I believe the availability of free competitors, mainly in the form of Google Docs, has forced Microsoft to price its Office 2010 suite at a more affordable level. The Standard Edition of Office 2007, containing Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, debuted with a suggested retail price of US$399. Now, the price for Office 2010 Home and Business, which includes those four apps plus the note-taking program OneNote, costs as little as US$199 for the Hone and Business Suite. Leave out Outlook and the price goes down to US$119 for the Home and Student Suite. No upgrade prices are offered.
For consumer users, which earned Office US$1.8 billion in fiscal 2009, this is a much more affordable price tag, especially for those still on the 2003 version or earlier.
Three different Microsoft Office 2010 suite combinations to choose from + Academic version.
Microsoft launches Office 2010 on Wednesday 12 May 2010 at 11am EDT in NBC Studios, New York. Business customers which make up 90 percent of Office customers, can begin purchasing the software while small businesses and consumers will have to wait till June for the suite to hit the stores.
Office generated US$19 billion in sales in fiscal 2009, which accounted for more than a third of Microsoft’s US$58 billion in sales for the year. It brought in more than half of the company’s operating profit – US$12 billion out of the overall US$20 billion.
According to Microsoft, about 500 million people use Office, many of them still on Office 2003 or older versions. While half the users may have purchased the software legitimately, the others have not, with many of them using pirated versions.