Microsoft Announces Free Upgrade Pre-Launch Offer & Volume License Availability for the new Office

• Consumers purchasing Office 2010 from now can upgrade to the new Office for free
• Volume licenses for Office 2013, Exchange 2013, Lync 2013, SharePoint 2013, Project 2013 and Visio 2013 now available

KUALA LUMPUR, 3 December 2012 – Microsoft Malaysia has announced that consumers who purchase the retail package version of Office 2010 from now until 30 April 2013 will be able to upgrade to the new Office for free, as part of its pre-launch offer for the upcoming release of the Microsoft Office productivity suite. Microsoft also announced that its commercial customers can now purchase the on-premises versions of the new Office products – including Office 2013, Exchange Server 2013, Lync Server 2013, SharePoint Server 2013, Project 2013 and Visio 2013 – through Microsoft Volume Licensing.

Broad availability of the new Office through retail and online channels is planned for the first quarter of 2013. The new Office gives customers a comprehensive set of productivity tools to help them do their best work in a world of devices and services.

“This is the biggest and most exciting release of Office yet! With the new Office, we have a better story than ever with Windows, as well as major value in the new Office with devices and mobility, enterprise social, real-time communications, compliance, and cloud,” said Danny Ong, Chief Marketing & Operations Officer for Microsoft Malaysia.

To qualify, consumers, students and small businesses must purchase, install and activate the retail package version of Office 2010 or Office for Mac 2011. Consumers will then need to sign up for an email reminder at www.office.com/offer to be notified when they can redeem their offer. Consumers will be able to download the new Office version free when it is broadly available by returning to the www.office.com/offer site once they receive their email notification. An Office Product Key validation is required to redeem the free upgrade offer.  

At the same time, Office 2013, Exchange 2013, Lync 2013, SharePoint 2013, Project 2013 and Visio 2013 are now available to commercial customers via Microsoft Volume Licensing. Commercial customers interested in deploying the latest version of Microsoft’s productivity, communication and collaboration solutions should contact their Microsoft Account Team or Microsoft Partner.

Microsoft revealed that, since the initial announcement of the Customer preview in July to achieving the Release-to-Manufacturing milestone in October, a lot of valuable feedback has been received to shape the final version of the new Office, which boasts:
• The new Office works beautifully with touch, stylus, mouse or keyboard to give users the ultimate productivity experience. It brings the familiar Office experience to a wide range of new devices and gives users the best experience on Windows.*
• The new Office is inherently social with real-time news feeds for people, documents and discussions, high-definition video conferencing**, shared notebooks and virtual whiteboards.
• The new Office provides security features without compromise, includes data loss prevention, compliance management, built-in malware protection, and flexible deployment options across on-premises and in the cloud.
• The new Office is in the cloud. Coupled with new cloud services available next year, the new Office will save documents to SkyDrive by default, and a user’s personalized settings, templates and documents will travel with them.*

For more information on taking advantage of the Office Pre-Launch Offer, visit www.office.com/offer.

Download the Customer Preview of the new Office at www.office.com/preview.

More information about the new Office is available at www.office.com.

*Windows 7 or Windows 8 operating system required
**HD video camera required for high-definition video conferencing