COMMENTARY--
The upcoming version of Office isn't just another software upgrade: The new features that you'll see aren't that interesting. What is interesting is going on behind the scenes.Oct. 21 promises to be a bit anticlimactic. That's when Microsoft plans to formally introduce Office 2003. What this really means is, after the 21st, the 600,000 people who've been testing the product will actually have to start paying for it. That's way different than the good ol' days, when most people didn't even know a product was coming until it was about to ship.
While we'll see some new features in Office 2003, they're not really the point here. The really important changes are happening behind the scenes. Office is becoming less and less a collection of individual apps, and more and more part of a much larger platform encompassing collaboration and online content and services.
Most of the new features, including an increased use of SmartTags and improvements in FrontPage's upload function, are nice. But they're worth writing home about only if your home happens to be a Microsoft product group.
One feature I did notice, and do like, is Outlook's improved (but still far from perfect) spam filtering. I run mine in the "high" setting, which catches most spam without making too many mistakes. Still, I get so much unsolicited commercial e-mail that even catching most of it leaves a lot behind.
While the spam filtering and other new features are nice, they're really just extra butter cream frosting on an already very nice cake. And, yes, there will be people who complain about extra calories--in this case often referred to as software "bloat." Office is already less than svelte, with more features than anyone needs and many that only a minority demand. Microsoft is still tuning the feature set. The goal: to help users find the right feature just when they need it, a concept known as "discoverability."
Some of these new features demonstrate how Microsoft is turning Office from an application suite into part of a system that links those applications to servers and online content to support collaboration, workflow, easier information access, and, oh yes, ongoing revenue streams for Microsoft and its duly anointed partners.
The 2003 releases of Exchange, Internet Information Server, SharePoint, and the new Live Communication Server, working together or separately, give companies powerful new tools for communications and organizing both workgroups and workflows.
Much of this is out-of-the-box functionality requiring little programming or administrative overhead. Sure, you can add features and build applications around these servers as you see fit, but there's tremendous user value to just installing them and providing user access.
For example, using Office 2003 apps in conjunction with Windows SharePoint Services allows you to create shared workspaces--small Web sites where you can collaborate on individual documents and projects. Users can share the document, see and be notified of edits, assign tasks, and link to other documents and other resources. This can be quite powerful if a company and its users get behind the technology. But to use it effectively you'll need both the 2003-series apps and the servers.
Office is also built to interact with outside services over the Net. One example: the Research Pane that can pop up beside the document you're working on, providing direct access to an online research library from within Office applications. Sources include a dictionary, thesaurus, translation services, the Expedia Encyclopaedia, MSN Search, and MSN stock quotes.
There are also direct links to paid news and research sites, including eLibrary and Dow Jones Factiva news search. This is another indication of how Microsoft wants Office to interact not just with its own applications and servers but, increasingly, with content services from which it can derive additional revenue.
So far, these efforts haven't been markedly successful, but it's too early to tell how users will react when more and more of the Internet shows up not only in their browser but within their applications.
Yes, I too made jokes about how the "Office family" had been subsumed into the "Office system" and whether users themselves would be next. ("Resistance is futile!") But turning the Office applications into clients for servers and services makes sense.
It also provides some justification for the changes Microsoft has made to its customer purchase agreements. Many customers have complained--with reason--that Microsoft has been trying to force them (successfully in many cases) to buy software they otherwise wouldn't purchase. But the 2003 apps and servers really do "need" one another, and I expect this dependency to increase over time.
In such a world, Microsoft needs customers to upgrade a lot of pieces at once in order to deliver new features. While Redmond is not (yet) about to force big server and desktop software upgrades (as opposed to fixes) on us, not having to pay extra for every new version should make it easier for Microsoft customers to stay up-to-date.
This will become very important as implementing new features requires changes to both desktop apps and the servers they connect to.
So who needs Office 2003? I think the collaboration and other features that I have barely scratched the surface of here (for extra credit investigate the SharePoint Portal Server on the Microsoft Web site) can be very powerful business tools, but you will need the servers to get them. For many businesses this will be a major project.
Microsoft has, in the past, been criticized for creating solutions that only large enterprises could implement. But Redmond takes the Linux threat seriously enough that a new, lower-priced server suite for small businesses will be released later this year. The $599 entry price for the software--which includes Exchange, SharePoint, and Web server capabilities, as well as file and print sharing--seems quite attractive.
Individual users may or may not find reasons to upgrade to the new Office. I can't think of lots of reasons not to, but if you have to write a check, are happy with what you're using, and won't have access to SharePoint servers, you can probably wait. Tablet users will want the upgrade because the Office apps have been tablet-enabled and OneNote is a nice note-taking app.
Between now and Oct. 21, you'll be reading a lot about Office 2003. As you start wading through the hype, remember this: Office 2003 isn't just a group of somewhat integrated applications. It's part of a business platform that increasingly depends on tight integration among desktop apps, servers, and online content. In exchange for that integration (and the purchasing demands it entails), Office 2003 looks ready to deliver some 21st century functionality.
What do you think? Will you upgrade to Office 2003? Will you upgrade to the server products as well? Or is this just a scheme by Microsoft to increase your software costs? Let us know at edit@zdnet.com.au.
