Microsoft:
New Platforms; New Office Applications
Microsoft
has been very busy. In
October it not only brought its new version of Office 2003 to
market, it also held a Professional Developers’ Conference (PDC)
where it previewed the newest version of the Windows operating
system, Longhorn, for the first time.
We attended both events and can best describe the information
as dense. Although the
Office announcement came first on the calendar, we’re going to
describe the PDC festivities first in this issue.
Previewing
Longhorn At The Microsoft PDC
New
Microsoft products almost always get to the public eye in the same
way. Bill Gates starts
to talk about them in his public talks, usually keynotes, at both
Microsoft and industry events.
At the PDC, a very “insider” event, aimed at industry
developers of software for Microsoft platforms, Gates presented an
early (pre-Beta was the official designation) of the Longhorn
version of Windows, intended to debut on Windows desktops in the
2005-6 timeframe.
Gates
started off with a little history and with a description of what he
expected a PC to look like by 2006:
he predicted a powerful CPU of 4-6 GHz with two cores
(processors), a memory of at least 2 Gbs, and disk storage of a
terabyte. Graphics
would be much better and 54Mb wireless networking would be assumed.
That, of course, sounds very inviting.
Gates
immediately pointed out that software would be the barrier to
exploiting the hardware’s power and that to properly harness all
that iron automated management would be a requirement, so he’s
assuming a connected system where that automation can be applied.
Microsoft
is planning three waves of its own software leading up to Longhorn:
2003:
The Office System 2003 (and pre-Beta Longhorn announcements)
that just occurred.
2004:
Yukon (SQL Server upgrade) and Whidbey (Visual
Studio)
2006:
Longhorn
Gates
went on to describe the Longhorn concept as information driven,
integrated, with unified storage, self organizing, with rich search
capabilities, allowing users to finally take advantage of the
explosion in digital information by not just accessing information,
but also finding the right information, relating it to their needs,
and acting on it. This
is a very broad vision in which the user’s experience is enhanced
by speech recognition and synthesis, communication and phone
integration, and the visual management of files, pictures, contacts,
and entertainment (songs, movies).
Longhorn’s
goal is to provide users with fundamentals like security and
performance, connections and information, confidence and control,
while providing developers was a faster, easier development
environment. Both are
based on major new operating system subsystems.
Longhorn
will include:
-
Fundamentals:
a set of base operating system services to
the end user and administrator enables their experience in
managing Longhorn’s application life cycle, including
application deployment, servicing, ongoing feedback,
manageability, and trustworthiness.
-
Avalon:
presentation services for building
applications and experiences in Longhorn, combining application
UI, documents, and media content. Supports Tablet and other
forms of input, imaging and printing pipelines, accessibility
and UI automation infrastructure, data-driven UI and
visualization. Provides the interfaces to the
Longhorn applications api and enables mixing XAML, the tightly
integrated Avalon class library, and programming code.
And – oh yes – it’s pretty, with a vertical task
bar of icons replacing the bottom-of-the-window tray in XP.
But it’s not an entire new interface (which some of us
were expecting).
-
WinFS:
a new unified storage service and the storage
platform in Windows "Longhorn."
An integrated store for file data, relational data, and
XML data. Provides
intuitive new ways to find, relate, and act on information,
regardless of what application creates the data. WinFS will have
built-in support for multi-master data synchronization across
other Longhorn machines and other data sources. The platform
supports both Longhorn APIs and Win32 APIs.
-
Indigo:
a new communication service built on a set
of .NET technologies and Web services architectures for
connection and communication.
Provides secure, reliable, and transacted messaging along
with interoperability. Simplifies
development of connected systems. Indigo unifies a broad array
of distributed systems capabilities in a composable and
extensible architecture, spanning transports, security systems,
messaging patterns, encodings, network topologies and hosting
models. Indigo will be an integral capability of Windows
"Longhorn" and will also be supported on Windows XP
and Windows Server 2003.
(These
definitions and feature lists are from the Microsoft Longhorn
Developers Site at http://msdn.microsoft.com/Longhorn/
. You will want to
visit it for much more detailed information.)
We
were fascinated to watch Jim Alchin and his programming team write
code for Longhorn live on stage.
Apparently this is an activity developers like to watch.
We quickly caught on to the real point:
creating the interface in XAML, invoked rich functionality
provided by the underlying operating system.
The new development environment is intended to “last for
decades” according to Alchin and build on the .NET framework.
He described it as a well structured programming framework
for Windows, with a continued commitment to backwards continuity.
Reliability, performance, security, and privacy were
emphasized throughout the software presentations and demonstrations.
Generally
speaking, reaction to Longhorn has been favorable, with some sniping
about the schedule – 2006 is a long way off.
On the other hand, Microsoft has just refreshed the server
operating system, and the desktop not far before it.
Customers don’t mind stability, as long as the operating
system is rich and working well.
We
did come across one questioning note we thought was interesting.
A developer who said we should be improving the interface for
the thousands of users who will USE the applications not for the
professional developers who write them.
If that’s a point of view that you find interesting, you
might want to check out his weblog at http://w-uh.com/index.cgi/articles/031102-emperors_new_code.html.
All
in all, we’d consider it a good start for Longhorn. Now we’ll need to wait to see:
-
What
the developers think of Longhorn
-
What
problems they report as they begin to try it out.
-
What
kinds of applications they write or significantly improve for it
and with what timing they start to move to the new platform.
-
How
it might change our perception of what the mix of desktops will
be in 2006 (Microsoft vs. Linux, etc.)
-
Whether
the feature and function specs and the dates are reasonably
accurate predictions or whether they are simply - like red
lights in Rome – suggestions – subject to much change
between here and the eventual shipment of the final product.
Microsoft
Office 2003
Microsoft’s
Office 2003 offers a number of incremental improvements over
previous versions of the nearly ubiquitous Office Suite, used by
about 95% of users. That’s not why Microsoft VP Jeff Raikes thinks
that more users will upgrade to 2003 than the 25% who upgraded to
Office XP in the last two years. (In case you think that’s not
very many, remember Office has about 400 million users.) The real
reason is the integration of the Office Suite 2003 with other parts
of Microsoft’s operating system and server offerings and the
seductive pull Microsoft is hoping it will provide.
Microsoft
now refers to its office offering as the “Microsoft Office
System.” You’ll
need at least a little red wagon to carry it all:
-
Microsoft
Office 2003
-
Microsoft
Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003
-
Microsoft
Office Project and Project Server 2003
-
Microsoft
Exchange Server 2003
-
Microsoft
Office Live Communications Server 2003
-
Microsoft
Office Live Meeting
-
Microsoft
Office FrontPage 2003
-
Microsoft
Office InfoPath 2003
-
Microsoft
Office OneNote 2003
-
Microsoft
Office Publisher 2003
-
Microsoft
Office Visio 2003
-
The
Microsoft Office Solution Accelerators
There
are also enabling technologies built into Microsoft Windows Server
2003, which enable features in the Office System.
Most
users, of course, are unlikely to use (or even see) all of this.
Microsoft offers a variety of Office 2003 bundles designed
for different audiences – consumers, students, small business, and
corporate users. The
full offering is intended mainly for corporate users, where IT staff
and office specialists will help determine which products find their
way to which users’ desks. That,
of course, will also be automated, using tools like the provisioning
elements of the Virtual Computing offerings from Microsoft and other
vendors, described in our October 28th issue http://www.wohl.com/wa03-90.htm.
Examples
of these new cross-application Office solutions include:
-
a
pilot solution at Kinko’s,
targeted at sharing knowledge across the enterprise, expected to
reduce costs and streamline internal processes.
-
a
Microsoft office solution based on XML tags to collect data from
their Cognos system reduced the time to created financial
reports for medical device company Guidant 75%.
-
Tools
for Your Job, a new set of Web sites offering free tips,
downloadable templates, expert advice, and how-to demos to help
maximize job efficiencies. The first sites will focus on
finance, human resources, operations and sales. Industry
experts, such as HR.com, Enlightened Concepts, Franklin Covey,
VividOffice and Immediate helped provide content. Tools for Your
Job are free and will be available via Office Online at: http://office.microsoft.com/info/occupations.
Many
solutions will be generated by Microsoft partners, often based on
the new Microsoft Office Solution Accelerators, an
integrated set of software components, templates, and architectural
guidance designed to solve a specific customer business problem
across common organizational areas such as finance, human resources,
sales and operations, giving partners and customers a jump-start in
designing and implementing solutions. Microsoft’s 400 new business
productivity advisors will help partners design solutions.
The
new Office System will offer users Amazon.com Research Services, an
opportunity to integrate with Amazon Web Services and access search
and purchase applications, as well as information on books for
footnotes and bibliographies directly from the Research Task Pane, a
new feature of many Office 2003 applications, without accessing a
browser or leaving their application. The solution will be available
for download in the Office Marketplace (http://www.office.microsoft.com/
marketplace/) at no additional charge, later this fall.
One
of Microsoft’s newest Office products is One Note. Originally built for the Tablet PC, One Note allows tablet
users to take notes via ink or keyboard and to organize them in a
variety of ways. There
is now enhanced inking support within Office applications such as
Outlook e-mails and Word documents, allowing users to makes notes on
tops of documents, spreadsheets, or slides.
These ink annotations can be shown or hidden, as with other
comments or revisions. One Note may be purchased separately by Office users and used
in conjunction with other Office applications.
The
important thing is to expect Microsoft (and its partners) to tie the
desktop Microsoft Office suite into a nest of Microsoft server-based
applications, making it much stickier.
For example, we’d expect to see business process (workflow)
applications based on InfoPath; collaboration, information access
and integration based on SharePoint,
But
Microsoft Is Not Alone In The Office Market
Although
90 or 95% of the Office Suite market is a lofty number, Microsoft is
not alone. Alternative
schemes are always available and a few of them seem to gathering
more attention these days. Most
of those are focused in the area of the Linux desktop.
You’ll
hear a lot more from me about Linux desktops next week, after I get
back from the Linux Desktop Consortium Conference, where I’m
speaking in a few sessions, and hanging out with the rest of the
players, trading stories. But
here are a few things to consider now, while you’re checking into
the latest glories of Microsoft’s new Office System – just in
case you have the bandwidth or the desire to consider something
else.
Corel
Re-Enters The Linux Market
Every
time we think we’re about to hear the last of WordPerfect and
Corel, they think up one more trick.
Now that they’ve been purchased by financial intermediary
Vector Capital they have more money and energy to try something new.
Basically,
they need to re-launch their brand in the market and see whom they
can attract. With a
family pack at $60 and an academic pack at $80, Corel clearly wants
to be considered a value-priced alternative.
They’ll also seed the product through oem
deals with HP, Sony, and Dell, and sell through electronics and
software stores, and on-line offerings (Corel and others).
In
addition to more aggressive marketing of their value-priced and
feature-packed WordPerfect Office Suite, Corel has decided to
re-enter the Linux market. (They
had previously planned to supply both Linux desktop hardware and a
Linux lightweight office suite, but both plans have long been set
aside.) Corel is
planning shortly to offer a free download of the Linux version of
their WordPerfect word processing software (note that it is only the
word processor and not the entire suite) from their site (www.corel.com).
At press time, the download had not yet appeared.
Plans for a broader distribution or additional products are
not yet forthcoming, but we suspect we might hear more in the coming
months.
Evermore
Software’s New Office Suite – From China
Shortly,
it will be possible to see another new Windows and Linux office
suite – one you’ve probably never heard of.
This is the Evermore Integrated Office (EIO) from Wuxi,
China. It offers a
Microsoft Office-like interface, with word processing, spreadsheet,
and presentation graphics, all integrated into one program with a
single interface and a single underlying data repository.
Evermore’s
CEO Gus Tsao claims that “No U.S. software publisher could invest
in developing an alternative to Microsoft Office,” but in China,
with the interest of the Chinese market in lower-cost alternatives
and a native product, it was possible to create Evermore.
(Tsao is no newcomer to software or the U.S. market.
He previously developed an award-winning American spreadsheet
product, Silk, which was distributed in the U.S.)
Evermore
was developed in Chinese first and then ported to English. Tsao
believes the single interface and data integration make Evermore
easier and more productive for users.
We will tell you it is very familiar looking and easy to get
started with. Evermore
claims the product currently has about 75% of the functionality of
the comparable Microsoft Office products and that it’s reasonably
compatible. (Note:
That means, like all of the products in this category,
including Sun StarOffice and OpenOffice.org, it can read and write
most Word and Excel files, but it can’t handle custom-written
macros.)
Sun
Offers StarOffice 7; Lowers Prices
OpenOffice.Org
Matches StarOffice 7 With R1.1
Based
on the same open source code as StarOffice, OpenOffice.org has
released its Release 1.1 for Windows, Linux, and Solaris.
It’s essentially identical to StarOffice, but without the
licensed components added by Sun.
It does include the PDF and Flash exports, and other
improvements.
There
is, of course, an important difference. Being open source, it’s
entirely free. Downloads
are available (including the source code) at http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/source/download.html.
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