Office 2010 vs. 2013 - migrating from XP to W7

Question

I have a client with >200 PCs, and about 50 already run W7 with Office 2010. The remaining 150+ XP PCs are currently being migrated to W7, and the client wants to stay with Office 2010, as they have already purchased 50 or so licenses for their existing
W7 PCs.
I am finding Office 2010 licenses harder and harder to find, and much more expensive since Office 2013 was released. The client also has plans to add 50+ PCs during Q4 2014 when a new location is opened. I am hesitant to proceed with their direction,
if 2010 licenses become no longer available. I know that MS has discontinued sales, and vendors will only be allowed to continue to sell 2010 until their inventory is depleted. My client is aware of this, but they do not want to standardize on 2013 because
they feel they would then have wasted their money buying the roughly 50 copies of 2010. And they do not want a mishmosh of 2010/2013 in their company, they want to be all on the same version.
Any advice?I do not want to move them away from Office (to openoffice, Corel, or worse!) but if I can't get them standardized on 2010 they may be forced to move to another platform or worse decide to find a new IT consultant. They understand this is not
my fault per se, but they blame me for not anticipating this during the last few years when I recommended Office 2010 for their new W7 PCs. No good deed goes unpunished as they say.

Answer 1

Hi
Since it is hard to purchase Office 2010, you can take Office 2013 and downgrade to Office 2010.
However downgrade rights are only available for volume licenses.
Check the following article:
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/briefs/downgrade-rights.aspx
Tylor Wang
TechNet Community Support