Microsoft is about to make it easier for just about anyone to buy its low-cost Office suite designed for students and teachers.

The company will modify the licensing terms for its teacher and student productivity suite when Office 2003 ships this summer. This is an apparent attempt to lower the cost of Office for consumers without actually repricing it and thus could spur greater adoption in the consumer market, say analysts.

The licensing changes extend an existing strategy adopted with the 2001 release of Office XP Standard for Teachers and Students. In October of that year, Microsoft dropped the price of the product to $149, but some retailers offered the suite for as low as $110--or about $330 less than the otherwise identical version for people who are not students or teachers.

But there was a catch. Technically, only students or teachers were licensed to use the product. Microsoft did not license the software for other members of the household or people who were not faculty or students. That technicality apparently meant little to consumers looking for a good deal. Consumers snatched up 300,000 copies of Office XP Standard for Teachers and Students versus 121,000 for Office XP Standard during the academic product's first 10 months on store shelves, according to market research company NPDTechworld.

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