
The mix of products in each edition is a superset of the previous edition. Go one step further to Office Professional and you get all that plus Access. Upgrade to the Small Business Edition and you get Publisher and Outlook's Business Contact Manager add-in. If you pay extra to get the Standard edition, you get those applications plus PowerPoint.

The Basic edition includes Outlook, Word, and Excel. In the 2003 editions, there is a clear upgrade path from every edition.

The implication, I guess, is that Microsoft has decided to position OneNote as a student tool and downplay its usefulness to business users.

This packaging decision is baffling for two reasons.
