Wasiq Ansari’s World

For as long as anyone can remember Microsoft Office has a cheaper ‘upgrade’ price option – but not for Office 2010.

Microsoft has confirmed to Office Watch that there will be no upgrade pricing offers for existing Office users.

Everyone, existing customer or not, will pay the same prices for Office 2010 with no ‘reward’ for customer loyalty.

Over the years the ‘upgrade’ offer has been gradually limited. Many moons ago there was a ‘cross-grade’ or ‘competitive upgrade’ price to encourage people to switch from rivals like Word-Perfect.

Back in 1997 Office Watch saved our readers lots of money. Downloading the free Compuserve or AOL software or getting it from a widely available disk was enough to qualify for the cheaper Office 97 pricing. Alas Microsoft closed that loophole.

With each new Office version the rules on upgrade/cross-grade were tightened. The rival products were dropped from the list, then upgrades were limited to the past two versions. And now the whole concept of upgrades is gone from Office.

No more version hopping:

Some Office users would ‘version hop’ – upgrading every second release of Office to maintain their entitlement to upgrade pricing.

There’s no reason to do that anymore. Stick with the version of Office you have until there’s a compelling reason to change.

And if you do decide to get a new Microsoft Office suite, you’ll pay more.

In addition there is no psychological encouragement to stick with Microsoft Office by getting a cheaper price for sticking with Microsoft. Some might decide that instead of paying full price they’ll look at OpenOffice or Google Docs instead.

Presumably Microsoft figures that most people are so attached and familiar with MS Office that they stick with it regardless – and they may well be right.

Source: news.office-watch.com/t/n.aspx?a=1359&z=12