Computers Today, October 16-31, 1998 PC User

While offering new features like Web integration and self-repairing functionality, the new avatar of the most popular suite promises to appease users who had been crying hoarse about the installation costs

Choosing the right IT infrastructure that would grow with your company can be a difficult task. With business competitiveness becoming increasingly dependent on the ability to react quickly to a changing business environment, organisations are adopting desktop applications that reduce costs and foster collaboration. Microsoft Office 2000, the upcoming avtaar of Office 97 suite, is now being positioned to redefine the role of productivity applications in the enterprise. Though the suite is only one beta release old, Office 2000 promises to offer many new and improved features that are aimed at significantly reducing the cost of PC ownership, increase office integration with the Web and enterprise, simplify user experience and extend value.

Worldwide, Microsoft Office is undisputedly the most popular desktop application, running on some 75 million machines. Over the years, the Microsoft office has established its numero uno position as the most efficient suite of applications for document creation, communication, and business information analysis.

"There is a distinct shift in the business platform--from paper to the Web," according to Karthik Padmanabhan, product manager, desktop systems and applications, Microsoft Corp. (India) Pvt. Ltd. Also, though Office 97 introduced some IT-focussed functionality, such as a network installation wizard and support for system policies, the question of reducing the ownership cost still remained, as clarfied by customer feedback. "This is now being solved by Office 2000 which is providing administrators with the option of central control aswell as greater flexibility," he adds.

Microsoft's Office 2000 looks at extending desktop productivity to the Web, streamlining work processes and simplying how individuals and organisations share, access, and analyse information. It offers better natural language support and an adaptable user interface as well, Padmanabhan claims.

In fact, as organisations are increasingly adopting the intranet strategy to store information, typical users still find it too complex to place information on the Web. Office 2000 introduces HTML as a companion file format which makes it easy to create and publish Web pages. Its features include Office Web Components and Office Server Extensions through which groups can have ad-hoc or real-time document reviews or threaded discussions. According to Padmanabhan, "The Web today is being used largely as an information repository. Using a key feature of Office 2000, The Web Discussions, users can have threaded discussions in the browser. Group members would be able to instantaneously view others' comments as and when they are posted."

Data analysis and reporting can also be performed on the Web by using Office Web components, making it easy to distribute and access corporate data and eliminating the need to duplicate and analyse the data in a separate tool. Thus, instead of viewing the static data, users can now work with interactive data on the Web.

That the Office suite package is space- and memory-hungry, has been a regular complaint from the users. Installation and deployment costs were also high. Besides, Office 97 was too complex for multinationals to deploy centrally as there were 36 localised versions, each requiring separate set up.

Reducing the cost of owning a PC has been a design priority with Office 2000. The new installation technology provides a greater level of flexibility and more control within each application at the feature, menu, or toolbar level. Office 2000 simplifies deployment with a single worldwide executable and configurable user interface that supports different languages. IT administrators can also decide where the Office components or flies will reside: on the client desktop, on the server, or on a hybrid configuration.

It takes advantage of MS Windows NT 5.0's functionality to make it easier to centrally administer, track, manage, and control the end-user desktop or laptop providing greater control for reducing administration costs.

Earlier, 20 percent of the costs were attributable to the cost of end-user support. Office 2000 eases the support burden with self-repairing applications and a consistent file format, which can be read by Office 97 applications. IntelliSense technology has been improved with increased interactive help--the Office Assistant will actually show a user how to complete a task.

According to Microsoft officials, usability studies indicate that users are often overwhelmed by the complexity of the interface. Besides, different types of users use different subsets of application functionality. Office 2000 learns and adapts by showing only the menu and toolbar commands that are used most often. It streamlines task completion by automating and eliminating routine tasks. For example, with Collect and Paste features, users can collect multiple pieces of information from different sources and paste them individually. This streamlines document creation for projects such as a consolidated monthly report created in Word with charts and graphics.

Then, in response to select customer preferences, Office 2000 can fully support the new European currency, the Euro. All Office 2000 applications will be able to render a single character as a bitmap. Excel 2000 also supports the Euro currency as a new currency format.

Microsoft Office 2000 will truly advance the business productivity software category by providing new tools for IT professionals to manage their office environment better as well new Web-based capabilities that streamline the way people work together and sharse information. On the whole, an upgrade to look forward to.

What's New at Office 2000?

No real-time two-way Web interaction possible in Office 97. In Office 2000, simultaneously many can work on the same document.

Data Tracking
In Office 97, it is not possible to seamlessly integrate an application in the back-end for data manipulation. In Office 2000, data tracking and analysis features are richer.

VBA Support
From a programming point of view, Office 97 provides only VBA support.
In Office 2000, there is support for VBA, as well as object models and Web components.

Ease of Use
The new version offers product enhancements like self-repairing functionality and the install on demand/ install on first use feature.

Language Support
Office 97 supports 36 languages, but each with a different version of Office. Office 2000 supports all 36 languages by the same version, making installations simpler.