More than any other Office release, Microsoft has focused on turning the new suite into a single package that can act as a front end to existing customer relationship management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. New Office product InfoPath will anchor the CRM and ERP push, although analysts say that Microsoft will position the whole suite as the front end for these applications. This approach "has the potential of enhancing the value of the Office suite and making it more of a platform that companies can use to put tools that are familiar to end users in their hands," said Jupiter Research analyst David Schatsky. In a research report released last year, Forrester Research analyst John Dalton gave CRM and ERP clients a failing grade because of serious usability problems. In one test scenario, a company with 500 agents saw a 20 percent increase in call times rather than the expected 30 percent decrease in call volumes after implementing a new CRM package. The unexpected additional cost: $6m. Dalton attributed the problem largely to "overwhelming complexity" and "inconsistent interfaces" of the CRM client software. Office's well-known interface could make the product a more attractive front end for existing CRM and ERP applications, said Forrester Research analyst Ted Schadler. "Microsoft would like nothing more than to make Office the front end to these other (back-end) applications," he said. Office's widespread use of XML is largely responsible for this front-end enterprise repositioning of Office, analysts say. Using XML, Microsoft wants to move to a more data-centric model, putting less emphasis on individual documents. "Our focus on Office 2003 is data interchange," said Jean Paoli, Microsoft's XML architect. "For now, there is no difference between documents and data. We finally made those one in the same." Businesses could use XML to move data throughout their enterprise, with Office as the front-end system. This is a potentially important move for Microsoft, since so much data is generated in Office. "People think of putting data in a database, when 90 percent of their information is in a document," Paoli said. XML would allow easier interchange of data generated in Office documents with back-end systems or existing Web services. Office's new role "is to have interoperability with the backend. How useful is it to have a front end that can' talk with the backend?" Paoli said. New York-based Factiva is one of those businesses that hopes to harness some of Office 2003's XML capabilities. Factiva, a cooperative effort between Dow Jones and Reuters, seeks to bring business news and information to enterprises. Besides content pulled from both news organisations operations, Factiva also offers enterprise consulting and professional services. "We made the decision during the early stages of the [Office 2003] development effort to build a brand new, XML-based platform...which is actually the base for offering the easy access from the Office suite," said Clare Hart, Factiva chief executive. "Our customer base is really looking for information in the context of the workflow of their employees," she said. "Being able to do that within Office 2003, we think is going to be very well received by our enterprise organisations," she continued. While employees do "work in CRM applications" they "spend most of their time in Office applications." But Factiva is getting much more than a place in the workflow. The company also has snagged a place on the desktop. With Office XP, Microsoft introduced an optional Task Pane that adorns the right-hand side of a document. A similar concept is used in MSN 8 and the recently leaked version of Longhorn, code-name for the next version of Windows. With Office 2003, Microsoft is introducing several new sidebars, including the "Research" Task Pane. From there, business users can connect to the Encarta Dictionary or Encyclopedia, eLibrary and Factiva, among other information services. That means Factiva's service will be available to anyone using Office 2003. The Research view uses XML to provide access to the data sources, which can be customised by enterprises. "This can be internal content (available) straight across the organisation" -- not just Factiva or other external sources, Hart said. "Pharmaceutical companies might have internal research or R&D research in general. You might want to do a fact check, and you could do that across internal and external information." Factiva already is looking ahead to taking advantage of other XML-enabled Office features, such as Smart Tags. Microsoft introduced Smart Tags with the release of Office XP and had planned to include the technology in Internet Explorer. But following complaints the technology would usurp Web traffic, Microsoft pulled Smart Tags from IE but not Office. Using a Smart Tag, Microsoft or a third party such as Factiva could link pieces of information in a document, such as a name or company stock symbol, to other information via pull-down menu. So that information would be available on hand, without the need to even exit the document. Hart wouldn't specifically discuss Factiva's plans for Smart Tags. "But you can imagine what could be next -- being able to highlight a keyword and run a quick search or being able to link that to an index term," she said. Factiva's use of Office underscores Microsoft's long-term strategy for positioning the rebranded product as a front-end for all kinds of work processes -- one that business users would rarely need exit. The key is the way Office uses XML, say analysts. "We're pretty enthusiastic about the possibilities Microsoft's deep integration of XML in their Office products creates," said Jupiter's Schatsky. "There's a long road to travel from great idea to implementation. We think that is going to unfold over the next year or so."
More enterprise IT news in ZDNet UK's Tech Update Channel.
For a weekly round-up of the enterprise IT news, sign up for the Tech Update newsletter.
Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.
