Price Changes Give Microsoft Office Customers More Value

REDMOND, Wash., May 27, 2003 — Microsoft Corp. today announced changes to the pricing of several products in the Microsoft®
Office XP family, the world’s leading business productivity programs. These changes will give consumers and small business customers improved purchasing options that help address their business and economic needs. This reduced pricing for full package product (FPP) comes at the same time Microsoft is enhancing the Software Assurance offering for businesses that purchase Microsoft Office through Volume Licensing.

More Choices for Price-Sensitive Retail Customers

Microsoft is reducing the estimated retail price of FPP Microsoft Office XP Standard and of Microsoft Office XP Professional by approximately 15 percent. In addition, Microsoft is reducing the estimated retail price of the FPP stand-alone applications Word 2002, Excel 2002, PowerPoint 2002 and Access 2002 by approximately 30 percent. This means that retail customers will save approximately $80 to $110 (U.S.) on the estimated retail prices, depending on the product purchased (reseller pricing will vary).*

Microsoft Office XP retail price reductions will take effect May 28 in the United States and Canada, and will be rolled out globally as individual subsidiaries implement their normal currency, pricing and other local retail adjustments. Customers outside the United States or Canada should contact their local Microsoft subsidiary for further information.

“Microsoft is reducing the retail pricing of Office XP as its commitment to make it easier for consumers and small businesses to obtain the world’s leading productivity suite,”
said Joe Eschbach, corporate vice president of the Information Worker Product Management Group at Microsoft.

Software Assurance Updates

Microsoft also has announced key enhancements to its Software Assurance offering. Microsoft will provide all business customers that purchase Software Assurance with resources including training, support, and deployment and management tools. The new Software Assurance features, which vary by licensing program, include specific benefits for Office customers — in particular, employee home-use rights for Microsoft Office System products. With home-use rights, employees may install Microsoft Office Systems products on their home computers for both business and personal needs. Home-use rights provide added flexibility for those who choose to work at home, enhance employee productivity, and ensure compatibility of documents created at work and at home. Microsoft Office System products include Microsoft Office Suite, as well as FrontPage® , InfoPath (TM) , OneNote (TM) , Project, Publisher and Visio®
.

The enhancements to Software Assurance will be available beginning September 2003. More information about Software Assurance changes can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT” ) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.* Retail upgrade licenses; Outlook®
2002, Office XP Standard for Students and Teachers, and Office XP Developer are not included in this price reduction.

Microsoft, PowerPoint, FrontPage, InfoPath, OneNote, Visio and Outlook are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

The names of actual products and services mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/contactpr.asp.

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