Free Office 2010 Upgrades via the Office 2010 Technology Guarantee Program

At the start of February 2010, Microsoft was extremely shy when it came down to sharing details about upcoming free upgrade offerings for Office customers. However, as Office 2010 is growing closer to finalization, the Redmond company is starting to feel a tad more comfortable with the advertising of the Office 2010 Technology Guarantee Program. So comfortable, in fact, that the company confirmed the existence of the initiative officially. (via Mary-Jo Foley)

While at the Morgan Stanley Technology Media & Telecom Conference on March 2, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein revealed that the Office 2010 Technology Guarantee Program was planned to go live in the third quarter of 2010, namely starting this month. In addition, Klein revealed that the program would defer between $300 and $350 million of revenue from Q3 2010 to future fiscal quarters.

The Office 2010 Technology Guarantee Program works in the same manner as the Technology Guarantee program for Windows 7. Essentially, customers will get free Office 2010 upgrades for copies of office 2007 that they will buy before the next iteration of the company’s productivity suite drops.

Customers with Office Home and Student 2007 will be able to upgrade to Office Home and Student 2010. In addition, free upgrades will be available in accordance to SKU, as follows: Office Standard 2007 to Office Home and Business 2010, Office Small Business 2007 to Office Professional 2010, Office Professional 2007 to Office Professional 2010 and Microsoft Publisher 2007 to Microsoft Publisher 2010.

According to the initially leaked data on the Tech Guarantee program, customers will need to buy eligible copies of Office 2007 through the retail channel between March 5 and September 30, 2010. At the same time, all upgrades to the latest version of Office 2010 must be completed by October 31st, 2010.