Office System Packaging Announced

Six editions of Office 2003 will ship this summer, Microsoft has revealed. Four of the suites will be sold at retail, including Office 2003 Small Business, which was unveiled last month.

Consumers wishing to try Microsoft's newest Office System components, OneNote and InfoPath, must purchase them separately. Microsoft will bundle InfoPath with Office 2003 Professional Enterprise Edition, but that product is only available to business customers through its volume licensing program.

Much like Office XP packaging, Office 2003 Standard features Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Office 2003 Professional adds Access, Publisher and Business Contact Manager for Outlook to the standard offering.

A new edition dubbed Office 2003 Basic serves as a stripped down Office suite for consumers, containing Word, Excel and Outlook. Office Basic will only be available on new PCs as a lower-priced offering for OEMs.

"By offering different versions of Microsoft Office 2003 for different types of customers with different needs, we will be able to offer customers the latest productivity tools that fit their needs and the way they want to purchase their software," said a Microsoft spokesperson.

As previously reported, Microsoft will also sell via retail outlets a version of Office 2003 designed for small businesses. Office 2003 Small Business includes everything from the standard edition, plus Publisher and Business Contact Manager for Outlook.

The most interesting change in the Office System lineup comes in the form of a less restrictive Office Student and Teacher Edition. As it does with Office XP, Microsoft will sell the educational product at a significantly lower cost. But the 2003 version will carry new licensing terms that allow the suite to be used by anyone with a student or teacher in their household, not just faculty or students themselves.

Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003 can be installed on three computers, as opposed to the two installations allowed when using other Office 2003 editions. In addition, the educational license will not expire once a college student graduates and may be upgraded to a newer version of the Office suite.

Rounding off the list of Office System applications, Microsoft says it will sell FrontPage, Project and Visio independently as standalone products. Project 2003 and Visio 2003 are expected to ship later this year, after the debut of Office 2003.