With the current 2007 release, there are a number of different versions of Microsoft Office. They all contain different products and they all come with different price tags so making sure you pick the right one is definitely important.
The full comparison chart for the different versions of Office can be found here but I’m going to cover the main differences below.
What are the different editions?
There are 5 separate version of Microsoft Office 2007 and these are:
- Home & Student (free trial)
- Standard (free trial)
- Small Business (free trial)
- Professional (plus) (free trial)
- Ultimate (no trial available)
The first thing to note is that ALL the versions include Word, Powerpoint & Excel. If those three applications are all you need, then Standard is the best edition for you as it is the cheapest*, and Standard also includes Outlook, as do all the version other than Home & Student. (*This is assuming you’re licensing this within a Corporate environment, as Home & Student isn’t valid for business use.)
- Access is only available with Pro & Ultimate.
- OneNote is included only with Home & Student and Ultimate.
- Small Business includes Accounting Express.
- Groove & InfoPath are included with Ultimate only.
- Office Home & Student allows for installation on up to 3 devices in the same household via retail, but not OEM (pre-installed).
Applications such as Access, OneNote, InfoPath, Outlook and Groove can all be purchased separately to work alongside an existing office installation. So for example, you could buy Office Standard and then get OneNote separately.
Cloudy with a chance of Licensing 