Students offered big discounts on Office

Microsoft is offering students Office 2007 Ultimate for just $59.95

Microsoft is offering college students a major discount on its Office 2007 Ultimate package.

The company will cut the student discount price for the $679 Office Ultimate bundle to just $59.95 for students currently enrolled in school.

The 'Ultimate Steal' promotion includes the full 2007 versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher and OneNote.

Also included is the Groove collaboration software, and the InfoPath tool which allows users to create XML-based data entry forms.

Students will also be offered discounted versions of the Office Language Pack and Windows Vista Ultimate.

The promotion is currently limited to the US, although Microsoft said that it is planning to expand the discount to countries in Europe and Asia.

The move is part of a larger effort to push Office's educational operation as students begin to return to school.

In addition to the discounts on Office, the company is offering students free access to an educational version of the Microsoft Live service known as Live@edu.

The service will offer free email, storage space, calendars, a blogging tool and services for mobile phones.

Live@edu is open to all university, secondary and primary school students.