Microsoft is expected to announce on Friday that several versions of its forthcoming Office 2003 suite have moved from development to manufacturing.

Delivery date for the shrink-wrapped productivity suite: Oct. 21, sources said.

Microsoft will announce that some, but not all, of the six Office 2003 SKUs will go to manufacturing this week, say sources. The six SKUs are: Professional Enterprise, Professional, Standard, Students and Teachers, Small Business, and Basic.

Sources add that Microsoft is planning to launch the Office 2003 suite of desktop productivity products at an event in New York on Oct. 21. Retail SKUs of Office 2003 will be available through retail channels on that date, sources close to the company say.

Microsoft had been expected to launch Office in October in New York.

On the same day, Microsoft is expected to launch officially other "related" Office System products. These include FrontPage 2003, OneNote 2003, Publisher 2003, Visio 2003, Project 2003, SharePoint Portal Server 2003, InfoPath 2003, Live Communications Server 2003 and Live Meeting.

But volume-licensing customers allegedly will get their hands on the product earlier. Microsoft is shooting to provide its enterprise users with Office 2003 by the last week of September or first week of October, sources say.

By delivering product early to volume licensees, Microsoft will be able to claim it hit its "late-summer" target for the product, one Microsoft partner, who requested anonymity, said.

When Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft announced in April that it was adding an unexpected beta refresh to its Office 2003 schedule, many expected the final rollout date for the desktop suite would slip until fall. But Microsoft officials have continued to insist that Office 2003 will be a late summer deliverable.

Microsoft officials continue to decline to comment on the company's Office 2003 rollout plans. They also have declined to talk specifics about Office 2003 pricing.

Microsoft also declined to comment when, earlier this week, Amazon.com published on its U.K. Web site an alleged Office 2003 price list. The published prices were slightly higher than for the current Office XP SKUs.

The Amazon site also pegged retail availability for October 24. It's unclear whether European retail availability will lag that for the U.S.