Works Refreshed for 2004

Microsoft Works, the company's suite of productivity and consumer software often found on bargain PCs, has been refreshed for 2004. Billed as an outstanding value by Microsoft, Works lashes together several popular products for $100 USD.

Works Suite 2004 will ship with a combination of Microsoft Word 2002 and its custom database software, as well as Money Standard 2004 and Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Standard 2004. The suite compliments work with play; consumer software such as Picture It! Photo Premium 9 and Microsoft Streets & Trips 2004 will be thrown in to sweeten the deal.

"This year we are offering four new versions of products released in the past three months, along with consumer favorites Works and Word," said Kim Schaefer, product manager for Works Suite. "With six very popular Microsoft software titles in one package, users will have all the tools they need to help them save time and money and accomplish daily tasks with ease."

Being fresh off the shelf, one would imagine that only the latest products would be bundled into Works 2004. But despite being released to manufacturing last month, Word 2003 did not make the cut.

Redmond faces internal and external competition with the new release. Its own academic version of Microsoft Office, as well as a push by leading OEMs to oust Works in favor of Corel WordPerfect has cut Work's significance.

Both Hewlett-Packard and Gateway have dumped Microsoft for productivity on low-end PCs. Alternatives such as the open source OpenOffice suite and its cousin StarOffice also present thrifty alternatives.

Works Suite 2004 is available now as an upgrade to Works, Word or other word processing programs.