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• August 21, 2003 •
Yesterday Microsoft announced the completion of the core products in the new Microsoft® Office System and has released all products to manufacturing.
The Microsoft Office System is composed of productivity programs, servers and services, and includes programs such as the Microsoft Office 2003 editions, and the 2003 versions of Microsoft Office programs such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint®, Access, Outlook®, Visio®, FrontPage® and Publisher. The abilities in the core products can be extended in Microsoft Office System solutions by taking advantage of the productivity-enhancing capabilities of Microsoft Office SharePoint™ Portal Server 2003, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, Microsoft Office Live Meeting and the three new programs: Microsoft Office InfoPath™ 2003, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2003 and Microsoft Office OneNote™ 2003. The Microsoft Office System is the result of one of the largest development efforts and beta tests in Microsoft history. More than 600,000 beta testers — approximately three times the participants in previous beta tests — provided Microsoft with detailed feedback over the past year.
Six Office System bundles will be available, including a new addition for small businesses and another to be installed on new PCs. The bundles are:
1 Business Contact Manager is an extension of Outlook that adds customer relationship management (CRM) information to contacts, calendars and e-mail.
2 Microsoft Office InfoPath streamlines the process of gathering information by allowing users to create and complete dynamic forms and submit them to the XML-enabled systems and business processes that need the information.
Pricing and Availability
Estimated retail pricing (ERP) for the Microsoft Office 2003 Editions is unchanged from Office XP. A sampling of the U.S. ERP for the full product packages includes Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003, $149; Microsoft Office Standard Edition 2003, $399; and Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003, $499. Prices for stand-alone programs inside the suite are unchanged at $229 for Microsoft Office Word 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2003, Microsoft Office Access 2003 and Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003, and $109 for Microsoft Office Outlook 2003. The U.S. ERP for InfoPath 2003 is $199. OneNote 2003 has a U.S. ERP of $199, with a $100 mail-in rebate available for qualifying customers in North America.
A full price list for the products and servers in the Microsoft Office System is now available on the Microsoft Office Preview Web site.
The products in the Microsoft Office System will be on the volume licensing price list Sept. 1, 2003; some original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are expected to begin shipping machines with Office 2003 editions preinstalled by the end of September; and the products will be broadly available to retail customers in the United States and Canada on Oct. 21. Microsoft will formally introduce the new Microsoft Office System in a worldwide launch event on that date in New York.
