News
Office XP Released to Manufacturing
- By Scott Bekker
- 03/05/2001
Microsoft Corp. released to manufacturing its next version
of the Office suite early Monday morning. Retail availability is expected for
later this spring.
The suite, called Office XP, is aimed at extending Office’s
capabilities into workspace collaboration, an area where Lotus Development Corp.’s Domino/Notes
combination has a strong presence.
“Office XP can be a knowledge hub for people, where they can
easily access information from a variety of sources, use additional services
and communicate with other people,” said Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president
for Office, in a statement.
The XP name stands for experience. It is also the name Microsoft chose for its next generation
operating system client, Windows XP, due out this fall.
A key new feature is integration with Microsoft’s new
collaboration server called SharePoint Portal Server, which is not yet out.
Microsoft put out a Release Candidate 1 of SharePoint in early January, saying
it would be the only Release Candidate. The company recently posted a second
Release Candidate of SharePoint, which was formerly known by its code name
Tahoe.
Another new collaboration feature of Office XP is Smart Tags,
which lets developers create workflow capabilities into Office. A free Smart
Tag Software Developer kit became available Feb. 21.
Microsoft began development of Office XP, formerly known as
Office 10, about two years ago. An initial beta version went to 3,000 testers
in August, and a second beta went to 10,000 testers in October.
In the eating your own dog food category, more than 20,000
Microsoft employees are running the software.
Early adopters include Timex and Vanguard. – Scott Bekker
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About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.