 |
Microsoft yesterday revealed the versions and estimated US retail pricing for Office 2010 which is coming in June. Here’s a summary table:
| Version | Retail Boxed Product | Product Key Card |
| Office Home and Student | $149 | $119 |
| Office Home and Business | $279 | $199 |
| Office Professional | $499 | $349 |
| Office Professional Academic | $99 | N/A |
The exact contents of each version are shown in this Microsoft document but basically Home and Student has Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote; Home and Business adds Outlook; and Professional adds Publisher and Access. As always, the academic version is available through academic resellers for use by academic faculty and students.
The Product Key Card is a new retail delivery mechanism where the consumer effectively purchases a license number that will unlock a copy of Office that has been preloaded on their new PC by the manufacturer along with the free Office Starter 2010 Edition which includes advertising supported editions of of Word and Excel. Note also that:
Ed Bott has a useful discussion of the changes compared to Office 2007 which include price decreases at the low end where Microsoft has the most competition from free Office alternatives (Starter Edition will help too) and the complete elimination of upgrade pricing. Microsoft may have been forced into the latter by the complexity of dealing with new electronic delivery mechanisms like the Product Key Card and Click-To-Run, but I am sure that the idea that a new PC simply deserves a new version of Office without fooling with an upgrade is something that their marketers would love to foster.
Microsoft has lost its appeal of the injunction in the i4i patent lawsuit that prohibited it from selling versions of Office (specifically Word) in the US that contain code with the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML. As a result, the folks in Redmond are scrambling to comply by the required January cutoff date:
This injunction applies only to copies of Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007 sold in the U.S. on or after the injunction date of January 11, 2010. Copies of these products sold before this date are not affected.
With respect to Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007, we have been preparing for this possibility since the District Court issued its injunction in August 2009 and have put the wheels in motion to remove this little-used feature from these products. Therefore, we expect to have copies of Microsoft Word 2007 and Office 2007, with this feature removed, available for U.S. sale and distribution by the injunction date. In addition, the beta versions of Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010, which are available now for downloading, do not contain the technology covered by the injunction.
While we are moving quickly to address the injunction issue, we are also considering our legal options, which could include a request for a rehearing by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals en banc or a request for a writ of certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ed Bott has more information on what specifically Microsoft is doing for its various Office distribution channels and the net is that there does not seem to be any reason for Office sales to grind to a stop in the USA.
After a variety of online rumors that June 2010 would be the ship date for Office 2010, a Microsoft spokesman has confirmed the date to Betanews. Less clear however, was what Office features will be included in the free Web version, Office Web Applications:
"The key to what will and what won’t be in the Web Apps is really based on customer feedback and usage scenarios," "Microsoft communications senior director Janice] Kapner told us. "So if you think about it, we have 500 million users, we talk to them a lot about what it is they do and don’t do, and will and won’t do. This is our first shipment of the Web Apps, but we’ve been very realistic about how we think people will use these things, and try to supply features and functionality that will support those usage scenarios." As an example, Kapner cited a case of remote users being able to check the progress of a PowerPoint presentation being constructed by the team at home, via a Web browser on a PC or mobile phone.
That continues to suggest that Office Web Apps, while free for use by the general public, will not be intended for creative purposes above and beyond basic, simple documents. In fact, Microsoft now appears to be busy constructing legitimate use-case scenarios for preferring Office 2010 over Office Web Apps.
Or rephrased, Microsoft is busy trying to figure out how much they can reasonably cripple the Office Web Applications so as not to roast their Office cash cow. Do not confuse the free version with the business versions of Office Web Applications that are not free and require a SharePoint server on the backend.
Wave goodbye to Microsoft’s foray into small business accounting software. Today they pulled the plug on their Office Accounting family:
Starting November 16, Microsoft is ending distribution and sales of its Microsoft Office Accounting product. Company officials began notifying customers of the decision on October 30.
All Microsoft Office Accounting products in the UK and North America are affected by the decision, including Office Accounting Express, Office Accounting Standard, Office Accounting Professional, Office Accounting Professional Plus, Office Accounting 3-user and Small Business Accounting.
…
Microsoft officials said that existing Office Accounting customers will get five years of mainstream, free support and five years of extended, paid support. Those who recently bought the product can return it for a refund within 30 days of purchase.
There are more details in the Office Accounting Discontinuation FAQs including a bit of gallows humor:
… we have determined that existing free templates within Office used with Excel was a better option for small businesses, and the Microsoft Dynamics ERP products were appropriate for mid-range organizations.
When free templates for Office and Excel spreadsheets are better than your small business accounting product, it really is time to close up shop. A more pertinent rationale is that Microsoft was never able to get traction in a market with strong existing players, notably Intuit’s QuickBooks.
