Buying Office Through Retail or OEM Channels

This chart lists the contents of the four Office 2007 suite editions available exclusively through OEM and retail channels, along with estimated retail prices (street prices vary but are often 20% to 30% less than the figures listed). Prices listed in the left column are for the individual applications when purchased separately. Not listed in the accompanying chart is Office 2008 for Mac—a bundle containing Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and an e-mail client called Entourage—which is also available through retail.

For both the suites and stand-alone applications, two prices are listed—the first is for the full product, and the second number is for an upgrade from a previous version. In most cases, Microsoft is quite generous with respect to what past purchases qualifies a user as eligible to buy an upgrade. For example, ownership of Word 2000 alone entitles a user to purchase the Office Professional 2007 upgrade, saving over US$100.

Note the following exceptions:

• Upgrades are not available