Office 2003 Lineup Announced

Office System 2003 applications will be sold in several new bundles for both large and small businesses. Microsoft has also revealed that many new features planned for Office, such as user-defined XML schemas and rights management (for controlling document distribution), will not appear in all versions of the software. Customers who want those features and do not have current upgrade rights will be steered to the company’s higher-end bundles, a strategy that is likely to increase Microsoft’s revenue while not visibly raising prices.

For Microsoft, the bundling strategy seems designed to serve customers who purchased upgrade rights in volume license programs; raise revenue from high-end business customers without raising prices; and stave off threats from Corel, StarOffice, and OpenOffice in the consumer and small business markets.

(For more information about how Office components are bundled, see the chart “Office 2003 Editions and Channels“.)

Most Bundles Modified

Only two Office 2003 bundles, Office Standard Edition and Student and Teacher Edition, have the same four core applications as their Office XP editions (Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint). Other bundles have changed as follows: