Microsoft Unveils Office 2003

When Microsoft throws a party, you can guarantee it will draw a sizeable crowd.

This fall, Microsoft Canada celebrated the launch of its newest productivity suite, Office System 2003, by packing Toronto’s York Theatre with dozens of reporters, businesspeople and onlookers. It was undoubtedly Microsoft’s biggest launch since the inauguration of Tablet PC.

Based on the sheer magnitude of the event — simultaneously mirrored in cities across the globe — Microsoft clearly has a lot riding on its latest portfolio of office tools. Reportedly, the company spent the last two years fine-tuning Office to better serve its clients, and set aside $500 million (US) for marketing; this year, we’ll see the first television ads for Office in a decade.

But what exactly are they selling and why will people buy it? Considering that the professional edition costs $759, while the standard edition goes for $609, the steep investment is pointless for most basic users. Older but perfectly workable versions of Office already enjoy an impressive adoption rate of about 94 per cent; so whom is Microsoft targeting with this launch?

The answer: Big business. So far, it might be working — Virgin Entertainment, Lockheed Martin and Honeywell International are a few of the more prominent companies that have already adopted Office System 2003 into their workplaces.

“In today’s increasingly complex, competitive business environment, customers are looking for software innovations that can help reduce information overload and impart new, competitive advantages,” said Frank Clegg, president of Microsoft Canada. “Through a system of familiar and easy-to-use programs, servers and services, users can connect people and organizations to information, business processes and each other, helping ensure that they derive the most value out of information.”

Collaborative computing is the key here. Although Microsoft has issued hundreds of requisite tweaks to its stalwart standalones like Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint, the real draw for enterprise users is the ability to easily disseminate and collaborate on data in real time. Most networked businesses have some sort of project management methods in place, but Office System offers an integrated and updateable solution with universal compatibility.

However, to fully incorporate Office’s file-sharing technologies requires SharePoint, Microsoft’s server software. Fans of open source may shy away from such an obligation. Also, the newest release of Office was optimized for Windows XP, which most businesses have yet to adopt.

That notwithstanding, Office System 2003 in its stripped-down form has enough goodies to satisfy both business and consumer markets, particularly in its improvements to Outlook. The email client has been reworked to use screen space more efficiently and allows you to assign pictures to contacts. It automatically protects against embedded HTML bugs and features an intelligent new spam filter. It also includes the much-discussed “digital shredder,” which attaches self-destruct commands to emails and protect documents from copying, printing or forwarding.

While some experts have expressed trepidation towards that particular upgrade, users will likely appreciate the new Research Task Pane: A built-in XML application lets you highlight phrases within a document and research it against various online services including encyclopedias, dictionaries, news sources and even LexisNexis’ legal reference library.

As innovative as Office System 2003 sounds, only time will tell whether the business world agrees.