It’s official: Office 12 is now Office 2007!

Here are the new Office editions:

• Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 – Can be installed on three PCs. Includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. That’s right: not Outlook, OneNote. Costs $149; no upgrade version available.
• Microsoft Office Basic 2007 – Includes Word, Excel, and Outlook. Can only be purchased along with a PC.
• Microsoft Office Standard 2007 – Just like Basic, this includes Word, Excel, and Outlook. What’s the difference, I wonder? Costs $399, or $239 to upgrade.
• Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 – Here we’ve got Word, Excel, Outlook with Business Contact Manager, and Publisher. Costs $449, or $279 to upgrade.
• Microsoft Office Professional 2007 – Includes Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, and Publisher. Costs $499, or $329 to upgrade.
• Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 – Wow: this version has Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher, InfoPath, and Office Communicator, plus other corporate features. Only available via volume licensing.
• Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 – Includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher, InfoPath, OneNote, Office Communicator, and Office Groove. Only available via volume licensing.

Hey, what happened to the “Edition” branding? For example, now we have Office Small Business Edition 2003, but the Office 2007 edition of that will be known as Office Small Business 2007. Ugh, this will make it hard for newer PC users to differenciate between the suites and the products.

If you look at the list closely, you’ll see some new products in the lineup.

• Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 – Instant Messaging for businesses.
• Microsoft Office Groove 2007 – Wow, uh, interesting name. This is a peer-to-peer networking product.
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 – Okay, so this isn’t in the edition list; it’s a standalone product. This “new” product is actually, for the most part, a renamed FrontPage 2007.

Get the full scoop at the SuperSite for Windows.