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10 burning questions about Microsoft Office 2007

Microsoft Office is no longer one-size-fits-all, but rather a complicated set of programs users can customize, mix and match. But at what cost?
By John Fontana , Network World , 11/06/2007
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Nearly a year ago, Microsoft released Office 2007 to corporate users and so began the slow and methodical evaluation of the software (unless, of course, you were an early adopter).

With migrations to Vista, which is intertwined with Office, slowly looming on the drawing boards for many companies over the next three years and beyond, here’s a look at some of the questions to help pick apart Office and figure out how, when and where it fits into corporate desktop, infrastructure, VoIP and software-as-a service plans, and the target it presents to OpenOffice.org-based suites and online productivity tools popping up on the Web.

The Office 2007 challenge
Microsoft's Office 2007 is more than just a collection of productivity applications — for the first time it includes an extensive array of front-end clients and back-end servers that provide everything from text-editing to call-forwarding.

Challenges Strategies
Get the installed base to move. Why is upgrading to the new Office better than staying on the old Office? Microsoft has to answer this question for users with every revision of its cash-cow duo (Office and Windows). The expanded scope of the entire suite is the umbrella message.
Win users over to the value of the Office System infrastructure. More than ever before, Microsoft can sell Office to IT for its back-end capabilities, such as content management and real-time collaboration. VoIP will be a tough sell, but has knockout-punch power.
Take the document-formatting issue out of the equation. As users consider their productivity application costs and user needs, the availability of translators to convert between OpenDocument Format and Office Open XML will make it easier for companies to defer some desktops to Open Office suites. Microsoft will have to figure out how to use the translators, some of which it is funding via the open source community, to its advantage.
Click to see: Office 2007's challenges

What is different about Office 2007?

Well, this isn’t your father’s office suite. Office 2007, or what Microsoft calls the Office System, comes in eight versions and contains 15 programs, eight servers and seven services or add-ons. Users don’t have to buy or deploy all those pieces, but the days of the Word-Excel-PowerPoint-Access bundle now seem quaint by comparison. With the Office 2007 suite, users can set up content management, integrate with online services, deploy real-time communication tools and other infrastructures using Office system pieces. That means Office is no longer a desktop decision made by the desktop team. It is also an infrastructure decision that ultimately involves IT. And it is a path that must include consideration of how it will integrate with third-party vendors, especially when deployments hit the VoIP level.

What’s also different in the interface, most notably the ribbon, which presents commands organized into a set of tabs. The tabs change on the ribbon to display the commands that are most relevant for the specific Office application open on the desktop.

What does this change mean? 

Training issues. Be forewarned.

Why so many versions and what do they cost?

Office is no longer one size fits all. Microsoft has customized SKUs to meet specific demands and hopefully stimulate sales. Here are the versions and their prices:

Basic 2007 (no price quote, only available through OEMs), Home and Student ($149, with no upgrade option), Standard ($399, or $239 to upgrade), Small Business Edition ($449, or $279 to upgrade), Professional 2007 ($499, or $329 for an upgrade), Ultimate 2007 (priced at $679, or $539 for an upgrade), Professional Plus 2007 (volume licensing sales only), Enterprise 2007 (volume licensing sales only).

Are there other licensing considerations?

Yes, all of the Office servers, all of the Web access clients (Communicator, Outlook and Project), and the Groove client are only available via volume licensing contracts. Also users will need volume licensing contracts to have access to the new Office Enterprise 2007 and Office Professional Plus 2007. The main difference between the two bundles is the inclusion of Office Groove in the Enterprise Edition. Both will ship with the Office Communicator client for instant messaging and real-time communications, including VoIP.

How does Office relate to Microsoft’s recent unified communications release?

Here’s one place where the Office System concept comes into play on the back of the recently released Office Communications Server 2007, the Office Communicator client, and Office pieces including Outlook and SharePoint Server 2007, to name a few. Presence is a cornerstone, allowing instant access to colleagues and collaborators from any file where a name is visible. Integration with VoIP and the Live Meeting Web conferencing server provides voice and video. The message is that Office on the desktop becomes more feature rich when the back-end servers are introduced to the network.

Why is there so much chatter about SharePoint Server 2007?

Microsoft wants to be a provider of content management software and this is the vehicle to get there. SharePoint, in fact, is catching on like wildfire in corporations, but it is still used mostly to host team workspaces.

CEO Steve Ballmer, however, last month pegged SharePoint as one of the next billion-dollar businesses for Microsoft. Look for SharePoint to become a platform for new social networking features and Web 2.0 add-ons to Office. But buyer beware, SharePoint Server 2007 requires an SQL Server client access license to support some of SharePoint’s features. The cost of the client access license can easily push the per-user cost of running SharePoint up by $300-$500, according to Forrester Research.

What is OBA, Duet, Live services?

Microsoft has packed something it calls “Solutions and Services” around Office 2007 and is encouraging partners and customers to tap into back-end systems like ERP and CRM and extend/customize Office along various avenues such as business process automation. OBAs, or Office Business Applications, are reference applications with imposing names like Consumer Engagement Reference Architecture for Health Plans. Duet is part of the Microsoft/SAP partnership to link Office to SAP. And Microsoft also lumps into this category project management and online services Live Meeting and Office Live. Users can expect to get their hands dirty with most of these extension projects.

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RE: 10 burning questions about Microsoft Office 2007By Microsoft Subnet on November 6, 2007, 6:19 pmWhat are your Office 2007 adoption plans? Take this poll. Survey Polls - Take Our Poll

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Office 2007By Gary S on November 7, 2007, 10:36 amThe negative press about the migration doesn't seem warranted to me. My company's an SMB with about 50 office users who received no training for Office 2007 other...

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Outlook and ExchangeBy Duane on November 7, 2007, 1:00 pmIn the section what's new with Outlook the author states "that Outlook now comes with Office and not Exchange," Outlook has always been part of the Office suite...

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Gary S; I work for aBy Derek L. on November 7, 2007, 4:40 pmGary S; I work for a regional state-run university with well over 1000 users in staff and over 4000 students. I mainly work with the night classes where students...

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Exchange always came with OutlookBy Dir Bob on November 8, 2007, 4:53 pmIf you owned Exchange your company did not have to buy Office to get Outlook, is what the author meant. Previously, up to and including Exchange Server 2003, you...

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