I saw on the internet that Microsoft has released Office 2000 but it is not available in stores yet, you can only order over the internet. Is this true and if it is why is it so cheap to buy ($50-70)?

The release of Office 2000 is only a beta release which means that Microsoft and the people who purchase the software know that it might have bugs. That is why it is so cheap. Beta versions of software are released so the programmers can see what people like and dislike about it and how they can improve it. People would not pay high amounts for the beta version they would obviously wait until the final version is released. You can only buy Office 2000 over the internet from Microsoft because (i) Beta releases have known bugs (ii) It is very convenient for the software developers because when they want to take the software ‘off the market’ to develop it further, they don’t have to do a recall from all of the retailers.