Rating: 
Summary: Good
Review: A great start of the essential software programs that you need for school and for the office!
Rating: 
Summary: Office 2003 is great!! (especially Outlook)
Review: Anyone who uses Outlook and/or reads documents on the screen in Word needs this upgrade! Outlook 2003 improvements includes: removal of the 2 GB PST file limit; a much improved user-interface; intelligent and fully customizable junk mail filtering; much better security features (e.g., inline pictures are not automatically downloaded, but you can specify senders and domains to block or accept); automatic caching of Exchange mailboxes; and easier access to other people's shared folders (e.g., calendars). Word 2003 has a new on-screen reading feature that makes it easier to read Word documents like electronic books (e.g., you can change the text size for reading without affecting the font size in the underlying document). All applications are significantly faster (support for Windows 9x/ME/NT4 was dropped), integration with SharePoint Services is wonderful, and new features like Digital Rights Management are interesting.
Rating: 
Summary: A great value
Review: As a former Office 2000 user, this version (Office 2003)featured plenty of significant changes that made an upgrade worthwhile. After a month or two of use, some favorite features include the Reading Panel view in Word and the visual notification of new email in Outlook.In fact, I would be giving this item five stars, except for some features in Outlook that have been needlessly complicated. Using stationary, for example, in HTML-formatted email has been turned into a convoluted procedure. Outlook will also no longer display image attachments inline, something I personally miss. Mostly, I think the benefits of Outlook 2003 outweigh the faults, but the program does need a little refining, and brings down my overall evaluation of the product. The best innovation in this version, however, is the ability to legally install and activate Office 2003 Student & Teacher edition on up to three computers in your home. Therefore, as an educator, I was able to purchase one copy, and yet both myself and another family member can use it on her computer as well.
Rating:
Summary: TRY OpenOffice.org FIRST
Review: Before you BUY MS Office, try OpenOffice.org Visit www.openoffice.org and download OpenOffice.org BEFORE you buy MS Office. OpenOffice.org will do most everything that MS Office will do, including read/write MS file formats. OpenOffice.org is FREE so you can install it on as many computers as you want, and it will even run on older, slower PCs without a problem. I have used OpenOffice.org for two years and never looked back. Hey, give it a try, it's FREE. If you don't like it, go buy MS.
Rating:
Summary: Overhyped, overpriced
Review: Before you spend over $100 on Microsoft Office (MSO), take a look at <http://www.OpenOffice.org>.
OpenOffice (OOo), a free of charge product, works like Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. OOo opens and saves documents in Microsoft formats, so you can use your old documents and share documents with MSO users. OOo includes all the features I use (and lots of advanced features too). Our non-profit office uses OOo on 30 computers, and it especially shines on the old Windows 95 computers (that Microsoft Office stopped supporting).
I have both Microsoft Office and OpenOffice on this computer, and I prefer OpenOffice.
If you don't have a broadband connection to download OOo, buy a book that comes with it. There's a book on Amazon ("OpenOffice.org Writer") for less than $20 that includes the latest OOo version. You get the book *and* you save $100 compared to MSO. Or buy "OpenOffice.org 1.1 Resource Kit" for $40.
Rating: 
Summary: Microsoft disappoints - no major changes from Office 2000
Review: Big disappointment. I bought Office 2003 with the hopes that Microsoft would have made significant improvements to Outlook 2000. Huh! Outlook is almost exactly the same as the previous version, only with a prettier (and busier) interface. One still cannot enter simple reminders w/o keying them in as appointments. At least the LDAP problem appears to have been fixed. Word and Excel don't appear to have any significant changes either but I haven't spent much time using them yet.
Rating:
Summary: student edition microsoft office 2003
Review: Excellent software. installed fast and flawlessly. since i already was using works suite and outlook the new cd suggested
i select "upgrade" to install this edition 2003 software-i took
the suggestion and in literally minutes i was using the new software. from delivery from aplusadmin in 3 days to actually using the new edition 2003 was a very fast and pleasant experience. the improved programs are more colorful and easy on the eyes. thanks bill, amazon, aplusadmin, microsoft pros. A+
Rating:
Summary: The only Office suite
Review: For the end user, this is the best Office suite on the market. The functionality and rock solid stability make this a home run. The key to Microsoft's software is that it just works, it will increase your productivity, skills and overall pc activity. You will be very please with this product, I have used them all. I am sold on MS Office...
Rating: 
Summary: Overpriced
Review: I came to this page to reccomend that you save your money and download a copy of OpenOffice.
OpenOffice may not look as "pretty" as microsoft office, but it offeres FULL microsoft office document compatibility. There is not much else to say, if you are really looking to save money (which I'm guessing because you are looking at the academic version) why not save it all?
Rating:
Summary: Great Office Software, But Requires Internet Connection
Review: I love MS Office, and I assume that if you're looking at this version you are a student/teacher familiar with office applications.
2003 does not offer enough improvements over Office XP to warrant purchasing this as an upgrade. If you have Office XP, you may want to wait until the next version comes out. You won't be missing much!
Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook are industry standards in office applications. You can save your documents in a variety of formats, including those that are compatible with WordPerfect, Open Office, or older systems (e.g. plain text or RTF).
The only caveat I have is that many of the features that make the 2003 version great require connection to the Internet. If you are connecting via dial-up, or using a non-connected machine, you will not be able to access some help and some media content.
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