Content creation, collaboration, information management, servers, services and security. The folks at Redmond are making all the right noises with the new version of Office that was launched on October 21. But it’s not just another upgrade this time.
Office 2003 is part of a bigger collection of applications and services called the Office System. Apart from Office 2003, Office System includes servers and services that can be mixed and matched to be developed into a solution. So instead of just buying the product off-the-shelf, one can approach any of Microsoft’s partners for a customized solution.
Microsoft is obviously thinking of the enterprise segment and not so much of individual home users in the case of the Office System, though retail packs will be available. But Office 2003 doesn’t add enough features in the individual applications to warrant an upgrade from Office XP. Outlook and Word get facelifts. Outlook 2003 offers better spam filtering, sensitive adapting to Net connections and some interesting mail management features. Word adds a newspaper-style reading pane. A research task pane has also been added, which can be used to search reference data on the desktop, local network or the Internet.
Speaking to Dataquest, senior marketing manager, Microsoft India, Karthik Padmanabhan said that the Office System addresses not just individual productivity (though that is still key), but has been expanded to address team and organizational productivity.
Office 2003: What’s New
“Beyond individual productivity to organizational productivity”
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Tight XML/HTML integration including editing. InfoPath app for XML forms
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Integration with SharePoint services for creating shared workspaces
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Research task pane searches desktop, intranet or Internet
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Outlook facelift; better mail management and spam filtering
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Word has new reader interface—a newspaper style viewing option
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PowerPoint files can now be packed directly onto CDs
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OneNote—a note-taking program especially useful for Tablet PC users
The evolution of the Office System is more about collaboration than anything else. This is best reflected in the fact that the Office System offers tight integration with Extensive Markup Language, or XML, which is seen as a popular industry standard for sharing and collaborating data. InfoPath 2003, a form creation application introduced in this package, uses XML for form design and for sharing it in different formats, including HTML. For those comfortable with scripting, Word becomes an XML editor. The servers in Office System include the Project Server, SharePoint Portal Server and the Live Communications Server. Of these, the SharePoint Portal Server is most important, since it allows for the creation of online workspaces for teams and organizations to collaborate and interact with each other.
Another term that Microsoft has introduced with this launch is Information Worker—any individual who comes in the line of the information flow in an organization. Office System is handled by the Information Worker team at Microsoft.
The other major concern that the Office System concentrates on is the flow and management of information in an organization. It introduces the concept of Information Rights Management, or IRM, to address that. IRM is useful if an organization wishes to deploy a policy-based flow of information amongst its workers—to allow certain workers access to only a particular amount of information, and to secure the flow of information outside the organization.
The biggest potential market that the Office System attempts to tap is that of business process automation. In the US alone, this market is slated to be over $100 billion by 2006, according to analyst figures. In India, though a study is still being commissioned, Microsoft is quite bullish about the potential, not the least of which will come from government projects.
Perhaps the biggest opportunity the Office System offers is to Microsoft’s business partners and system integrators. In India, 10 big SI partners are already working on solutions. Wipro, Microsoft’s biggest partner in India, was one of the first in South Asia to develop solutions based on Office System products.
So is it time to upgrade? For individuals, no; for SMBs and corporates—only if they’re looking for a particular solution.
Special Issues 
Microsoft is obviously thinking of the enterprise segment and not so much of individual home users in the case of the Office System, though retail packs will be available. But Office 2003 doesn’t add enough features in the individual applications to warrant an upgrade from Office XP. Outlook and Word get facelifts. Outlook 2003 offers better spam filtering, sensitive adapting to Net connections and some interesting mail management features. Word adds a newspaper-style reading pane. A research task pane has also been added, which can be used to search reference data on the desktop, local network or the Internet. 
