Microsoft Office 2010 No Longer Available As An Upgrade

[Andy Dixon]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://daggle.com/office-2010-no-upgrade-pricing-1994' target='_blank'>http://daggle.com/office-2010-no-up...de-pricing-1994</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"I'm a Microsoft Office devotee. Sure, cloud-based apps are fine. But I like dependable, fast software right on my own computer. My life revolves fairly happily around Outlook. You can pry Excel out of my cold dead fingers. But maybe it'll be Excel 2007 you'll be prying away, because Office 2010's new pricing policy has really ticked me off."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/wpt/auto/1276764548.usr11334.jpg" style="border: 0;" /></p><p>It appears Microsoft have removed the upgrade version of Office 2010 and the only choice is to buy one of&nbsp;the full product versions. As Danny Sullivan says in his blog, this will feel like a price increase to users especially as Office isn't exactly cheap to start with.&nbsp;With the availability of free competing products such as Google Docs or Openoffice, there is a good chance that many will see this as a chance to switch from Office to save money. It will be interesting to see the market share statistics in the future to see if there has been any change.</p>

[ptyork]

I feel so bad for Microsoft, a once great company on the verge of implosion. They are doing SO MANY things totally wrong right now. They've got a few islands of goodness in there, but man. Yes, this is a HUGE error. They've also bumped up the price of the student versions. You know, the ones that are supposed to convince students that it is okay to PAY for software. The ones that are supposed to hook them in for life? Surrounded by increasingly good free options. Dumb, dumb, dumb. They should be making it a no brainer decision to buy it. Instead, they are trying to milk the corporations for as much as they can until they all decide that, no, they really don't need to pay for this stuff.

Ballmer really is going to be the death of Microsoft. Jason, you own stock, right? Go to a board meeting and get that silly bald fella fired! He's completely out of control.

[crimsonsky]

IIRC I read somewhere (maybe on Thurrott's blog?) that the rationale behind this is that most people don't buy the update version anyway. They mainly get the product with a new PC (either full or trial) and that upgrade versions didn't sell well.

*Shrug* As a retired military member, I could always buy the Military Edition (Home/Office version) for $79 in any military exchange. And since joining Technet, I have essentially 100 licenses to just about every product MS sells so this isn't a huge deal for me.

But understanding that my situation is different from most folks, I honestly don't know how big a deal this really is. (And on the Mac side, there's never been an upgrade version nor a Military Edition, so every time I upgrade my Office for Mac, I have to pay full price).

[Jason Dunn]

The Home/Student edition, which sold for $149 here in Canada, and which could be installed on three computers, was a great deal. What irks me though is that they still haven't put Outlook in there - and I have lots of family members using Outlook, so their only option is the much more expensive Office Home & Business 2010 at $349. OUCH! That's ridiculous pricing, so instead I'll now try and convince my mother in law to move to a cloud-based service. :(

[Jason Dunn]

They've also bumped up the price of the student versions. You know, the ones that are supposed to convince students that it is okay to PAY for software. The ones that are supposed to hook them in for life? Surrounded by increasingly good free options.

Yeah, I agree with you on that. I think it should be $99, max. That's a powerful psychological price point, and if they're getting it with a new system, all the better. But raising the price, even $10, is going the wrong direction. At least post-secondary students have the option to buy it at their college stores for really cheap.

Ballmer really is going to be the death of Microsoft. Jason, you own stock, right? Go to a board meeting and get that silly bald fella fired! He's completely out of control.

Yeah, I own a few stocks. The real problem with Microsoft - or with most big companies - is that they don't see the change coming until it's too late. I think Microsoft would have to see a significant decline in market share/profits on Office before they decided to change their plans.

[Bob Christensen]

If you are thinking of purchasing Office 2010, you might save a few bucks by buying Office 2007 before Sep. 30. You are then entitled to a free download of Office 2010. I think it has to be the same version, and make sure you get a package that gives you the free upgrade. Office 2007 packages are getting scarce in retail stores, but I think you can still find it (with discounts) on Amazon and other online stores.

[Doug Raeburn]

Yeah, I did just that and ended up paying about what I did for the Office 2007 upgrade. It gets expensive for me because I use MS Access fairly extensively and that gets me into Professional territory ($499 MSRP), so this little tactic saved me about $230. But this is all a sad state of affairs. I guess there's little value in being a loyal MS customer when they crap all over you like this.

[hardsv1982]

I think it is still expensive but Amazon is offering MS Office 2010 Home and student "Key Card" for $110
and disc version for $129