attached to each new location, but the company said the stores will be operational some time this summer. Microsoft promised that more info “will arrive in the coming weeks.”

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Mariella loves working on both helpful and awe-inspiring science and technology stories. When she's not at her desk writing…

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Best Microsoft Office deals: Get Word, PowerPoint, and Excel for free

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There is almost always going to be a discussion between Microsoft vs. Google and which one has the best business and productivity tools, but Microsoft has certainly been around longer and ingrained itself in a lot of businesses, making it a standard. As such, you may want to grab yourself a copy or subscription, although Microsoft Office can get quite pricey, and while there is a free trial of Microsoft Word, it's not really the same thing. Luckily, there are a few Microsoft Office deals with grabbing, which is why we've gone out and collected some of our favorites for you below.
Best Microsoft Office deals
Microsoft Office is a pay once, receive once service. You don't have to pay recurring monthly fees to use it, but the software also never updates. For what it's worth, the Microsoft Office packages are labelled "2021", so they're all fairly recent but also ripe for a good deal. With the exception of AI integrations, not much has really changed in the past couple of years when it comes to your basic document creation and these programs should continue to be effective for years to come. Depending on what package you get, you'll get access to different apps, based on the needs of the target audience. For example, Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 keeps it lean and cool and with Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint being the only apps included.

Here are our favorite deals for the classic Microsoft Office experience:

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Microsoft Word free trial: Get a month of service for free

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It may not feel like it, but Microsoft Word is probably one of the most popular word processors out there, along with Google Docs, and pretty much everybody has likely used it at some point, regardless if you prefer Microsoft Office to Google Docs. Of course, if you want to get your hands on it these days, you're going to have to buy it as part of Microsoft Office, as opposed to getting it as a standalone product like you used to. While you do have to pay for the subscription, you can get Microsoft Word for a month using the free trial before it reverts to a paid subscription. Also, be sure to check out some of these useful Microsoft Words tricks and even how to run Microsoft Office on the Quest 3.
Is there a Microsoft Word free trial?

Microsoft Word is actually part of the company's wider Office app suite. Now known simply as Microsoft 365 (formerly Microsoft Office), Microsoft's enterprise software is available in a number of different packages that are now subscription-based; the company has retired the older bundles that were available for a one-time payment. That means if you want a Microsoft Word free trial, you'll need to sign up for the Microsoft 365 trial.

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Ends tonight: Get 42% off a year subscription to Microsoft 365

Office 365 Apps on an orange background.

For a complete set of productivity apps that will be familiar to most people, you may want to take advantage of this offer from HP -- a 42% discount on a one-year subscription to Microsoft 365 Personal, which brings its price down to just $40 from its original price of $70. That's $30 in savings on software and services that will be helpful to both professionals and students. You're going to have to hurry in completing the transaction if you're interested though, as there's not much time left before the bargain gets taken down.

Why you should buy Microsoft 365 Personal
Microsoft 365, formerly known as Office 365, is a subscription service that gives you access to all of the brand's most popular productivity apps, among other things. If you sign up for Microsoft 365 Personal, not only will you be able to use Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft OneNote, but you'll also get 1TB of cloud storage where you can save your files and access them from anywhere, as well as protection from Microsoft Defender. Any software updates will be done automatically, so you won't have to keep checking if there are any newer versions yourself.