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With the release of Office 2003, Microsoft will give some users of the Standard Edition the right to order Office Professional Edition applications at no extra cost and offer a "Step-up License" to upgrade to the full Office Professional suite, the company says.

Both offers apply 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, Microsoft says in a policy statement posted to its licensing Web site on Monday.

Enough Incentive?

Clearly, Microsoft hopes the offers will entice customers to switch to the more expensive Office Professional Edition. But the policy is also intended to satisfy customers who may have been unpleasantly surprised by Microsoft's move earlier this year to further differentiate Office editions, says Dan Leach, lead product manager for Office.

"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 says.

Traditionally the only difference between standard and professional versions of Office was the applications included in the suite. That is changing with the release of Office 2003 later this year. Now, Microsoft is also implementing differences in features.

For example, applications in Office 2003 Professional Edition will support customer-defined XML schemas and information rights management. The Standard Edition applications won't, Leach says.

Rules for Upgrade

Current users of Office Standard Edition 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, according to Microsoft.

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, Microsoft says. The Professional Edition also includes the InfoPath XML authoring tool and Outlook with Business Contact Manager.

The Step-up License will be sold from September 1, 2003 until September 1, 2004. Microsoft did not offer such a license upgrade option in the past, forcing customers who wanted to upgrade to buy a completely new license.

Microsoft has done the right thing, says Julie Giera, a vice president and research fellow at Forrester Research.

"They have provided customers a transition path giving access to the Professional Edition without having to buy a brand new license and losing the investment in the Standard Edition," she says.

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