Application Editions

Four Office 2007 applications—Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Word—come in both a “standard” and “premium” edition, although they are not officially named as such. Microsoft simply refers to the latter as containing “premium features.” The premium features, all of which relate to SharePoint Server integration and Active Directory Rights Management Services, are included in some Office suites but not others. Organizations must choose carefully, because deciding later on that these premium capabilities are required could mean having to repurchase Office licenses.

Volume licensing customers who buy the Office Professional Plus or Office Enterprise editions of the suite or who purchase any of the four applications stand-alone receive the premium application editions. (For a list of suites and their components, see the chart “Office Suites Available Through Volume Licensing“.) If a customer purchases Office Standard 2007 or Office Small Business 2007—editions of the suite that do not contain the premium application editions but are sold through volume licensing channels—along with an SA subscription, the customer can at a later date purchase “step-up” licenses that allow them to move to Office Professional Plus or Office Enterprise for approximately the price difference between the new and original editions. In contrast, organizations without SA would have to repurchase the higher-end Office licenses from scratch.