Test Copies of New Office Released
Microsoft Corp. has released test copies of the new version of its lucrative Office software suite, showcasing significant improvements that the company hopes will spur sales of related programs running on central computer servers.
Although Office 11 isn’t expected to ship to customers until the middle of next year, the beta copies include a major shift toward the open language called XML, or extensible markup language.
Spreadsheets and documents created using Office’s Excel or Word programs can be saved in the XML format. Once stored in XML, documents can be programmed to update themselves by retrieving new pieces of information stored on company servers or out on the Internet.
The result is a far more communicative set of programs that can be adapted by company information technology managers to make common tasks easier, analysts said.
“You basically transform the value from being a stand-alone desktop to something that’s a lot more connected to the enterprise,” said software analyst Ted Schadler of Forrester Research. “Suddenly Office documents can become reusable.”
The changes also carry some risk for Microsoft, which earns more money from Office than from its monopoly Windows operating systems.
Because many programs recognize XML, data created in Office don’t need to stay there. Other programs, even those running on rival operating systems, can interact with Windows PCs.
“It’s a great benefit that [XML] is so widespread,” said Office Product Manager Simon Marks. “If it makes sense for them to have a different application, that’s great.”
Office sells from $150 to $450, depending on the version, whether users are upgrading and whether they are students or professionals.
Although Microsoft’s Office programs are standard issue in many business settings, they are getting some challenge from less-expensive rivals.
The free corroborative product OpenOffice and Sun Microsystems Inc.’s StarOffice can do similar tasks, and Corel Corp.’s WordPerfect word-processing program is being installed on some PCs made by Gateway Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Computer Corp. and Sony Corp.
