The new Office edition is slated to come at roughly the same time as Longhorn, the next version of Windows. However, the company has scrapped earlier plans that would have seen the two products tightly coupled together. Office 12 is expected to run on both Longhorn and older versions, with the major changes to Office not dependent on any shifts in Windows.
Microsoft did offer a few specific features it plans to add. As part of its attempt to let workers better make sense of ever-growing amounts of data, the company is adding into Excel the ability to create dashboards and scorecards that offer a quick way to visually keep track of just how a business is doing.
Meanwhile, in PowerPoint, Microsoft said it is working to automate more of the graphics features from within the presentation program so workers can create documents that look good without much design effort. The company is also planning to expand its use of XML as a means of sharing data with other programs.
In addition to sharing only the broad strokes of what features will be added to the Office suite itself, Microsoft is also not ready to discuss any new companion products that will be coming with the Office 12 wave of software. In the last go-round, Microsoft added its InfoPath electronic forms program as well as OneNote, a note-taking application.
Rob Helm, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, said he expects the Information Worker unit that includes the Office business to continue to introduce new server software as a way to grow its sales.
"I think that unit's business plan, overall, is about the server," Helm said. The Office suite serves as a ubiquitous piece of desktop software upon which Microsoft can fairly easily tie new products, he said.
Raikes was circumspect when asked about Microsoft's reported plans to introduce more server software, including the possibility of an Excel server.
"I'd say with a beta toward the end of this year you will begin to get a good sense of how we are thinking of the overall set of capabilities," Raikes said. "I'm not saying what server products we will release at what time."
Talkback
No chance of them fixing up Word then so that bullet points and numbering behave in a predictable fashion? How about standardising the interface so that Word and Powerpoint handle graphics in the same way? How about a freely distributable reader for Infopath or do they really expect another $300 a seat for people who use XML forms? Has it really taken 20 years to arrive at such a badly flawed suite of products?