According to The Register, “Office 2007 — formerly Office 12 — will be out by the end of this year and will come in several flavours”. So the 2007 imprint is set in stone now.

The editions of the Microsoft productivity suite will be:

1. The new Standard and Professional editions will be priced at $399 and $499 respectively.

2. The Professional Plus edition will offer “information management and teamwork solutions”. This will principally be delivered through addition of SharePoint Server 2007, and Office’s own instant messaging program Communicator.

3. Enterprise 2007 will further build on this with more for mobile and collaborative business, incorporating Groove software, which Microsoft acquired last year.

4. The $149 home edition will be called Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, and will no longer contain Outlook.

A second beta release of Office 2007 will be available before July.