Lack of Customers Killed Office 2010 Upgrade Pricing

Why won't Microsoft offer upgrade pricing on Office 2010? Because few were buying it, a company representative said.

Microsoft will officially launch Office 2010 at an event in New York on Wednesday.

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Microsoft will charge up to $499 for a boxed copy for Office 2010 ($399 with a product key card), $149.99 for the Home and Student version, or $279.99 for a boxed copy of the Home and Business business version.

Microsoft priced both the Professional version of Office 2010 and Office 2007 at $499. With Office 2007, however, Microsoft offered upgrade pricing. That pricing discounted Office 2007 Ultimate to $539, and Professional 2007 to $329, or a 34 percent discount.

With Office 2010, however, Microsoft discontinued the practice.

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"We looked at how people are using and buying Office and we found two things: Not a lot of people were buying the upgrade," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. "When people do buy a new version of Office they do it with the purchase of a new PC."

Due to this, the majority of retailers do not sell Office upgrades off their shelves, the Microsoft representative said.

Instead, Microsoft is making discounts available via Product Key Cards, essentially license keys. Armed with the key, consumers can download the software and install it themselves, using the key to unlock the software package. Users must re-download the software if their installation for some reason becomes unusable, however.

"Additionally, we've never offered an upgrade on Office Home and Student, which is the number one selling version of Office," the Microsoft representative said. "We are also making Office 2010 more valuable than ever with the Product Key Card purchase option and for the first time ever, Home and Business is being offered for under $200, which includes Outlook."

Both Microsoft Office Professional 2010 and 2007 included Access, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, PowerPoint, and Word. The Office 2010 Home and Business version excludes Publisher and Access; the student version also excludes Outlook. (Microsoft offered an Office Ultimate 2007 version for $679, a product Microsoft does not offer for Office 2010.)

Office 2010 Professional is priced at $499 boxed or $349 with a product key, a 30 percent discount, Microsoft has said. Office Home and Business costs $279 for the boxed copy, and $199 with the product key, a 28 percent discount. Office Home and Student costs $149 boxed, or $119 for the product key, a 20 percent discount. (Since Office Home and Business adds Outlook only, customers pay $130 or $80, depending on the version, for Microsoft's email software.) Microsoft Office 2010 Starter Edition is ad-supported.

Microsoft will also let Office 2010 workers use Web-based versions of its software, as well.

In its own Office 2010 review, PCMag.com considered the Office 2010 suite a worthy upgrade, but not a necessary one, especially for homes and small businesses. "If you're a casual user or are on a tight budget, you can manage without this upgrade, but power users with cash to spend will find the upgrade worth the cost," reviewer Ed Mendelson wrote.

But there are also some exceptions that will find the upgrade invaluable: 64-bit users, enterprises, and creative professionals, Mendelson added.