Microsoft has slashed the price of the Ultimate SKU of its Office 2007 System by no less than 91%, taking into consideration the estimated retail price offered by the company. The resulting offering made available under The Ultimate Steal brand umbrella is an initiative geared towards students on several markets worldwide. According to the Redmond company, The Ultimate Steal will be opened to students in the U.S., Australia, Mexico, Taiwan, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

"Students responded overwhelmingly to The Ultimate Steal last year, telling us that they need Microsoft Office for their studies and want more flexible ways to get the latest version," revealed Naman Khan, worldwide public sector strategy manager for Microsoft Office. "This offer provides students with an accessible and convenient means to acquire technology at a great price to help them reach their academic goals. The Ultimate Steal is the latest offer in a long history of compelling academic offers from Microsoft to students, and we're happy to extend the program to several additional countries this year."

For as little as $59.95, Office Ultimate 2007 is indeed nothing short of a steal, offering students the following components: Access, Accounting Express, Excel, Groove, InfoPath, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher and Word. In order to access the offering students must possess a valid email address associated with an .EDU domain for an educational institution. For the time being the program is live only in the U.S. but the countries listed at the beginning of this article will follow, with Microsoft promising to include even additional markets.

"This year, The Ultimate Steal program features additional products, including the following: Windows Vista Ultimate upgrade (the most comprehensive edition of Windows Vista, combining the power, security and mobility features); Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007 (Visio Professional makes it easy for students to visualize, explore and communicate complex information); Microsoft Office Language Packs (Office Language Packs help multilingual students who routinely create or edit documents in different languages by providing the flexibility of switching the entire user experience - including menus, help and proofing tools such as spell checker, dictionary and thesaurus - to any of 37 different languages)," Microsoft revealed.