Microsoft drops Office XP price
In an unusual move, Microsoft earlier slashed the price of its market-leader Office suite of products and changed its controversial volume pricing according to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required):
The estimated retail price for its Office XP Professional package, which includes word processing, spreadsheet and e-mail software, dropped to $499 from $599 in the U.S. The individual components, including Word, Excel and Outlook, will be discounted about 32% to $229 each.
...In the nine months ended March 31, the business segment that includes Office had $7.25 billion in revenue and $5.74 billion in operating income. The majority of those sales are to corporations via volume licenses. Retail sales account for about 20% of the Office business, analysts estimate.