Office 11 Released Into Beta Testing

Beta 1, which was unveiled on Tuesday, offers XML support in Word for the first time, improved management and mobile support for Outlook and unique features for the Windows XP-based Tablet PC OS, said Simon Marks, a Microsoft Office product manager. The existing Office XP currently offers XML support for Excel and Access only, Marks said.

In addition, Microsoft has enhanced management features of the Outlook client to give users better ways of reading, prioritizing, filing and tracking their e-mail with features such as e-mail preview, color-coded flags for managing growing mail files, improved folder searches and better support for mobile devices.

For instance, the new cached e-mail system and intelligent connections setting will enable users to access and read their e-mail more quickly and transfer between data connections with minimal interruption.

The next version will also offer support for newer Microsoft technologies such as the Windows XP Tablet PC operating system, allowing users to place task panes at the bottom or right of the screen and support for ink notes as allowed by the Windows XP-based Tablet PC. Office 11 is due to ship in mid-2003.

However, the major selling point of Office 11 is not compelling new features, but that it enables tighter integration within the Office suite and integration with other next-generation applications including SharePoint and XDocs.

"Microsoft strategy is 'embrace and extend'--so it's not a big surprise. As long as they integrate Office with the fiber of business processes, it's [that they want to make sure it's not a commodity, so customers can't rip and replace with StarOffice," said Michael Silver, a vice president and research director at Gartner. "I'm worried the XML features won't turn out to be as compelling as promised, just like the HTML features of Office 2000."

He claimed most users are currently using Office 97 and, to a smaller extent, Office 2000.

In addition to new XML support in Word, which enables Word users to use and access data from other XML capabilities in Excel and Access, a new feature in Office 11 called Smart Documents is designed to better link Office users with data from another Office application, such as a spreadsheet, or from server-based or Web server-based data in XML format such as credit card, cell phone bill or expense reporting policy, Microsoft said.

While Microsoft declined to specify how this technology differs from Smart Tags in Office XP, company executives said the connection to XML data from other applications and databases, as well as searching features, are more refined. "It's a similar but different level of power," said Microsoft's Marks, when asked about the difference between about Smart Documents vs. Smart Tags in Office XP.

He noted that broader XML support in the entire Office 11 suite and Smart Documents allow customers to build better XML-enabled solutions overall.

Moreover, Office 11 is also designed to offer tighter integration with the company's SharePoint Team Services solution and, when used with the company's XDocs, access to XML server and line-of business applications.

Office XP currently offers integration with the existing version of SharePoint. But the new Document Workspace feature in Office 11 will enable users to edit documents simultaneously, receive realtime notices of new changes and connect to other team members via Windows Messenger. Office 11 users will also be able to leverage significant new features of the next version of SharePoint and XDocs, channel partners note.

A major upgrade of SharePoint also due in mid-2003 will be tightly integrated with Microsoft's forthcoming Office 11 and offer enterprise-level group collaboration features including Team Services 2.0 and new document management capabilities such as check-in and check-out, version control, single-click document editing and digital rights management, sources said.

Moreover, the planned release of Microsoft's XDocs at the same time will enable Office 11 users to connect directly to XML-tagged data stored across enterprises and XML Web services. XDocs technology allows users of Office client applications to connect to back-end servers and integrate data directly with their line-of-business processes, including CRM, ERP, supply chain and workgroup processes, Microsoft said. Microsoft has not made final decisions on packaging and pricing, and XDocs may be included in the Office suite, the Microsoft officials said.

One solution provider said he expected many Office users will exploit the integration capabilities--especially those that have paid for it by signing Software Assurance and Licensing 6.0 contracts.

"Most will be interested due to the ties it may have with XML and .Net and especially those customers that have Software Assurance for the licenses," said Rich Figer, vice president of sales at S.B. Stone, a systems integrator in Cleveland. "If they have the two-year agreement, I cannot imagine that they would not take advantage of the new technology. It will be interesting to see what the customers that have no protection for their current licensing do. We have a lot of customers using Office XP at this point."

One solution provider said he may wait until the following rev, currently dubbed Office 12, before switching users from Office 2000.

"We are still using Office 2000 and don't see much need to upgrade--except for the support issues, which will probably kick in next year," said the solution provider, who asked not to be named. "I think we will wait and see what comes with Office 12. A smaller footprint would be nice, as would better help and some enhanced integration with Web publishing. We don't use Outlook, so a lot of the improvements would be wasted on us anyway. I'm more interested in Office, which will be the make-or-break product for digital collaboration and unstructured content management."