When Microsoft revealed the retail pricing for its Office 2010 lineup earlier this week, there was one piece of information that previous Office pricing announcements have almost always included. Upgrade versions are nonexistent. This isn't a case of pricing that has not yet been finalized—no, consumers who already have an earlier Office release on their PC will simply not have the option to purchase discounted upgrade versions. We contacted Microsoft to see why it had made such a decision with Office 2010, and the company responded that it was part of the goal of simplifying the Office lineup (Microsoft has been trying to do this in many of the new versions of its products, including Visual Studio 2010 for example).
'We are not offering upgrade pricing for Office 2010,' a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed with Ars. 'Based on partner and customer feedback we've made many changes to the Office 2010 lineup designed to simplify the product lineup and pricing in the retail space. Removing version upgrades was one of those decisions. This reduces the number of products that our retail partners need to manage and also reduces customer confusion about which version of Office they should purchase.'
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