MS offers Office 2001 rebate, upgrade deal for OS X

Love ’em or hate ’em, many Mac users find Microsoft applications indispensable — or at the very least, a necessary evil. The company’s Office 2001 productivity suite is a mainstay of countless businesses and users. Microsoft doesn’t yet have an OS X-ready version of Office, but it’s working on one, and the company just announced an OS X upgrade path for Office 2001 users.

If by some chance you’ve been separated from human contact for the past year and you’re somehow unfamiliar with Office, it’s principally comprised of Word, a word processing application; Excel, a spreadsheet application; PowerPoint, a graphical presentation application; and Entourage, an e-mail client with contact management capabilities.

The company is offering a US$50 rebate (CDN$75) for buyers of Office 2001 — all you need to do is buy the software, download and print a PDF-format coupon from Microsoft’s Web site, then mail it in. The rebate runs through June 15.

Microsoft has also announced that folks who buy Office 2001 now will be eligible to purchase an upgrade to the OS X-compatible version for $149 once it’s released — 50 percent off. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed for MacCentral that this offer would be extended to previous owners of Office 2001 as well, as long as they can provide proof of purchase or ownership. Click on the link above for more details.