Penn State's Computer Store and Licensed Software Services (LSS) offer many ways to acquire great software at terrific pricing. While licensing saves Penn State millions of dollars by negotiating volume pricing, there are some licenses that you can buy for your personal use as well. Contracts are negotiated with individual vendors and distributors to provide the Penn State faculty/staff, students and departments with licensing programs and boxed software at below-retail pricing. See the Computer Store Web Site for the most current list of software titles: http://computerstore.psu.edu.
Licenses entitle use of a specific version of software, or use of software for a specific period of time. Licensed Software Services has provided these as your most affordable option. There are currently 3 main types of licenses available at the Computer Store; faculty/staff, student, and department.
Faculty/Staff software licenses are available for faculty and staff to purchase with personal funds. These specially negotiated agreements give the opportunity to purchase software at what is typically considered 'student' pricing. Some licenses are to be used for work purposes only, while others allow for personal use. Check the item description for details. Currently available titles include Studio 8 (including Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks and Freehand), Microsoft Office (including Word, Excel, and Powerpoint), NVivo, EndNote and Minitab.
Student-Only software licenses are available for purchase only by Penn State students with personal funds and cover a wide variety of common and specialty software titles. Part-time students are also eligible for these prices; an individual must be registered for at least one class, regardless of primary University affiliation. This allows returning adults and University employees that are taking classes to take advantage of the same pricing as traditional students.
Departmental software licenses are available to Penn State departments for purchase with departmental funds. Windows, Mac, Unix and Linux titles are available. Licenses and media are sold separately so that departments can add licenses at any time without the additional cost of media. Orders for departmental licenses and media are created as needed and are typically filled within 48 hours. See the Computer Store’s Web Site for the most current list of titles.
Work-at-Home Media for Microsoft Office is also available at the Computer Store. Penn State has an agreement with Microsoft that allows installation of Office Pro on any Penn State owned machine. If you are an employee that does University work on a personally-owned machine and would like it to be covered under the Campus Agreement, you must purchase Work-at-Home media. Each disk is unique and allows installation on one personally owned machine for work-related purposes only. This differs from the Microsoft Office Personal License mentioned above, which allows you to use it for personal reasons or projects. The cost of the media is $10 (plus tax, if applicable) and is limited to one copy per person. This media can be purchased with personal or departmental funds.
"Boxed" software is so named for the traditional packaging by the manufacturer, in a colorful large box, sometimes with documentation. It gives the purchaser ownership of the software. The easiest way to determine whether a product at the Computer Store is a licensed or boxed copy is to look at the first letter of the Part (SKU) number. Part numbers that begin with an "S" are licensed software; part numbers that begin with a "B" are boxed copies at educational pricing. Much of the savings in licensing comes from the lack of a 'box' as most licensed media is duplicated onsite at Penn State. Remember, both types of software save you money over retail but "S = Savings with Licensed Software"
Penn State offers software and utilities to all students, as well as faculty and staff on the free PAC-ITS CD. This is packaged, distributed, and supported by Penn State's Information Technology Services. PAC-ITS includes software programs and utilities for Connecting to Penn State, Email Clients, File Transfer, Office Productivity, Virus Detection/Spyware Tools, Web Browsers, and Calendaring Software. It is available on a CD at the HelpDesk in 2 Willard Building and 215 Computer Building, or for download at https://downloads.its.psu.edu.