Office 2004 Pro delay

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Macintosh
May 13th, 2004 • 10:52 pm

It’s always nice when a big company such as Microsoft deems it appropriate not to make any mention of any product delays on its own web site, and leaves it to third-party sites to announce the bad news.

If you visit the “Mactopia” section of Microsoft’s web site today, you will not see any mention of the fact that the “Professional” version of Office 2004 has been delayed for several months.

You need to check out third-party new sites such as C|Net to hear more about this. The news is that Virtual PC 7.0 “needs more testing” and, since Virtual PC 7.0 is supposed to be part of Office 2004 Pro, that means that the whole package is delayed.

What neither C|Net nor Microsoft says, of course, is what happens to Office X owners who want to upgrade to Office 2004. If they want to purchase Office 2004 at the upgrade price, and if they want Virtual PC 7.0 as part of the package, will they be forced to wait for several months before they can use Word 2004 or Excel 2004, even though these applications are available now? If they use their existing copy of Office X to purchase Office 2004 Standard at the upgrade price now, will they be able to upgrade Office 2004 Standard to Office 2004 Professional later on without having to pay the full Office 2004 Professional upgrade price again?

I guess that clear communication with existing and potential customers is not a priority for Microsoft.


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