The Market for Older Software is Growing

And we sell it. Like, for example, Microsoft Office Pro 2002 for XP. It includes Access XP, Excel XP, Outlook XP, PowerPoint XP, Publisher XP, and Word XP. Does almost everything you need, runs great on XP, and people are still buying it.

There are a lot of reasons for that. It's a bit more compact that Office 2007, a little speedier on old machines (for the most part, there are some exceptions) and, quite frequently, the revision of specifications for large corporations and government agencies is a lengthy process. And that's understandable--in big organizations with a lot of machines to support, upgrades can be expensive and paralyzing. Yet sometimes they need to expand departments or deployment of software, and even if there is something more cutting edge on the market, it makes more sense to go with what is tried and true. And if those applications or operating systems are not widely available, then it's up to software resellers like us that have inventory or can locate stock for certain products to fill in the gap.

Another reason is that sometimes the upgrades make radical changes to the interface that are difficult for some people to navigate, or might necessitate updating inhouse documentation (which can be a pricey proposition in some places). Office 2007is an excellent example of that. I'm not a big fan of the ribbon interface in 2007, and if it weren't for certain features (a speedy patch available for searching Outlook and, most importantly, Excel 2007's leviathan ability to open gigantic spreadsheets), I probably pick Word XP 2002, or earlier. Just because none of the interfaces in 2007 struck me as a solid improvement--in fact, they mostly just frustrate me, even though some reviewers have praised them as being wonderful and revolutionary, so I suppose it takes all kinds.

With the release of Microsoft Vista, even Microsoft had to acknowledge the increasing size of the "older" software market. Microsoft announced will effectively be selling XP through 2010.

More of this in the future, especially if we get even more popular older software into inventory. :)

We've Got Some Great Deals on Microsoft Office 2007 at SoftwareSupplyGroup.com

Like Microsoft Office 2007 Basic OEM (S55-01347) for only $173.99, as of this posting.

I use Office 2007 every day, and I confess I'm not a big fan of the revised interface. But Excel 2007 offers the ability to open much larger files, and given I was dealing sometimes with spreadsheets with over 200,000 rows, I needed something that could open them. I believe the old limit was something like 56,000 rows--well, whatever it was specifically, that's gone in Office 2007 Excel. It'll open anything, of almost any size.

The search is blazing fast in Outlook 2007, but required that I install Windows desktop search for XP (since I'm still using XP), and download this patch from Microsoft, and run it.

While I'm not a big fan of the new Office 2007 toolbar that was supposed to be the "next big thing" with Office 2007 (while obvious improvements, at least in my opinion, were left out), being able to open huge spreadsheets and search my giant .pst file in Outlook quickly made it for me a very worthwhile update.

We also have Microsoft Office 2007 Professional (269-11094) for only $299.95 each (0r $297.95 each if you buy more than 10), which includes all the big productivity apps from Microsoft: Access 2007, Excel 2007, Outlook 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Publisher 2007, and Word 2007. Alas, no Microsoft Project (why don't they support Project anymore?)

All prices in this post are as of this writing. We often drop prices--and, occasionally, we have to raise them. If you've been wanting to upgrade to Office 2007, I'd suggest you move now.

Wholesale and reseller inquiries are always welcome, BTW. Call us at 866-437-0287 and ask for more information.