Microsoft Office Small Business 2003 [OLD VERSION]

by Microsoft

Product Features

• Centralized management of customer and prospect information
• More than 20 preformatted business reports
• Easy-to-use wizards to create e-mail news-letters and printed marketing materials
• Free access to business templates, clip art, and multimedia content
• Junk e-mail filtering and blocking of unsafe attachments

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B0000AZJVD
• Item model number: 58802636
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 12, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,330 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Microsoft Office Small Business Edition 2003 is a personal and business productivity solution that enables small-business employees to more effectively manage customers and sales opportunities, create impressive sales and marketing materials, and manage e-mail and share information efficiently and securely—all through familiar, integrated and easy-to-use software. It also provides access to partners and Office Online for additional solutions, training and support.

Key Features:

• centralized management of customer and prospect information
• more than 20 preformatted business reports
• easy-to-use wizards to create e-mail news letters and printed marketing materials
• free access to business templates, clip art, and multimedia content
• junk e-mail filtering and blocking of unsafe attachments

Why Small Business Edition?

Microsoft Office Publisher 2003: Lower marketing costs by creating, designing, and publishing your own marketing materials for print, Web, and e-mail campaigns.

Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager: Stay organized and increase sales by consolidating, managing, and following up on important customers, business contacts, and sales opportunities. More Secure, Manageable E-mail: Get better management of your e-mails with junk e-mail filters for enhanced protection.

Microsoft Office 2003 Small Business Edition includes:

• Microsoft Word 2003
• Microsoft Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager
• Microsoft Excel 2003
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2003
• Microsoft Publisher 2003.

Product Description

Microsoft Office Small Business Edition 2003 will improve your office's ability to anticipate, manage, and respond to the constant changes in this increasingly demanding marketplace! Create, design, and publish professional marketing materials with Publisher 2003

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't even think about upgrading, September 14, 2005

By 

evaluator - See all my reviews

This review is from: Microsoft Office Small Business 2003 [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

You need to get out more. Just the fact that you are looking at this page and are thinking of upgrading your Microsoft Office makes it clear that you have a problem. Don't believe the Microsoft advertisement featuring dinosaurs to announce "Microsoft Office Has Evolved." It hasn't. This is a mature product. It doesn't matter if you use Office 1997, 2000 or 2003. They are all the same. The good, the bad and the ugly. It is all still here. Maybe a few bugs have been fixed. Most haven't, and ther are always new bugs. If Microsoft took the time to really improve the software, that would be one thing. But they don't.

Here is an example. You are in Outlook. You call up a contact and want to send that person a letter. You need to print an envelope, but there is no command to do so. There is no button to click. You can't right click anywhere to print an envelope. I am not making this up. Outlook has been out for almost ten years and multiple upgrades, and Microsoft still hasn't gotten around to implementing functionality to print a single envelope. Your only option (the on-line support confirms this) is to perform a mail merge. This is an elaborate process that is designed for printing thousands of envelopes for a bulk mailing. It involves opening multiple windows and setting all sorts of settings. You have to go through the ENTIRE PROCESS just to print a single envelope! What is more, the mail merge feature has bugs in it. It leaves blank lines in addresses that look atrocious, and it drops country names from addresses. It gives you options as to how you want country names treaed in addresses, but these all do nothing. Whatever option you select, Outlook leaves countries out of addresses when it prints envelopes.

I could go on, but I won't. If you are using Office 2000 or even Office 1997, you aren't missing out on anything. There is absolutely no reason to shell out $300 for new software that does all the same things in all the same ways with mostly the same bugs.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Product, March 9, 2006

By 

Rob "RH" (Olympia, Washington USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Microsoft Office Small Business 2003 [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

It really has evolved. But how far really depends on your needs. Was using Microsoft 97 products before upgrading to 2003. It was my opinion that Word Processing was certainly a mature product. Additionally, even Word 97 is full of features I don't ever use. Didn't really think that Office 2003 had much to offer - but was offered a special price, so I bit. Excellent product. I especially like the web integration of the applications (though some may argue that this is simply Bookshelf dressed-up and adopted for the web). Even non-office Microsoft products integrate fantastically, such as MapPoint. Regarding someone's comments on Star Office, I have not used it. But I have tried its open source cousin Open Office on at least three occasions. It is on par with 97 suite or maybe 2000. It is a solid product. But the Microsoft suite is about 1.5 generations ahead. I'm willing to pay for products that are better. The marketplace will judge -- yes, the beauty of capitalism.

The bottom line - need should be the driver (at least in my world). If price is a concern try Open Office or Star Office. You can also pick-up a previous version of MS Office cheap (97 is a good one). If you believe you need the best suite available, then chose the current MS Office Suite. I haven't seen any better.

35 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Software for Business or Home!, December 1, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Microsoft Office Small Business 2003 [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

As the owner of a quickly growing business I need a software that will provide all of the word processing capabilities with the graphics capabilities and Microsoft Office SMALL BUSINESS 2003 does all those jobs very well with Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Business Contact Manager AND Publisher which allows me to do my communications, my record keeping, my client contact management, my presentations AND my own business cards and letterhead and brochures and flyers that look GREAT! I am very happy with this since I do not need Access as a database it saves me money.