Office 2003 Prices, Release Date Revealed

Office 2003 Prices, Release Dates Revealed
   Yesterday, in what's becoming an increasingly common error, online retailer Amazon.com inadvertently leaked the retail prices for the upcoming Microsoft Office 2003 products. According to the UK version of Amazon.com's Web site, Office 2003 versions will retail for 119.99 pounds to 429.99 pounds and will be available beginning October 24. Individual Office 2003 applications will retail for 89.99 pounds to 419.99 pounds and will be available on the same date.
   An examination of the prices for similar Office XP products reveals that Microsoft is raising prices somewhat, a curious move in the face of rejuvenated competition from and interest in rival office-productivity suites from Corel, OpenOffice.org, and Sun Microsystems. For example, Office 2003 Professional Edition now costs 429.99 pounds, up from 397.99 pounds for Office XP Professional. Here's how the retail versions of the Office 2003 product lines break down.

Office 2003 suites:
   - Office 2003 Standard Edition for Students and Teachers--119.99 pounds; includes Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint (not eligible for future upgrades)
   - Office 2003 Standard Edition--349.99 pounds; includes Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint; upgrade--199.99 pounds
   - Office Small Business Edition--384.99 pounds; includes Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Publisher; upgrade--234.99 pounds
   - Office 2003 Professional Edition--429.99 pounds; includes Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Access; upgrade--269.99 pounds

Office 2003 standalone products:
   - Excel 2003--199.99 pounds; upgrade--89.99 pounds
   - FrontPage 2003--179.99 pounds; upgrade 89.99 pounds
   - InfoPath 2003--179.99 pounds
   - OneNote 2003--169.99 pounds
   - Outlook 2003--89.99 pounds
   - PowerPoint 2003--199.99 pounds; upgrade 89.99 pounds
   - Project 2003--484.99 pounds
   - Proofing Tools 2003--66.99 pounds
   - Publisher 2003--139.99 pounds; upgrade 84.99 pounds
   - Visio Standard Edition 2003--169.99 pounds; upgrade 84.99 pounds
   - Visio Professional Edition 2003--419.99 pounds; upgrade 209.99 pounds
   - Word 2003--199.99 pounds; upgrade 89.99 pounds

These prices are for the retail versions of Office 2003 only. Microsoft will offer special volume-license versions of some Office 2003 products; those versions will include a slightly different mix of products. The current exchange rate has little or no bearing on US prices for these products. I expect Microsoft to formally announce worldwide pricing and availability at any time.