Office 2003 fan? Stock up now.

One of my clients cannot upgrade to Office 2007 because they use some software that tightly integrates with Office 2003, and this software is not Office 2007-ready (at least not yet). Sometime later this summer, they will no longer be able to get Office 2003 preinstalled on the computers they buy from Dell. Instead, they’ll have to buy computers with Office 2007 and then buy the Software Assurance add-on through Microsoft’s volume licensing program. That will give them the right to remove Office 2007 from the new PCs and replace it with Office 2003. As it happens, this is not that big a change. For the last several months they’ve already been buying a Software Assurance agreement for each preinstalled copy of Office 2003 so that they’ll be able to upgrade when the time comes. Now the process will just work in reverse for a little while.

You may ask why they will start buying Office 2007 preinstalled rather than simply buying the license and Software Assurance directly from Microsoft. The answer is:

1) They buy from Dell, and Dell throws in a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Standard with each copy of Microsoft Office. This is a $300 value.

2) A preinstalled copy of Office plus Software Assurance is about $100 less than the license and Software Assurance direct from Microsoft.

With the added labor involved in removing Office 2007 and installing Office 2003, it may end up being a wash.

Meanwhile, you probaby don’t really have to stock up on Office 2003 just because Microsoft is cutting off the OEM channel. I’m sure you’ll be able to buy boxed copies of Office 2003 from retailers and eBay for quite some time.