Office Upgrade Guarantee Hits Snags

Customers who purchased Office Student and Teacher 2003 after October 26, 2006 planning to take advantage of the "Technology Guarantee Program" that offered a free upgrade to Office 2007 have found themselves missing Outlook due to a packaging change.

At issue is the new Office Home and Student 2007, which replaces the former Student and Teacher SKU. Unlike its predecessor, Microsoft Outlook is not included in the update; therefore, Microsoft promised to send the product on a separate disc to those customers taking advantage of the promotion.

But that didn't happen. According to reports received by BetaNews, customers only received Office Home and Student 2007, leaving them without the e-mail and communications client.

"After fruitless phone calls and a visit to the CS chat room I reported the problem to officetechguarantee @ one.microsoft.upgrade.com on 1 March 2007," one BetaNews reader told us. Eight e-mails later, he was notified that Microsoft was "researching the issue" and told, "This is a known issue for every order of Office Home and Student that we are attempting to resolve."

Despite the miscommunication and seeming confusion within the Redmond company, the story does end on a positive note.

After digging into the issue for BetaNews, Microsoft said it believes the problem was related to both order fulfillment and a shipping error. The company is contacting those customers who sent an e-mail to the support alias for the Technology Guarantee Program, promising that Outlook 2007 will be shipped out soon.

Those Office 2003 customers who purchased the product after October 26 and have not sent in an upgrade request should act fast: the redemption materials must be postmarked by March 31, 2007. Shipping will take between four to six weeks.