Prices on Some Office Products Drop

In rolling out its Office 2010 line of products, Microsoft has raised suite prices slightly for volume customers, but the new suites also contain more products than their predecessors. The net effect is that the Office 2010 suites represent a greater discount from the sum of their component products than the Office 2007 suites did. Customers who purchase individual components, such as Word or Excel, will also see price reductions. The changes mean that Microsoft will see the same or slightly better overall revenue from comparable license sales, and customers will also get more value.

(For a list of new and old prices, see the chart “Office 2007, 2010 Price Comparisons“.)

Suite Prices, Components Increase

Ever since Microsoft released a suite of desktop applications as the Office suite in the early 1990s, the company has used the suite to cement its position as the leading desktop application vendor and to offer customers a broad range of applications for a single price.

A new Office version usually means new versions of all of the suite’s component applications and often new names for the suites and shifts in the mix of components they contain.