What Is the Difference Between Microsoft Office Student & Microsoft Office Business?
- The most obvious difference between the Home and Office suite and Home and Business suite is the cost. For Office 2010, Microsoft's online sticker price for Home and Student was $149.99 as of 2011, while the sticker price for Home and Business was $279.99. The reason for the price difference is the additional software programs in Home and Business.
- Both suites includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. These programs are for word processing, building spreadsheets, making presentations and organizing notes, respectively. The Home and Business suite adds Outlook, a robust email, calendar and contact management program.
- Both suites are aptly named for their typical users. Most students will find the four programs in the Home and Student suite sufficient for most high school and college classes, to write papers and other types of documents, track and compute spreadsheet data, take and organize notes and make presentations. A student probably does not need Outlook's advanced calendar and contact system. If you work in a small business, the addition of Outlook in the Home and Business suite is helpful because you can share calendars and contacts with other people in your workplace. You can also use Outlook in combination with Word and Excel with mail merges to make enhanced mass email messages.
- If you want to use Microsoft Office but are neither an office worker nor a student, the choice of suite comes down to whether you want to buy Outlook for an additional $130. Outlook can be practical for a home user, especially if you have a busy calendar or need to send messages to different groups like organization members, family and neighbors. You also might find Outlook useful if you are self-employed, have multiple email addresses and address books, or want to enhance your email messages with mail merges. Whatever you use it for, Outlook can help you consolidate and organize your information so you can be a more efficient communicator.