The New Microsoft Office 2010 Suite Options

Microsoft Office 2010 Suites

Purchasing Microsoft Office Suites can be confusing, but Microsoft has actually made it a little easier with Office 2010.  First of all, there are three ways that you can purchase Microsoft Office 2010:  Retail Package, Licensing, and OEM.  Then, there are two or three editions available within those.  Below is an explanation of the different Microsoft Office 2010 Suite editions available.  List pricing is included for the purpose of comparisons.  Actual pricing may vary (of course, volume and/or bundling often results in additional discounts).

Retail Packaging:  Retail packaging is available from retail stores as well as from Microsoft Gold partners like BusinessWare Solutions.  Retail packages are DVDs in a retail packaging.  There are three retail editions available:  Office 2010 Home and Student ($149.99), Office 2010 Home and Business ($279.99), and Office 2010 Professional ($499.99).  Retail packages should be purchased by home users and by small businesses that need fewer than five licenses.  However, businesses that are purchasing new PCs at the same time as Office 2010 would be better off purchasing an OEM Office 2010 license with their new PC.  Applications included in each edition will be listed at the bottom of this post.

Licensing:  Licensing is available to any customers that need five or more Microsoft Office 2010 Suite licenses.  There are special pricing options for government, education, and charity organizations (contact BusinessWare Solutions for discounted pricing).  Licensing is easier for businesses to manage because Microsoft keeps a record of every license you have and you can quickly and easily deploy additional licenses wthout registration.  Microsoft Open Value License agreements provide you with free upgrades for three years and allow you to make annual payments for your licenses as opposed to paying upfront.  Through licensing, there are only two Microsoft Office 2010 Suite editions available:  Office Standard 2010 and Office Professional Plus 2010.  When purchasing Micorsoft Office Standard 2010 through the Open Business licensing program, list price is $373 per license.  When purchasing Office Professional Plus 2010 through the Open Business licensing program, list price is $508 per license.  There are many ways to purchase licensing; you can pay upfront, you can pay annually, or you can even pay monthly.  Microsoft Gold partners like BusinessWare Solutions can help you decide what the best Microsoft licensing program is for your business.

OEM:  OEM (original equipment manufacturer) is available with the purchase of a new PC.  There are three OEM editions available:  Office Home & Student 2010 ($129), Office Home & Business 2010 ($189), and Office Professional 2010 ($349).  OEM licenses are priced aggressively, but they do have some limitations.  First of all, like retail packages, they have to be registetered individually with Microsoft.  Second, they are tied to the hardware they are puchased with.  So, when the PC that Office was purchased with is retired, so is the Office license – it can’t be moved to another PC.  Because of this, OEM licensing doesn’t work well in Terminal Server, Citrix Server, or Virtual Desktop environments.  Finally, OEM licensing is harder for businesses to manage, especially businesses with more than ten PCs.  With OEM licensing, the upfront price is right, but the savings may be lost in license management and flexibility.

As a general rule, most of our customers with fewer than five PCs purchase the OEM version of Microsoft Office with their new HP PC.  Customers with between 5 and 25 PCs vary – some purchase OEM and some purchase licensing.  Most customers with more than 25 PCs purchase licensing – it is easier to deploy and easier to for them to manage.  Typically the only customers that purchase Microsoft Office retail packages at BusinessWare Solutions are customers that have their personal PCs in for service or upgrades and decide to upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft Office Home and Student while they are having other work done. 

Applications included with the Microsoft Office 2010 suites:
Office Home and Student 2010:  Word 2010, Excel 2010, PowerPoint 2010
Office Home and Business 2010:  Word 2010, Excel 2010, PowerPoint 2010, OneNote 2010, Outlook 2010�
Office Professional 2010:  Word 2010, Excel 2010, PowerPoint 2010, OneNote 2010, Outlook 2010, Access 2010, Publisher 2010
Office Standard 2010:  Word 2010, Excel 2010, PowerPoint 2010, OneNote 2010, Outlook 2010 with Business Contact Manager, Publisher 2010
Office Professional Plus 2010:  Word 2010, Excel 2010, PowerPoint 2010, OneNote 2010, Outlook 2010 with Business Contact Manager, Access 2010, Publisher 2010, InfoPath 2010, Plus Additional Features!