I recently left my former employer.  When I started working there, I
was given a burned copy of Microsoft Office 1997.  I'm pretty positive
several others in the company are using the same copy with the same
product key.  I'd like to report this company to Microsoft and have
already spoken to someone in their piracy reporting department but did
not proceed to furnish any information to them.  I was wondering, if I
do report this company, what would be the likely outcome of the
situation?  Have other companies gotten in trouble for this?  What
steps are taken to investigate and what is the time
frame?

Dunno.  But who do you hate more: MS or the former employer ?

well, there are a lot of people who use pirated copies of ms products.
microsoft just cant hunt down each and every one of them because there
are too many

I seriously doubt anyone is going to care about Office 97 lol! : )

And, IT depts make cd's all the time and install it on the multiple
computers.  It is called Volume Licensing.  They would even all have
the same product key.

Besides that, kind of wrong to just assume they are doing something
wrong without proof just because you are mad at them for getting
fired.