Rob Collie Ken Puls (thanks Bob!) wrote a very interesting post about the PowerPivot for Excel 2013 licensing.
Short recap:
- PowerPivot for Excel 2013 is only available in a few editions of Excel/Office (more details here)
- If you want to buy a perpetual license of Excel with PowerPivot, you need to be included in a Volume Licensing program
- The easiest way to enter a volume licensing program is buying 5 licenses for Microsoft products, even different ones
- The cheapest license you can buy is around 7$ (i.e. Microsoft DVD Playback Pack for Windows Vista Business)
- Buying 4 of them grants you the ability to buy Office 2013 Pro Plus license as fifth product to enter the volume license agreement
This really does not make any sense to me, and like everyone I hope Microsoft will fix the licensing issues that could limit the adoption of PowerPivot for Excel 2013. In the meantime, there is a way to get the product spending just 30$ more.