With its Office 2010 software suite becoming available for sale to businesses this week, Microsoft has set the clock ticking on a discount offer available for organizations considering the upgrade option.

The latest version of the Office suite promises a wide array of features that are largely based on the manner in which people use the software on the PC, in a browser, and on a smartphone.

All through June, Microsoft will make the “up-to-date” (UTD) discount program available to businesses – offering a 50 percent discount for the “open value” volume licensing customers who want to upgrade to Office 2010. However, for the open value licensees of Office XP, the 50-percent discount offer has already passed; and, as such, no discount will be available to them.

Further clarifying Microsoft’s UTD offer, Eric Ligman, global partner experience lead for the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group, said in a blog post that the UTD program pertains to Microsoft’s so-called “N-2” upgrade – under which the announced ‘half-off’ discount offer will be available for users two product generations away from the current volume licensing release.

Ligman said that since “N-2” upgrade will be available only through June, Microsoft will subsequently go back to using its “N-1” technique of calculating the UTD open value licensing discount offer; under which the discount will be available only to Office 2007 open value licensees.