Microsoft Eliminates Dog Ate My Homework Excuse

Students, Teachers to Benefit From Discount on Software for Home UseOct. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- In its ongoing commitment to help students realize their full potential, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) today announced a special offer designed to make it easier for students and teachers to acquire one of today's leading educational tools for use outside the classroom. Beginning Oct. 25, 2001, students and teachers of K-12 and higher-education institutions will be able to purchase the new Microsoft(R) Office XP Standard for Students and Teachers in select retail stores for a special price of $149* (U.S.) -- almost 70 percent off the regular Office XP Standard price. This noncommercial, educational-use only offer is designed to make it easier for students and teachers to have at-home access to one of today's leading learning and communication products, creating a seamless transition between classroom work and homework.

"More and more, schools are making large investments in technology and incorporating many software programs into the curricula. But learning does not stop once the school day ends, so it's important that parents and their kids also have knowledge of and access to these tools to best support seamless learning after school," said Anne Bryant, executive director of the National School Boards Association. "A goal that NSBA shares with Microsoft is making tools like this more easily obtainable for all children."

Homework Faces Change
Homework has gone digital. Microsoft Office has become an extremely popular learning tool in schools. Class presentations using the PowerPoint(R) presentation graphics program, book reports written with Word and science projects tracked in Excel are now common at all grade levels. Individual and group projects extend outside the classroom, making it important that the tools students use at school are also available at home. Many students also use the Outlook(R) messaging and collaboration client to keep track of their homework assignments and friends' contact information as well as keep in touch with their classmates via e-mail and instant messaging. As more students use Office to do their homework and e-mail their assignments to instructors, the age-old excuse, "the dog ate my homework," is no longer valid. The benefits of familiarizing students with the tools in Office will directly translate to life after they finish school, when they'll be expected to use similar technology in the workplace.

"Microsoft believes education and learning are among the most important uses of our technology, and we are committed to empowering educators and students both in school and after school," said Jeff Raikes, group vice president of the Productivity and Business Services Group at Microsoft. "Teachers have told us they find Office to be a valuable tool for teaching, and we hope that by making Office XP more accessible, we are enhancing the overall learning experience. In addition, because many parents rely on Office programs at work, they'll be familiar with the tools their kids are using in school and will be better equipped to help them with schoolwork and at-home projects."

New Tools for Homework
Students and teachers using Office XP will benefit from a variety of new tools that help them do more in less time, make it easier to share information and to enhance their work with content from the Web. Microsoft Office XP Standard for Students and Teachers puts the features students need within easy reach at all times.

• Working alone, students will get more done in less time. Innovations such as Task Panes and smart tags put relevant features and options at users' fingertips so they don't have to search for hard-to-find menu items. New features such as Custom Animation and the formatting Task Pane help students add pizzazz to presentations and reports, while the new Document Recovery feature is designed to prevent students from losing their work if an error should occur.
• Working with others, they'll communicate and share information more effectively. Group Projects? No problem. Improved document editing tools make it easier to incorporate feedback from teachers and classmates.
• Enhancing learning and schoolwork with Web content has never been easier. Microsoft is teaming up with a variety of education companies to create custom smart tags that recognize categories of information. When users type a category name while working in Word, Excel or Outlook, custom smart tags appear, providing them with a drop-down menu of related options to link directly to additional information.

Students Beware!
Now that it's even easier to have Office XP at home, students can no longer use "the dog ate my homework" as an excuse. In today's digital world, unless the family dog has an e-mail account or a knack for hacking, its access to homework is cut off. Students may now consider using "my computer locked up" as an excuse, but with Document Recovery, this too is thwarted. Parents and teachers should rest easy knowing that students will turn their work in on time, and "Sparky" will have to settle for gnawing on a slipper rather than the child's report on "What I Did This Summer."

Availability
Microsoft Office XP Standard for Students and Teachers will be available in the United States beginning Oct. 25, 2001, at selected retailers across the nation while supplies last. The suite, which includes full versions of Word 2002, Outlook 2002, Excel 2002 and PowerPoint 2002, will have unique packaging to help differentiate it from other retail products. Over the coming months, the program will expand into select markets worldwide and will be available in an additional 15 languages. Complete information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/office/forstudents/.

* Estimated retail price. Retail prices may vary.

For more information on Microsoft Office: http://www.microsoft.com/office/

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SOURCE Microsoft Corp.