Microsoft has embarked on a publicity stratagem meant to increase the sells of Office 2007. The program instituted by Microsoft will allow for greater flexibility on the part of system builders and original equipment manufacturers in order to market more efficiently the Office 2007 suite.

The Office Ready program will provide end-customers of personal computers with preinstalled versions of Office. The application will have a two month free trial period after which the users will have to buy the program if they will wish to continue using it. The versions offered in this market strategy are Office Basic, Office Small Business and Office Professional.

The program means to bring benefits to small business that can acquire PCs and then opt to purchase the license for the already installed Office applications.

"The experience from a customer perspective was, if they didn't buy and install Office up front, within 60 days they [bought] the license somewhere else," she said. "System builders would lose the opportunity to sell."

Microsoft representatives explained that users of trial versions of Office will not lose the files they have worked on during the trial period of the applications. They will still be able to open, edit and save the changes but not to create new files once the free license expires.