In this day and age, who doesn't know about Microsoft and their Office products. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access have come very close to becoming industry standards when it comes to corporate and home business communication needs.

After refusing to upgrade for way too long, I finally broke down. Getting ready to assist a client with a database, going to school for MOUS certification as well as Webmaster certification, it became obvious that I wasn't going to be able to stay in the Office 97 world for very much longer.

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What PREMIUM Means ...
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When you purchase the Microsoft Office 2000 Premium Edition you get a lot more than what the average user really needs. But, of course, you are also going to end up spending a lot more too.

Premium includes:

Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Publisher
Microsoft FrontPage
Microsoft Small Business Tools
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0
Shared clip art
Microsoft PhotoDraw
Microsoft Office Server Extensions

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A Breakdown of the Premium Pack
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Below is a small listing of what you can expect from the programs that are included in the Microsoft Office 2000 Premium Edition.

Word 2000 - This is a great word processor. Simple enough that my kids use it for school reports, but has so many extras that I can use it to create mailing lists, print envelopes, create documentation, and be able to track the changes that were made it in. In addition, you can create simple web pages and use version control.

Excel 2000 - This is a spreadsheet program. I use this to track all my Epinions hits, income, and daily amounts. It's also great for creating simple and not-so-simple charts from the information you put in.

Outlook 2000 - This is one program I'm really pleased with. It is a calendar, task pad, email, and contacts program all in one. Even better is the fact that the 2000 version works so much better with my Cassiopeia E-125 that I am a lot more productive.

PowerPoint 2000 - This is a presentation software. You are able to create slideshow presentations with text, graphics, sounds and animation. Aside from the obvious, my kids also use it to create simple, one page flyers, because it is easy to place all of the objects.

Access 2000 - I'd say this is the most advanced of the programs included. You can use it to create simple databases, like you collection of DVD movies or to track all of the checks you receive from your pay-to-surf, -click, and -write sites. But you can also use it for a back end database to collect information from your web site feedback forms.

Publisher 2000 - This is a great page layout/design software. Unlike Word, you can place your text, graphics and other objects anywhere you like. What I like is all of the templates that are already created for you. All you have to do is update them.

FrontPage 2000 - Yes, I'll admit it. I've used FrontPage for my websites. It is a simple to learn web-design program. The only real problem is finding hosts that accept FrontPage extensions. But as web design goes, it is a very WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) kind of software. You can either design in the WYSISYG area, or go straight to the HTML Editing.

Internet Explorer 5.0 - Just in case you are using an older version of I.E. or even a version of Netscape. Microsoft adds in their most recent copy (as of the time of distribution) of their own browser. It's certainly better than spending an hour downloading it.

PhotoDraw - A simple program that allows you to manipulate your digital photography. From cropping the pictures to the right size, getting rid of the red-eye, or creating interesting shadows and frames. It certainly a fun little program to work with.

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In Addition ...
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There are also a lot of add-ins for the programs that are included that are used by a lot of the different programs. Templates and clip-art are a good example. A large amount of clip-art is copied into a folder that all of your programs share.

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The Installation ...
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Ok, the installation was not very smooth at all. Actually, it took me about two hours of trouble-shooting before I figured out the problem.

Everytime I ran the startup.exe program, I got an error 2711, saying to please contact the technical support department. Personally I'd rather just go look through the FAQs to find the answer.

The answer - If you get this error it is because Office needs the Windows Installer to be able to install Office. To fix that, open your D: drive (the one with the Office CD in it), double-click the MSI folder, double-click the INSTMSI.exe file. This will install the Microsoft Installer. Now the Setup.exe should work.

Once I got the problem fixed, it took about 10 minutes to complete the full installation. And everything worked just fine.

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Overall Recommendation
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The Microsoft Office 2000 Premium Edition is not for the average user. It comes with four disks full of programs that are aimed at the needs of small to medium sized businesses.

For a smaller version of Office, choose the Standard version. It comes with Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint and is about $200 cheaper (depending on where you look).

But, as a small business owner, I definitely like how Microsoft has pulled all of these productivity software packages together in one easy to use, and fully functional, suite.

Recommended: Yes