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The software maker also offered pricing details for some, though not all, of the new products. In general, Microsoft said both businesses and consumers should expect to pay about the same for the new Office as they have paid for past versions.
"We do not expect our customers to notice any significant change in our pricing," said Parri Munsell, a group program manager in Microsoft's information worker unit. Office Standard, for example, will sell for $399, while Office Professional will sell for $499. Also, as widely expected, the version formerly code-named "Office 12" will be known as Office 2007 when it ships in the second half of this year.
Munsell said the new Office will offer a bevy of new features, including an all-new user interface and new XML-based file formats.
"There's a tremendous amount in the new Office 2007," he said. "We do believe this is the most significant advance in over a decade."
Microsoft released an initial beta of Office 2007 in November, with a second beta planned for this spring.
In the biggest change for consumers, Microsoft is replacing its Student and Teacher edition with a $149 Home and Student edition that can be used by all home users. Microsoft is also removing the Outlook e-mail and calendar program from that edition and instead is including its OneNote note-taking application. As with the Student and Teacher edition, the home version of Office can be used on up to three PCs in a home, but cannot be upgraded to a future version of Office.
On the business side, Microsoft is offering two high-end collections in addition to its professional and standard editions, in keeping with CEO Steve Ballmer's statement to analysts last year that there would be new premium versions of Office.
The "professional plus" and "enterprise" editions can only be purchased by businesses through Microsoft's volume-licensing program, and Microsoft did not detail the cost for those options. With the Professional Plus version, the standard Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook applications are augmented with the Access and Publisher products that come with the professional edition, the Office Communicator instant messaging program, InfoPath form-creation software, and server-based content management and forms management capabilities.
The enterprise version adds Groove, the collaboration program--developed by Ray Ozzie--that Microsoft acquired last year. Users who get the Groove desktop software have the choice of running their own Groove server or subscribing to a hosted service. For small businesses and others, Microsoft is also offering a Groove Live service for a $79 annual subscription per user.
Microsoft has also been showing off new server-based abilities for Office, but had not detailed how those would be made available. Many of the new capabilities will be included in SharePoint Portal Server, which has been expanded from a tool for handling portals to one that also handles other Office tasks, including forms management, spreadsheet hosting and content rights management.
"We think Office SharePoint is going to be the heart of the Office system," Munsell said. For those who don't want the full abilities of SharePoint, Microsoft also plans a server program aimed solely at forms hosting and management.
As it does with other server-based programs, Microsoft is requiring customers to also purchase a license for each PC that accesses the new Office servers. Microsoft is offering two bundles of those so-called client access licenses (CALs). The "Core CAL" combines licenses for Windows Server operating system, Exchange Server, Office SharePoint Portal Server and Systems Management Server. The new "Enterprise CAL" includes those licenses, as well as Microsoft Operations Manager, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server as well as rights-management and security products.
Microsoft is also using the SharePoint brand for a new Web site-development program. Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007, like Microsoft's Expression Web Designer software is based in part on its current FrontPage web-authoring tool, though that program is being phased out. Microsoft said it will sell the SharePoint Web design program for $299, while pricing and availability for Expression will be announced "in the near future."
Although both programs are based on FrontPage, Microsoft said that they serve different audiences. Expressions is more for professional Web designers building standards-based sites, while SharePoint is aimed more at typical cubicle dwellers looking to post information on internal Web sites and automate business processes.
See more CNET content tagged:
Groove Networks Inc.,
Microsoft Office 2007,
Microsoft Office,
Office 12,
Microsoft SharePoint
Reads and writes to and from MS Office format documents, and if you email a document to a client - you dont have to worry if they have MS Office since open office is a free 70 to 80 megabyte download.
Heck, theres even one or two features native to open office that MS office doesnt have like a one-click button on the main toolbar (with save, print, ect) to export the document as a .PDF
support open source and the future will look a heck of a lot brighter.
However MS Office in a large company that has Active Dirctory, Exchange 2003, Sharepoint and Live communications server is way....way better.
If you have never seen the above combination working together you need to to understand what I am saying. The colaberation is over the top...and Open Office cant tie into that kind of wordl right now.
As one small example, you can export to PDF right from Office 2007, even though you clearly say that you can't in Office 2007.
In fact, Office 2007 doesn't even HAVE toolbars anymore, something else you cite in your comment which shows you clearly don't know what you're talking about.
Do you research and base your comments on the facts, not your jaded opinion of how you want the world to look.
Open Office is good for the casual user such as myself that makes a document or looks at a spreadsheet a couple times a week (at least, the older one is). But heavy users of office applications will find that the increased productivity they get out of MS Office makes up many times over for the cost of the product. Remember, to a business $500 is not a lot of money when compared to the cost of employees. So even if it takes 10% less time to do something in MS Office than OO, it will add up to a good return.
You're still focused on content creation, not content collaberation like you should be. It's now possible to access all data through one interface, via XML....
Office is no longer for creating spreadsheets, and word documents (however it can still be used for these functions), Office is now a solution for companies that access multiple systems or applications via a myrad of 3rd party applications, the idea is to be able to connect all of the data through one interface that ignorant users are familiar with. When you ask someone if they know how to use Microsoft Word, they say 'Oh, yeah!', if you ask them how to use some off the wall named application they are going to say 'Huh?'....When I tell the customer that they don't have to juggle between 3 applications to complete thier proposal, they're like, 'Way cool!' So they go and buy new lisences of Office 2003, well 2007 now with software assurance and then recieve a services voucher that they can spend with me to create this solution for them, and then they also get training vouchers so I can train them on the new solution I just created for them. Now they don't have to spend an hour juggling information and putting it on paper for every proposal, they save 45 min per proposal which saves them a lot more money than they spent on licenses and my services.
Microsoft pwns n00bs like you all day. Stop hating, drink the MS juice!
based websites? I guess you have to use the word standards with
tongue firmly planted in cheek?
Why call something "standards-based" when it is specifically
designed to exclued any web browsers besides IE?
Please, how about a little challenging of the "party line" C|Net?
Professional just to get it. Now I can't upgrade because I am not
a Business. That is crap. I guess they will probably make me
buy it separate or something. Well guess what. I only
purchased MS Office for it and now it is gone I will happily go to
using Open Office and Filemaker. Bye Bye MS. I think I will buy
a Mac while I am at it. Those iMacs look great. Well I will at least
look at it. I am just ticked off that I have to change becauses Mr
BIG thinks I don't deserve his app anymore or that he is worried
that I will run a buisness off of it without pay
Professional just to get it. Now I can't upgrade because I am not
a Business. That is crap. I guess they will probably make me
buy it separate or something. Well guess what. I only
purchased MS Office for it and now it is gone I will happily go to
using Open Office and Filemaker. Bye Bye MS. I think I will buy
a Mac while I am at it. Those iMacs look great. Well I will at least
look at it. I am just ticked off that I have to change becauses Mr
BIG thinks I don't deserve his app anymore or that he is worried
that I will run a buisness off of it without paying for it
note the 'come with the professional edition' part of that.
Why the heck would Microsoft decide to remove Outlook from both the Teacher and Student Editions of Office 2007 is way beyond me. I'm sure they do user studies to confirm that Students use Outlook the most than the other office suite apps in the entire suite!? Well Duh!I'm dumbfounded as to how Microsoft could actually do this.
Outlook is the main reason why besides the Student Edition being the cheapest of all the other editions is why students buy the Student Edition for $147.00. Especially when they have a big tuition bill that's due the Student Edition fits the bill.
But without Outlook in Office 2007 Student and Teahcer editions they'll look at either Corel Office 12 or Open Office and skip Office 2007.
Why buy the cow (MS Office) when you can get the milk (Open Office) for free. ;)
www.microsoft.com/onenote
Add to that an "an all-new user interface" that will require retraining users, and you have one more MS Office rev that offers nothing for the average user that already has Office 2000 or newer.
I'm just pointing out how OSS can improve. Dont start a bash on how idiots all use MS, etc etc.
Articles in January Comm of ACM show how email is the central organizing tool for communications, tasks, calendars and contacts. MSN search reinforces this.
And, Microsoft Dynamics (CRM, ERP, etc.) are being tooled to run all transactions and workflow through Outlook.
You can bet Outlook will NOT have XML files. Word, Excel and PowerPoint are being tossed over to compete in open source world. MS is consolidating behind Outlook for its value proposition.
Many will knock MS, but they have forced many vendors both software and hardware to make their products compatible across operating systems.
I would hate to see us go back to Franklins, Atari's, trash 80's etc.
Microsoft?s idea of innovation is a new interface and even the interface shows no innovation, just changing the look of the application but not the way users interact with it.
Just look at this video here for possible interface innovations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVI6xw9Zph8
Why haven't Microsoft licensed the technology? Instead they just release the same thing over and over again.
I'm not saying Office is bad, just that it's a con to keep selling the same product to users for astronomical prices.
http://news.com.com/Software+pioneer+Bricklin+tackles+wikis/2100-1032_3-6040867.html
- so what?
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by 1337rice
February 19, 2006 8:40 PM PST
- oh wow! same pricing! I bet that it'll be the same thing??? instead of paying for $400-$600 software and using just one, why not try the open source office called openoffice.org? created by google and sun microsystems (two public companies that we all know) and it's for free.
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Reply to this comment
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- Google created OO.o?????
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by Milly Staples
February 20, 2006 2:07 PM PST
- I am sure that this is news to the rest of the world, including Google.
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