The big UK retail chain, Tesco’s has announced that they will start selling their own Office suite as a competition to Microsoft Office.

The office suite will be part of a range of new products sold under the Tesco brand. There will be anti-virus, firewall and office products available for under 20 British pounds (under US$38).

All these products come from known manufacturers, re-branded to the well-known Tesco name. Support is via the web only (no phone support) provided by a separate company.  The new products will be available later this month.

The office suite will be provided by Ability Office which provides a useful set of programs. As with other office suite rivals, it can’t match the range and depth of features provided by Microsoft Office, but is often more than enough for most people and businesses.

While the software is nothing exciting technically, it is a major marketing initiative. Tesco’s isn’t well known in the US, it is a major player in UK retail – they can push their MS Office alternative with strong marketing, low price and plenty of shelf space. If Tesco had chosen OpenOffice then it would have been a major boost to that open source initiative.

Tesco’s obviously believe they can make more money out of volume sales for a cheap office suite than they can selling Microsoft Office.

For comparison:

• Office 2003 Student and Teacher edition retails for £120 but can be had for 75 quid.
• Works v8 sells for £32
• Works Suite 2006 (which has MS Word 2002) is £110 but sells for 71 quid.

On that basis, a Tesco’s suite will be compelling for many people.