Microsoft tweaks Office 2003 licensing

With Office 2003, Microsoft will give certain Office Standard Edition users the right to order Office Professional Edition applications at no extra cost.

The offer applies only to volume license buyers who bought a right to upgrade to Office 2003 Standard Edition from earlier editions, either through Software Assurance or its predecessor, Upgrade Advantage, according to a document posted on Microsoft’s licensing Web site.

“[Microsoft] has provided customers a transition path to the Professional Edition without having to buy a brand-new license and losing the investment in the Standard Edition,” said Julie Giera, a vice president and research fellow at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass.

The company aims to satisfy customers who may have been unpleasantly surprised by the move announced earlier this year to further differentiate the Office editions, said Dan Leach, a lead product manager at Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft.

“We announced the differentiation of the Office versions after customers may have made the decision to go with the Standard Edition. Those customers may want those new features in Office Professional,” Leach said.

Traditionally, the applications included in the suite were the only difference between the standard and professional versions. But with the release of Office 2003 later this year, there will also be differences in features. For example, applications in Office 2003 Professional Edition will support customer-defined XML schemas and information rights management, and Standard Edition applications will not, Leach said.

Current Office Standard Edition users who bought upgrade rights before March 31 and have renewed them by March 31, 2004, will get perpetual rights to use the professional versions of Word 2003, Excel 2003, PowerPoint 2003, and Outlook 2003 without extra charge.

Users who want the full Office Professional Enterprise Edition 2003 can hand in their Standard Edition license and get a Professional Edition license by paying the price difference.