Including Access with a reasonably priced “Home” Office package might actually help people learn the difference between a spreadsheet and a database and the advantages of each. One of the reasons that so many people use the wrong program for the job is because they don’t always have the best program for the job.
How many people really need pivot tables in a spreadsheet? Do you think the average consumer would ever create a macro for a database they use to keep track of CDs, DVDs, books, recipes, etc.? Most people don’t have a clue about all of the automatic formatting options in Word.
Student licenses could still be offered for students that need a more robust feature even though the document isn’t being created for commercial use. The home version could be made to read documents created in either, but only the professional version would have the entire feature set. What would be nice is if MS decided to offer both “Home” and “Professional” versions of all of their office programs. All of those “levels” are pretty much just different combinations of different components of Office.
