Beta 2 of Microsoft Office 2003 sees Office System emerge

By Alun Williams

Posted on 10 Mar 2003 at 13:25

Microsoft has begun delivering the beta 2 version of Microsoft Office System to half a million testers.

The beta release marks a change in the naming scheme for Redmond's venerable office application suite. As well as Microsoft Office 2003, there is now a wider ranging suite dubbed 'Office System' (which includes additional applications such as FrontPage, and SharePoint Services). Furthermore, the component elements of the Office suite will be prefixed with the word 'Office', for example Word becomes Office Word 2003 and Excel becomes Office Excel 2003.

With Microsoft Office System the emphasis has changed from a desktop focus to more of an enterprise focus. Consider the contents of the beta kit. As well as beta 2 versions of the new Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Access), there are two new Office System components - Microsoft Office InfoPath (to create XML-based forms) and Microsoft Office OneNote (which captures hand-written notes). These are in addition to the FrontPage 2003, Publisher 2003 and SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server '2.0' that make up the wider Office System.

Microsoft UK's Office Product Manager, David Bennie, told us that the latest beta launch would probably be the last for Office System. The product is slated for final release in June or July 2003. Expect, however, Release Candidate 1 to appear in a couple of months. No pricing information is yet available.

The renaming move is seen as a further attempt to make Microsoft's productivity tools enterprise friendly. Long gone are the days of a simple word processor and spread sheet - the interchange of information in a variety of formats has lead to ever more complex integration with wider business processes. Under the terms of Microsoft's new Licensing 6 programme, which locks in companies to Redmond's upgrade path, it will be in the interest of customers to upgrade their existing office suites. Such a move will lead ever more naturally to the back office software delivered by Microsoft, such as Windows Server and SQL Server.

You can find more info on Microsoft's system at microsoft.com/office/preview/.