Steve Ballmer has confirmed that Office 14 will not be out until 2010, but stated that the recent global price cut has had a positive effect for Microsoft.
Talking at Microsoft's Strategic Update, Ballmer confirmed the already widely reported suggestion that Office 14 was not scheduled for this year.
But, as he talked about Microsoft's "biggest and more profitable" business, Ballmer was buoyed by the news that cutting the price of Office shifted far more copies.
Pirate problem
"You may notice that Office unlicensed has a bigger percentage of this market than it does in the Windows market which is both an opportunity and a challenge," said Ballmer.
"Open Office has been competing with us for a number of years but we keep competing. It doesn't go away.
"We think we have a superior offering and we are priced well. You may have noticed we decreased the price of Office around the world and there's enough elasticity that we have more than made up in unit value for what we gave up."
Office 14
"Office 14 which will not be this year, but it will have a version of Sharepoint, a version of Exchange and a new version of Office Live which is the non-enterprise service for Office customer," he added.
"This is a market where we make a lot more money from the enterprise offerings than we do for the consumer market."
