Now - Office XP Standard goes for 649 EUR and includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint.

BUT - there are just some more Office Versions for Windows: take the Office XP Professional Systembuilder Version for 409 EUR which includes Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and even Access! Or more suited for the interested: MS Office XP Small Business Edition Systembuilder Version for
259 EUR including Word, Excel, Outlook and Publisher.

So - this says to me:

- the Office X price could be lowered if there would be a "Systembuilder" version. Microsoft would do no support and no upgraded. But most of us won't care about this if we just want to use it to be "compatible" in case...

- PowerPoint - do we all need it? No. I think the most used applications are Word, Excel and Outlook/Entourage. Why should I pay a premium for PowerPoint if I won't use it anyway??

Microsoft seems to follow a "take it all or leave it" tactic here. I bet that something similiar to the MS Office XP Small Business Edition Systembuilder Version would fly of the shelfes. They could even lower the price because there is no Publisher inside...

Or the other way round: I would wonder if the sales rate of Office XP would be as good if there would be only one "all inclusive" version for XP.

I suspect this is politics - this way it won't hurt Windows OS sales. And it would be interesting to know if the MacBU of Microsoft has anything to decide in making these packages...

(1 EUR about 1 US$...)