Microsoft Office System Professional 2003
Office desktop productivity suite with for all business
sizes.
By Jon Deragon,
Visca Consulting
Tuesday, October 26, 2003; 3:00pm EST
Office System Professional 2003, is touted to increase productivity
and efficiency, promote stronger collaboration and increase
interoperability. It also celebrates the latest in a long line of
suite revisions literally spanning the history of personal computers.
This review is
centered around the Office Professional suite, and excludes many of
the other products that were also introduced as part of the overall
Office "System" such as Live Meeting, FrontPage 2003, Project 2003,
Visio 2003 and so on. They may be featured in separate product reviews
in the near future at Home Business Journal. Server related elements
of the system such as InfoPath, Share Point and Exchange were also not
included. Note that some of the new, mostly collaborative,
functionality of the Office Professional Suite require these server
components.
After reviewing the
marketing material, attending the launch party, talking with people
involved in the marketing of the product, and ultimately use of the
product - it was quite apparent that a bulk of the innovation with
this release was concentrated on the Outlook component of Office
Professional. Strangely absent for the most part from marketing
material and speeches were any mention of significant changes to Word,
Excel or PowerPoint; and especially Access or Publisher. It is clear
this release is more about the communications and sharing aspect of
this "system" rather than specific enhancements to individual
applications, with exception to Outlook which, in it's self, is
communications and sharing.
Installation of the
software was a complete no-brainer from it's single CD installation.
Enter your software key, tell it the components you want to install,
and off it goes! Activation of the product has been further
streamlined to a single mouse click and a quick check with Microsoft
to confirm you aren't part of an International piracy ring.
Quickly skimming through Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Publisher, there
are little if any real noteworthy additions to these components. Word
and Excel allows entire or partial locking and control over documents
and their distribution through its new IRM (Information Rights
Management) feature. This will most likely help the Office System to
combat the staggering growth of Adobe's PDF format. Excel allows
manipulation of XML data sources to produce a variety of results such
as tables and graphs. PowerPoint allows packaging of presentations
onto a CD, great for doing presentations on the road. And Publisher,
is well, Publisher, with an extended number of "Master Design Sets";
improved industry standard process-color support; and ability to
create everything from email newsletters to DVD labels. Access 2003
improved error checking by pointing out common errors in reports and
forms; and now employs auto properties updating between tables, forms
and reports.
Things started to get real interesting when I finally got to crack out
Outlook 2003. Upon first glance, even people highly familiar with the
previous version, will not even recognize the 2003 edition. You are
instead welcomed with a highly intuitive three column layout that is
infinitely more eye friendly and space conscious. Your folders and
various program functions occupy the first column, the second column
handsomely displays your emails broken down by whatever criteria you
desire, date, subject, name, etc. By date, it places partitions
between "Toady's Mail", "Yesterdays Mail", "Last Weeks Mail". It's a
god's send. The third column in my mind, really helps, a vertical
rather than horizontal look at email message content. Instead of
endless scrolling with the previous version, you are treated to what
almost looks like a novel sized page representing the email you are
reading. Very clever layout. It is not without its "adjustment time",
but after a week of use, it is safe to say it is very pleasing to work
with.
Outlook doesn't stop there... Priority flagging of emails allows you
to mark emails for future attention, based on a variety of different
flag colors you can apply to emails. The search has also been enhanced
allowing you to look at commonly searched for email as easily as
clicking on a pre-defined search folder already containing the results
of such searches as "All my unread mail", or "All mail marked urgent".
This applies to mail in all of your folders, preventing you from
having to do a goose chase through all your many folders. Remote email
access can now also be done by HTTP protocol, even without a VPN,
handy for travelers on the road that are looking to skip any
"complications" away from work.
Finally, the much needed addition of a variable level junk email
filter finally makes its debut. Although it has successfully rid me of
a lot of spam, it is by no means perfect, allowing at least a quarter
of very obvious junk mail though. However, for a built in junk mail
checker, it seems sufficient in simply "assisting" to clear up the
"definitely junk" email. Other junk mail filters used in the past were
a bit over zealous and also decided correspondence from clients were
junk mail too - I'd much prefer this approach.
The biggest keyword by far of all the marketing material was
"collaboration". Many features have been implemented to take advantage
of new technologies for sharing documents between co-workers. Keeping
in mind however, that a bulk of these features necessitate the use of
additional Share Point Server software and other server technologies
in order to work. This ease of sharing is facilitated through
something called "Document Workspaces". Share Point generates on
demand temporary intranet spaces where group members can work together
in a version controlled manner. It simplifies the process of
revisions, and is a darn site better than the "shared server directory
on the server" or "email me your revisions" approach. Something like
this could be especially helpful in such circumstances as creating an
RFP response, product documentation, or where there are multiple
people involved in the completed product.
An Office System
component that was launched in conjunction with Office Professional
2003 was OneNote, the highly touted note taking application. OneNote
allows seemingly random notes and ideas to be jotted down, and broken
down into folders, pages and sub pages. I was particularly impressed
with the simplicity and design of the application. It had the ease of
use I always felt Lotus Notes should have had from the very beginning.
Notes always lacked the interface refinement this certainly has even
in its first revision. The audio note taking was also a welcome
feature of the program, as its use in office meetings and even for
personal reasons was apparent from the get go. It also takes advantage
of the Tablet PC platform by allowing direct hand writing on the
OneNote pages, which is turns into objects which can be moved within
or between pages and converted to computer text through handwriting
recognition. However, to my disbelief, OneNote is a separate
application from even the highest grade of the suite, Office
Professional. This certainly seemed like a candidate for inclusion
into their suite. Although it is designed well with its attractive
interface and simplicity of use, it still in essence, simply
lets you jot down notes and organize them. And to add insult to injury
this glorified notepad will set you back $299CAD per license, almost
half the price of the entire Office Professional license. That's a lot
of clipboards, paper and ball point pens! It may be difficult for
typical small to midsize business to justify $300 per worker to take
down notes in meetings.
Should your
organization consider Office System Professional 2003? New licenses
for your organization should definitely be 2003. It's backward
compatibility, XML handling and excellent email client are worth it in
its self over older versions. Companies with Office XP or Office 2000
that are considering upgrading will have a hard time to justify the
upgrade costs, as the return on investment may not be strong enough if
they do not take advantage of their collaboration features (which
require even more investment in server technologies, deployment and
training). While users of versions 97 and below are strongly
recommended to upgrade to the more stable and feature rich environment
of 2003, especially if looking to embrace the collaborative functions
touted in this version.
The performance of
the applications is solid, loading times for all of the applications
on our test box (Pentium 4 3GHz, 1GB memory) were neck snapping fast,
with the splash screens given only fractions of a second to display
before the programs are ready for use. Performance within the
applications was also pleasing and seemed slightly faster than
previous versions, with the exception to Outlook on occasion when
accessing email folders it has not visited in a while.
System requirements
are a Pentium III 233MHz processor (a Pentium 4 is highly
recommended); 128MB of memory; up to 400MB of drive space, depending
on the edition of Office you chose; SVGA graphics card and display;
Windows 2000, XP or above operating system.
Office System Profession 2003 has a recommended retail price of
$759CAD for the full version and $489CAD for the upgrade. It includes
Access 2003, Excel 2003, Outlook 2003, Outlook 2003 with Business
Contact Manager, PowerPoint 2003, Publisher 2003 and Word 2003. For
volume and enterprise licenses, InfoPath 2003 is inclusive of the
Office Professional suite. It is available immediately, and was
launched October 21, 2003.
PROS - Excellent upgrade of Outlook, improving on some of the
shortcomings perceived in previous versions. Continued small
refinements and adjustment to make this a truly integrated package.
Full XML support across the suite. Continuity and interface
consistency between applications continues to be a strong point of the
suite. Ease of exchanging data between the applications is excellent.
Effortless to install and upgrade from previous versions.
CONS - Many core programs with room for improvement enjoyed
only minor tweaks and changes (Word, Access, PowerPoint, Access). Lack
of OneNote as part of Pro package and its steep individual pricing.
About The Author
Jon Deragon is president and founder of Visca Consulting, a firm
specializing in web site design, development and usability for
businesses of all sizes. His many years in the technology industry has
enabled him to write quality, in-depth product reviews to assist
businesses make more informed technology purchases. He welcomes any
questions or comments you may have regarding his company's services,
this review or interest in having your company's products reviewed.
info@viscaconsulting.com
http://www.viscaconsulting.com/
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