Microsoft Office System to Lead Summer of Suite Upgrades Not Just Word -- It's Office Word Eric Grevstad
Mon 3/10/03 -- Is your company still using Microsoft Office 97 or Office 2000 (as were over 85 percent of firms in an informal Gartner survey last October)? Microsoft isn't glad you find its software so satisfying; it's mad you haven't coughed up the upgrade bucks for Office XP. And in mid-2003, the software giant will pull out all the stops to persuade customers to buck the tight economy -- and resurgent awareness of lower-priced alternatives -- and buy Office 2003. Or rather, to buy what Redmond now calls "the new Microsoft Office System -- an easy way to positively impact your business."
Think that sounds like meaningless marketing babble? Yesterday, Microsoft began distributing half a million copies of the beta 2 release of the new suite to let companies decide for themselves -- and to see that the Office System pitch is meant to reposition what was once a word processor/spreadsheet/presentation bundle as "a set of programs, servers, and services" that aims to get users to stop thinking in terms of documents and start thinking of enterprise-wide communication and collaboration on business data.
You can order the beta kit -- including prerelease versions of the new Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, FrontPage, Publisher, InfoPath database-forms client, and OneNote Tablet PC-optimized note-jotter -- for $20 via the link above. It's trialware that can be installed (with online or telephone Product Activation) on up to five PCs; expires at the end of November; and requires, as the shipping version will, either Windows XP or Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3 (Windows 95, 98, Me, or NT users get the cold shoulder).
The big change in Office 2003 -- other than the word Office added as a prefix to every program name, as in Office Word 2003, Office Outlook 2003, Office FrontPage 2003, and so on -- is the use of XML (extensible Markup Language) and SharePoint Portal Server to integrate information from various applications into a program- and device-independent solution, letting the familiar Office interface serve as a front end or gateway to corporate database or enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.
That also includes a gateway to Internet info, with Microsoft's business partners getting the inside track: A new XML sidebar or "research task pane," similar to the onscreen task pane of Office XP, connects to the company's Encarta encyclopedia, the Dow Jones/Reuters business information service Factiva, and other channels.
Other new features range from Information Rights Management -- an in-house-document instead of online-music variation of Microsoft's Digital Rights Management initiative to block unauthorized copying or distribution of content (or, in press-release-speak, "empower people in organizations to collaborate more effectively") -- to new junk e-mail filtering tools. Still unclear is how the big-enterprise Office System focus will affect small-office and home-office users, although one component of the beta kit promises an Outlook-based Business Contact Manager for Small Business seemingly aimed at Best Software's popular Act! package.
More Conventional, More Affordable
Microsoft has yet to specify the different versions, bundles, and prices planned for the midyear Office 2003 release, but it's certain to charge more than its underdog competitors such as OpenOffice.org, the Office-file-compatible (but Outlook-equivalent-less), open-source Windows, Linux, and Mac OS suite that's available as a free download.
OpenOffice.org has received just a couple of bug-fix and speed-tweak upgrades (currently at version 1.0.2) since its debut 10 months ago, but the commercial product whose base code it shares, Sun StarOffice 6.0 ($76), has just started a public beta test of version 6.1, due in the third quarter.
The new release will emphasize corporate workflow, with a configuration manager to help IT departments deploy and manage StarOffice, and add accessibility for users with physical disabilities. (So, with fewer bundled templates and enterprise tools, will the free OpenOffice.org 1.1.) Compatibility with Microsoft Office file formats, including the new XML flavors of Office 2003, will be paramount.
Meanwhile, both Microsoft's and Sun's suite upgrades will be beaten to market by Corel Corp.'s WordPerfect Office 11, which the Canadian company announced last week will ship in late April for $300. The bundle of WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, and Presentations -- the old CorelCentral personal information manager is noticeably absent from the press announcement, and the WordPerfect Office Professional bundle that includes the Paradox database will change from a retail to enterprise-license-only product -- will combine XML integration with workflow features such as Document Map and Collaborative Review functions.
Corel says WordPerfect Office 11 will reach both forward -- SMS integration with Quattro Pro will let users update spreadsheets remotely via cell phone -- and back -- an optional Classic Mode will mimic the keystrokes and white-text-on-a-blue-screen interface of WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. All three applications will be able to publish to HTML and XML, with WordPerfect and Presentations adding built-in publishing to Adobe Acrobat PDF files.
