'Crazy Eddie' deals boost Mac Office sales nearly 250% in U.S.

Computerworld - Deep-discount "Crazy Eddie"-style deals from Microsoft Corp. are helping lift U.S. retail sales of the aging Mac Office applications suite this Christmas season, according to a market research group. That strategy is overcoming potential customer procrastination in response to the delayed arrival of the upgraded Office 2008 for the Mac. It's also a challenge to Apple Inc.'s revitalized iWork desktop package.

The number of copies of Office for the Mac sold during the week of Nov. 18 to 24 -- which includes the day after Thanksgiving, a.k.a. "Black Friday" -- was up 235% from 2006, according to data from The NPD Group Inc.

That's despite the advanced age of Office 2004 for the Mac, which was released in May of that year.

Office 2008 for the Mac, which was originally set to be released in time for Christmas, is expected to be released by the Macworld show in mid-January.

Moreover, the competing iWork '08 Apple released in August is the first version of that program to include a spreadsheet application, complementing the word processor and presentation maker.

To overcome those obstacles, Microsoft offered a $100 mail-in rebate to people who bought Office 2004 by Black Friday.

For buyers of the cheapest Student and Teacher edition of Office 2004 who redeem their rebate, the effective price goes from $149.99 to $49.99.

While that deal has expired, another one remains until Jan. 14: the ability for buyers of any edition of Office 2004 to get Office 2008 Special Media Edition free (plus $7 in the U.S. for shipping and handling).

The Special Media Edition lists for $500. It includes all components of Mac Office Standard Edition, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage e-mail, as well as Expression Media, a cataloging software that lets users manage their photos, videos and other multimedia assets.

Microsoft "is trying to prevent iWork, now that it has a spreadsheet application, from getting any traction, by giving Office users every reason to upgrade," Swenson said.

Swenson called Expression Media, which lists separately for $299, "a great, industry-leading cataloging app" that competes with Adobe Bridge.

Dollar sales of Office for the Mac for the week of Black Friday are "only" up 216%, which is actually lower than unit sales growth, according to Port Washington, N.Y.-based NPD. Dollar sales figures are based on point-of-sale prices of Office and do not subtract the amount many consumers later get back as in the form of rebate checks.

There are several major caveats to NPD's Black Friday statistics. First, NPD declined to release dollar-sales or unit-shipment growth figures for Apple's iWork, though Swenson said that Microsoft was the only software vendor to get a big boost from Black Friday.