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Speaking about the UK launch of Equipt, a £60-a-year subscription service that includes Office 2007 and Windows Live OneCare, Microsoft's group product manager Bryson Gordon said people needed incentives to move from older versions of Office.

The subs deal is just part of a wider Office discounting strategy which has seen the company offer Office 2007 Ultimate edition for £39 to students.

"Lots of people have old versions of Office just kicking around," the Equipt group product manager told PC Pro.

"A lot of consumers

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are under the impression that Office was already installed on a [new] PC. When they get home and see it's only Office in a limited trial version, instead of going back to buy the product at the store, they were going back to old CDs in the drawer."

"Now, we really are getting more customers to use this latest version of Office," Bryson added.

But Gordon insists that the Windows Live OneCare element of the deal is more attractive to consumers. "The pricepoint of Equipt is in line with other security suite offers," he claimed. "People are buying Equipt at the same pricepoint and getting a full version of Office as well. It's much more about targeting the buyer of a security suite."

Upgrade strategy

One of the chief attractions of the Equipt package is that the subscriber is automatically updated to the latest version of Office/OneCare as they are launched.

Gordon says the company will handle the upgrade process with care. "With a new version of Office, we're not just going to drop it on someone's PC," he said, adding the company would warn and educate customers about forthcoming upgrades long in advance.

New versions will likely be delivered over the internet, but Gordon said the company is working on plans to send out CDs to customers who can't cope with the hefty downloads. "If someone is an active subscriber, they don't have to go back to the store and repurchase that," he said.