As Office 2010 has just launched publicly, I had a customer contact me today trying to understand why his new PC he purchased from us has Office 2010 but doesn’t come with Office Web Apps 2010.
The reason for this is Microsoft has two different product lines. One is for Small Business/Home, and the other is Enterprise. If you take a look at the enterprise lineup at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/professional-plus/professional-plus-version-comparison-FX101871482.aspx you will see it comes with Office Web Apps 2010 and SharePoint Workspace, which becomes the offline client for SharePoint, allowing end-users the ability to access documents posted on SharePoint even when they are offline.. if you look at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/office-2010-which-suite-is-right-for-you-FX101825640.aspx which is for Small Business, you will not see Office Web Apps mentioned at all.
I see the confusion here. Microsoft seems to think that Small business’s don’t want products like Office Web Apps, but nothing could be farther than the truth. As there is no longer an upgrade SKU from Office 2007 or below, you now will purchase a full version of the product.
The enterprise line up is as follows:
My suggestion, if you want Office Web Apps, and be able to use SharePoint 2010 Foundation Server, which is FREE, then don’t buy the OEM/Retail version of the product. Instead, get the Volume License version of Office 2010 Professional Plus, which comes with Office Web Apps.
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