Microsoft cock-up adds £30 to Office 2010 price

They used to include Publisher in the Small Business Edition. Essentially £130 for Outlook seems a bit steep to me.

By c6ten on 17 Feb 2010

Time for Open Office

Time for a change i think

By AndyMoore99 on 17 Feb 2010

I thought this was supposed to be a CHEAPER Office..

MS are extracting the urine, as well as the cash from our wallets.

By wittgenfrog on 17 Feb 2010

Ship of Greedy Fools ->MS

Now any small/medium business will more than seriously think about Open Office adoption. The recession is still to bite down hard and we will see taxes rise after the next election. These folk will never migrate back.

By Alperian on 17 Feb 2010

Seems a lot to pay for the swapping of some zeds for essess and the addition of a few yous.

To be fair VAT adds 17.5% to the price, and I presume the US prices don't include the states' equivalent. Even our rate of VAT only brings the US price to £373 - around £60 too much.

By Mark_Thompson on 17 Feb 2010

The real competitor is Office 2003

"Now any small/medium business will more than seriously think about Open Office adoption"
Unlikely - perhaps sadly. The cost benefit analysis will be based on the UK situation. The fact that someone can get it cheaper in the US is not likely to concern anyone in Procurement - they're just interested in what it costs their company here vs. what it gains. Personally, I see absolutely no reason to move from Office 2003, so that's the real competitor for me, not Open Office.

By AdrianB on 17 Feb 2010

Glad i'm covered by HUP

These are crazy prices, especially when you look at things like iWork costing just over £50 and doing most of the things the average home user might need.

I'm just glad my employer is enrolled on the MS Home User Program, should keep the price at a somewhat more respectable £7.50 for Office home

By hjlupton on 17 Feb 2010

OneNote

When OneNote first came out I struggled to see it catching on, and still do. So, out of interest, who actually uses OneNote, and how often?

Personally, I would have thought that Publisher would have been much more useful than OneNote and a bigger selling point.

By jonathan_noy on 17 Feb 2010

Thank god for student offers!

I recently bought MS Office 2007 Ultimate (including Outlook Business Contacts Manager) for £47 direct from MS. They seem to offer students a heavily discounted price every year and with 3 of my daughters qualifying (all 4 from this September) I'll play the waiting game yet again. I could have bought Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 7 Professional for £30 also as part of the offer - I may buy 7 Pro shortly and keep it till needed anyway for the sake of £30.

I would have stuck to Office 2003 if it were not for the student discount offer as there's no way could I justify spending the asking price for 2010.

The price differences are utterly daft and unjustifiable between the US & UK versions (MS certainly hasn't given a buyable story for the differences) and as has been mentioned will naturally lead to continuaing levels of software piracy. At the same time MS seem to like offering various countries with heavy rates of software piracy huge discounts to get people to buy legit versions of its software, but they like to stuff the likes of the UK with extravogant prices, which probably go some way to the discounted prices for the pirate countries.

By reme8488 on 18 Feb 2010

I guess that they do not really want anyone in the UK to buy Office 2010. Or perhaps there is a socialist agenda here, work for the government and get a bargain, NHS and I am sure others can buy the existing office version at a 'slightly improved' price.
Richard

By Jonesr18 on 18 Feb 2010

Would it not be possible to buy it from the US and have it shipped to the UK for a cheaper price than the full UK retail?

By mjb3000 on 18 Feb 2010

And for the very small business / self-employed?

I agree with AdrianB for larger businesses, but for a lot of the smaller companies and one "man" bands - there's significant interest in reducing costs - the landscape that I'm seeing is WinXP + Office2k3 staying around until Ubuntu + Open Office take over. I won't be buying MS for home any more

By Sercul on 18 Feb 2010

It's in your own hands so stop whinging

Just like all those that complain about supermarkets destroying the high street but continue to use them. If you migrate to Open Office or the like Microsoft would soon get the message. Hardly anyone NEEDS the full Professional package and could achieve all they wish with Open Office. So come on and make use of the power that is in your hands.

By pcanniffe on 18 Feb 2010

Student offers

reme8488

The Windows 7 Professional offer on Ultimate Steal went up in price to £70 on January 1st 2010, not such a bargain now, think I'll stick to Vista.

By Gwyndy on 18 Feb 2010

@jonathan_noy

Yes, I use OneNote, it's an excellent product. I have a notebook which synchronises to my mobile device full of all sorts of notes such product keys, useful information, internet links to items I'm interested in, notes from meetings, etc., and another notebook mostly used for recipes which I've copied from various sources, but also has other personal information in it.

I have to agree that the absence of Publisher from the home and business edition is surprising. I don't think you'd find me paying the extra if the only addition for that version is Outlook. That would mean you're paying more for Outlook than Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote combined - not a bargain.

By jgwilliams on 18 Feb 2010

Where's the upgrade option? Where's the option for affordable versions of Outlook and Publisher for the home user? Something tells me that the price of Outlook might help put Windows Mobile 7 out of its misery.
I won't be buying Office again. Whatever Microsoft says, Office 2007 was not compatible with previous versions. I find myself having to edit finished documents sent to me in older formats and recipients of my documents moan that they are a mess. I won't be going to Open Office though; I'll just downgrade to Office 2003. That's what most of my colleagues are using anyway.

By DrATty on 18 Feb 2010

If you need to keep up with the latest versions, try a Microsoft Technet subscription. For about £300 per year you get up to 10 copies of all the software that MS produces - for your own use of course. It might not suit everyone but may be worth a look.

By Pantagoon on 18 Feb 2010

These are retail packages

remember the company's on volume license subscription, will still have access to Office Std and SBE, to get Outlook and Publisher....info given is for retail boxes in shops.

By IainNIX on 22 Feb 2010