Microsoft Plans to Unveil Office Connection Strategy

Microsoft Corp. has booked a New York City theater to unveil a broad-based strategy aimed at extending the world of personal computer software that it dominates into the realm of faxes, telephones and offices on the go.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is scheduled to present his “Blueprints to the Future” at the Hotel Macklowe’s Hudson Theater off Times Square today, bringing his goal of streamlining office productivity one step closer.

The plan will include an alliance of office equipment and service providers as diverse as cellular phone pioneer McCaw Cellular Communications Inc. and photocopy giant Xerox Corp., which announced a broad partnership with Microsoft on Tuesday.

“This partnership, allowing the integration of document products and PCs, will result in products that change the way people work,” Gates said in a statement about the Xerox-Microsoft collaboration.

The overarching strategy aims to move Microsoft’s standards into all aspects of the office, enabling workers to communicate seamlessly in voices, words and images.

Microsoft declined to elaborate on details in its announcement, saying Gates would appear on stage “with a host of unexpected partners.”

But some of the major players were revealed in a part of the strategy unveiled last month when major telephone companies agreed to a new computer-to-phone-switch standard.

Among them were computer microprocessor maker Intel Corp. and telecommunications giants American Telephone & Telegraph, Northern Telecom and Siemens-Rolm.

A spokesman for McCaw, based in Kirkland, Wash., said his company has also been working closely with Microsoft to integrate its digital packet data protocol for cellular use with Microsoft’s emerging protocol.