Microsoft sets prices for forthcoming Office 2010

(AP) -- Microsoft Corp. will sell four versions of the forthcoming Office 2010 software, due out in June, for prices ranging from $99 to $499.

The company said Tuesday it will sell Office Home and Student edition, which comes with four core programs, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, for $149 as boxed software that can be used on three computers in the home. A "Product Key Card," which has a code to unlock one copy of Office 2010 pre-loaded on new PCs, costs $119.

Microsoft will sell an education-only version, Office Professional Academic, through campus book stores and some retailers for $99. Besides the core programs, the academic version comes with the Outlook e-mail program, Publisher for desktop publishing and the Access database software.

Office Home and Business, which includes Outlook along with the four core programs, will cost $297 as boxed software or $199 for the Product Key Card.

Microsoft said it would sell Office Professional, which has Outlook, Publisher, Access and premium technical support, for $499 boxed or $249 for the card.

All the editions come with access to the new Office Web Apps, lightweight versions of Microsoft's core Office programs that work in a Web browser.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker has lagged behind Google Inc. in bringing to market word processing, spreadsheet and other software that runs in a Web browser instead of on a PC. But Microsoft is banking on computer users still wanting more formatting options and other features enough to pay for the full desktop versions.

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