Microsoft News Tracker

Microsoft yesterday revealed the versions and estimated US retail pricing for Office 2010 which is coming in June. Here’s a summary table:

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:

• The Office Home and Student boxed product is available in a Family Pack, allowing usage on three PCs in one house
• The purchase rights for Office Home and Business, Office Professional, and Office Professional Academic boxed product allow for usage on two PCs.
• The Product Key Card is valid for a single installation of the product.

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.