Information worker productivity is at a tipping point, becoming a workspace for innovation, integration and teams, with Microsoft itself making a major transition and working with its partners to make this happen, Jeff Raikes, Microsoft's group vice president on productivity and business solutions, said Friday. Addressing several thousand attendees at the Worldwide Partner Conference, he took a swipe at Linux, open source and StarOffice, saying, "they simply accept the view that what they have is good enough. That view does not foster innovation. Being where we were with Office 1997 is not good enough for us," he said. Microsoft Office 2003 shows the new potential of information worker productivity, where services come together to dramatically enhance what people can do together, said Raikes.
Microsoft will release more products around information worker productivity this year than it has ever released before, with nearly 50,000 Microsoft employees already using Office 2003 internally, Raikes said. Randy Schilling, president of Microsoft partner Quilogy Inc., took the stage to share his experience with Office System so far, saying it has fundamentally changed his business and the way it went to market. Quilogy's customers wanted a simpler solution, and Office System offered them that, he said. The company is already implementing solutions on top of Office System; for example, at Seattle's Children's Hospital it has simplified and reduced the number of applications used by nurses, doctors and staff from 60 to 10, Schilling said.
News source: eWeek
Microsoft will release more products around information worker productivity this year than it has ever released before, with nearly 50,000 Microsoft employees already using Office 2003 internally, Raikes said. Randy Schilling, president of Microsoft partner Quilogy Inc., took the stage to share his experience with Office System so far, saying it has fundamentally changed his business and the way it went to market. Quilogy's customers wanted a simpler solution, and Office System offered them that, he said. The company is already implementing solutions on top of Office System; for example, at Seattle's Children's Hospital it has simplified and reduced the number of applications used by nurses, doctors and staff from 60 to 10, Schilling said.
News source: eWeek
- Current build (1.5.6, stable): [October 10, 2003]
- Added support for YV12 during fast recompress.
- Input video is now displayed during fast recompress for UYVY and YUY2 modes.
- Video display updates are now suppressed for panes that are totally hidden.
bugs fixed - MP3 rate correction was correcting dwRate but not interleaving, causing some problems for embedded decoders. The interleaving rate is now adjusted on the fly. Note that MP3 correction is still not enabled when segmentation is active.
- Time base for the position control was improperly affected by the "convert to fps" option.
- "Box blur" filter was broken on CPUs without MMX. Dumb (Dumb compiler bugs....)
regressions fixed - Menu cleanup: removed synchronous blit and histogram, fixed vertical layout and pane swap.
- Fixed crash when loading some job configurations from 1.5.4 and below.
- Fixed audio displacement not working in simple audio pipeline with forward offset.
- Adjusted Z-order of status bar relative to panes.
- MPEG-1 decoding was broken on platforms with MMX but without SSE2.
- Plugin code could crash if no plugins were installed, particularly under Windows NT 4.0.
- Video codec code occasionally named the wrong codec when reporting video format corruption during codec arbitration.
- Corrected DCT coefficient pruning in MJPEG decoder.
- Fixed crash when WAV open fails.
- Delete was producing invalid subsets in some cases.
features added
And common, how many usefull changes have there been since office 97. 99% of people probably can't tell. Maybe it's just made with .NET and "integrates better with NEW Microsoft Windows XX and NEW MS server XXX"
In fact, its monopolies who stop innovation simply because they have no real incentive. Competition is a good thing(tm) and hopefully OO can force MS to do something worthwhile with office.
It's Linux that will help create innovation by letting small companies into the market to try there stuff out, all Microsoft wants to do is kill up starters which in the long run kills innovation.
No single OS is the key. Ideas are the key, the OS is the enabling mechanism. Innovation can be an idea, an action, a reaction, a process, or an entire software suite. But please, don't be so arrogant as to believe that innovation solely rests in the hands of a single operating system. Innovation is everywhere; it happens long before your hands ever touch the keyboards.
However, on the other slightly less arrogant element of your post, I'd like to ask how a startup, "innovating on Linux" can get off the ground to be killed off by anyone if their software is totally in the public domain?
Office is meant for just that: offices. And offices have much to gain with the beefed up integration and SharePoint/Exchange services.
Rambo2000, it figures that you, ignorant of this, would just use it as an excuse to start your anti-MS bull again. Get a clue.
you seem to say this alot with out telling anyone!!!
For most office workers, they use their word processor to write a couple of letters, perhaps a note or two and a poster once a month. If it was my business and I paid for their software, I wouldn't upgrade their machines with the latest office versions. In fact, I would rather install openoffice.org. As a business owner, I don't care if my emplyees have to wait three more secs for the word processor to load, or if it is ugly. I save a lot of money.
The only reason I can see to get the latest office version, is Visio. That is a most useful application, but is not targetted at the average letter-writing office worker.
Jagged, the new Office programs are for really advance users, I'm willing to bet that around 90% or 95% of offices places and businesses don't even need the features it as got, something that Open Office is good enough and free, but the problem there, most people don't know about Open Office and are none the wiser and will just buy Office from Microsoft, but over time people catch on and thats when people start shifting to the cheaper product which will force Microsoft to lower there price or to make there product much better.
They're just not gonna buy any more office suites. Or download them. It's not rocket science, fellas.
Also, theres one reason why many wont move over just yet, thats because Microsoft wont open up there doc standards, so for companies that have loads of doc files, in the end they find it cheaper to buy Office from Microsoft as they can't read the doc files in Open Office, if the standard was open, a lot more would move, which is why I say the EU should force Microsoft to open up the doc standards to compaction, make it a more level playing field, and like I said before, all Microsoft is trying to do is lock people in so people don't have much of a choice but to keep going to them, we all lose because of that in the long run.
That's mighty subjective and presumptive of you sir, given that it's had only one major release and one service release ... ever.
Also, think of it as a business, Microsoft can lock people in with there doc formats, thats not a good thing for big businesses that have loads of doc files as it locks them in and forces them to buy Microsoft even if they don't want too, as well as it locking them in on the Windows platform, Open Office on the other hand can never do that, people will be able to use the same file format in 20 years without a problem on any platforms, Microsoft could easier change file formats simple to force people to upgrade when they don't really need too.
The PC computer succeed for a reason, thats because it's open to all, no one can control it, it never dies and gives up and just like the PC that was a slow starter, Linux is doing the same thing, Linux will succeed for the same reasons.
Now... to learn latex.
what are you on about mate? office 2003 is redicilously easy to use. I use it for school purposes and experiencing such great time with it. It is so easy to use, to edit, to make, to integrate and so on... maybe the only thing you use it is for writing a little note but please check your facts before you write something... yeah maybe Microsofts are a bounch of dick ***** trying to be a huge monopoly, but then again, they did it, give them the credit. Okay so maybe their products are not as secure as others and bugged, but then again, the market is theirs.
simple things, added in 2000, XP and 2003 have made my life a whole lot easier at doing the common tasks that took alot more time/effort/buttonclicks/whatever (smart tags anyone?).
There are alot of things that 97 didn't have that makes 2003 better. I'd be willing to bet that if you sat down and used 97 for an extended period of time after using 2003, you'd get really annoyed with "well, i know i could just click over here for it in 2003, but i gotta do all this stuff to make it work" type things.
And JaggedFlame was right, alot of office is geared towards productivity in an office which is an area that Office 2003 truly excels at.
Grow up MS, you praising yourself is getting really tiring
I mean, car companies have been doing it for years, and they actually have a yearly model. It's ok in that market, because you grew up with it, but not ok for other markets?
Office has had new and improved ideas and implementations with every version.
Who cares if it's justifyable for you or me? Do you go out and buy every single year's model of your car just because they have a new one? No. Why? More than likely, the old one works fine. Software works a bit differently but basically the underlying "I need to justify this purchase" is true for every product everywhere.
Every single time a new version of an existing product comes out there are basically ignorant people trying to imply that the cost of a new product has got to somehow miraculously justify the few features that aren't important to them. Well, if they're not important to you, by all means, don't buy the product; and believe it or not there are people using Office 98 or so who are in fact looking to upgrade now, and are choosing between the features and supportability of the products out there.
And by all means, werejag, contribute something other than pure FUD.
I tend to think that most of these people are being gently PUSHED this wy by Microsoft. The so-called "new and improved" versions of office save in "new and improved" formats that generally are not readable by these older "Office 97" versions. (I assume you meant Office 97 in your quote, as there never was an Office 9
For this, among other reasons, I switched to Linux, and have been happy. (Not that Linux is everyone's perfect answer, but it works well for me).
If I mis-understood your point, I am sorry for this unneeded reply.
One last point on an EARLIER comment. It was mentioned that "Linux is the key to innovation". While it is true that competition will help improve products across the board, and I personally believe that Linux is an amazing and innovative product. You must also remember to be HUMBLE about Linux in this matter. Linux was born to be a COPY of Minix. The innovation is doing it from scratch, and coding it independant of existing *nixes out there.
I'll get off my soapbox now....
You outlined your fix along with your problem, in your example. If you're doing so much WORK work at home, then why not get the same version you have at work, or have them pay for it? That's not too much of a stretch.
Now, you mentioned you switched to Linux, how exactly did that help you in situations where people at work are still using Office? I don't think it helped at all; it only helped your personal interaction between files at home and at the office.
I'm sorry, I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who blame a product for a bad workspace/workplace design. If I were your mgr I would never condone the extra work required to keep everything in sync; I'd just have everyone on the same version -- and if you were working from home I'd damn well pay for your home tools.
But that's neither here nor there on the product. You could and can save files in retro-versions or even plain text. Yes, of course you lose the new elements. Noone forced you to upgrade either. Again, not a reason to blame the vendor.
xp can be said on the GUI change, justlike the the windows xp over win2000.
office 03 has more change on the outlook, because of MS' strategy of breaking into the enterprise server market and boost their win03 server sale.
If you don't need it, by all means noone is forcing you to like it or buy it. But basic ignorance of the features in a new version is not the fault of the vendor.
Querying data from Web pages Now it's even easier to get refreshable data from the Web into Excel for viewing and analysis. Use the new browser-like interface to visually select tables on Web pages for import into Excel, or copy data from a Web page and create a refreshable query. Web queries included with Excel provide fast, accurate information such as stock quotes for your spreadsheets. You can also create Web queries to Extensible Markup Language (XML) files.
Importing data Getting data where you need it and when you need it is as easy as choosing an option and finding your data source in the Select Data Source dialog box. If you want to import data from a remote data source, use the Data Connection Wizard to locate and import data from sources as varied as Microsoft SQL Server, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) data sources. Microsoft Office data connection (.odc) files are shareable.
ScreenTips for function arguments Type a function in a cell and a convenient screen tip appears showing all of the arguments for the function, along with a link to the Help topic for the function.
Recommended functions in the Function Wizard Type a natural language query, such as "How do I determine the monthly payment for a car loan", and the Function Wizard returns a list of recommended functions you can use to accomplish your task.
Cut-and-paste function reference examples If you've wondered how to translate Help examples into meaningful worksheet data, you'll find the cut-and-paste function examples in Excel Help useful and time saving.
Task-based formula help Real-life examples for real-life numeric problems make powerful additions to the Help you've come to count on.
Watch window Keep track of cells and their formulas on the Watch Window toolbar, even when the cells are out of view. This moveable toolbar tracks cell properties including workbook, worksheet, name, cell, value, and formula.
Expanded AutoSum functionality The practical functionality of AutoSum has expanded to include a drop-down list of the most common functions. For example, you can click Average from the list to calculate the average of a selected range, or connect to the Function Wizard for more options.
Formula evaluator You can see the various parts of a nested formula evaluated in the order the formula is calculated by using a simple dialog box on the Formula Auditing toolbar.
Trace precedent and dependent cells with Formula Auditing Use the Formula Auditing toolbar to graphically display, or trace, the relationships between cells and formulas with blue arrows. You can trace the precedent cells or the dependent cells.
Formula error checking Like a grammar checker, Excel uses certain rules to check for problems in formulas. These rules can help find common mistakes. You can turn these rules on or off individually.
Color-coded worksheet tabs Organize your work by adding color to your worksheet tabs.
Control automatic changes with smart tags Buttons that appear automatically on your worksheet can help you with tasks such as automatic correction options, paste options, automatic fill options, insert options, and formula error checking. With a click of a button you can choose from options related to your task without leaving the worksheet or the cells you're working on.
Unmerge on the toolbar No more searching for a way to unmerge cells. Now unmerge is conveniently located on the Format toolbar.
Retain column widths If you have worksheets with specified column widths, now you can paste information from another worksheet without losing that formatting by clicking the Paste Options button, and then clicking Keep Source Column Widths.
Border drawing A new border drawing tool allows you to outline complex borders with little effort.
Find and replace Finding and replacing data in Excel includes great new options to match formats and search an entire workbook or worksheets.
Links management Changes to the Edit Links dialog box allow you to check the status of the links in your worksheet and make changes. A new workbook option allows you to control whether to update links in your workbook automatically.
Hyperlink navigation Selecting a cell with a hyperlink is improved. Click the hyperlink once to follow it. Click and hold to select the cell.
Sending a range Sending out mid-month reports and summaries just got easier. Select a range on your worksheet, click E-mail on the Standard toolbar, type an introduction to the report, and then send it without spending extra time on the task.
Insert and delete columns while filtering You can insert and delete columns with AutoFilter turned on in Excel. You can even undo the action and preserve any applied filtering.
Speech playback An option to have a computer voice play back data after every cell entry or after a range of cells has been entered makes verifying data entry convenient and practical. You can even choose the voice the computer uses to read back your data. This feature is available in Chinese, Japanese, and English (U.S.) only.
Printing You've asked for the ability to insert graphics and file names in headers and footers, and with Excel you can. You'll also find a handy A4 paper resizing option on the International tab under Tools menu, Options command, which will scale the worksheet you formatted for A4 paper if you have letter-size paper in your printer.
Smart tags By turning on smart tags, you can type a U.S. financial symbol and use Smart Tag Actions to insert a stock quote in your worksheet, find out more about the company you're doing business with, and more. You can also type the name of someone you've recently sent an e-mail message to into a cell, and then use smart tag options to schedule a meeting or add the name to your contacts list, all without leaving your worksheet.
Item properties in PivotTables Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) is a powerful tool for aggregating numeric information, and now you can annotate your data with item properties to make your data warehouse even more valuable.
AutoRepublish Anyone who frequently publishes Excel data to the Web will appreciate additional Web publishing features that allow you to automatically republish items to Web pages whenever you save a workbook with previously published items.
Open and save XML With Excel, you can open and save Extensible Markup Language (XML) files, save entire workbooks in the XML Spreadsheet format, and create queries to XML source data.
Digital Dashboard and Web Parts Use Excel to create Web Parts to include on your company's new Digital Dashboard. For example, you might create an updateable sales chart to highlight your division's contributions to the company's bottom line.
Worksheet protection Excel adds power and flexibility to protect your data from changes to worksheets and cells. You can protect cell values and formulas, and allow the cell to be formatted. You can also ensure that only specific users are allowed to change cells.
New Microsoft Office features
Office task panes The most common tasks in Office are now organized in panes that display in place with your Office document. Continue working while you search for a file using the Search task pane, pick from a gallery of items to paste in the Office Clipboard task pane, and quickly create new documents or open files using the New File task pane that appears when you start an Office program. Other task panes vary in each Office program.
New look Microsoft Office XP has a cleaner, simpler look to its interface. Softer colors also contribute to this updated feel.
More convenient access to Help Get the full power of the Answer Wizard in an unobtrusive package. When you enter a question about an Office program in the Ask a Question box on the menu bar, you can see a list of choices and read a Help topic whether you are running the Office Assistant or not.
Control paste options and automatic changes with smart tags New in-place buttons called "smart tags" let you immediately adjust how information is pasted or how automatic changes occur in your Office programs. For example, when you paste text from Microsoft Word into Microsoft PowerPoint, a button appears next to the text. Click the button to see a list of choices for fine-tuning the formatting of the pasted text. Smart tags and their associated choices vary in each Office program.
Updated Clip Organizer Hundreds of new clips, an easy task pane interface, as well as the same abilities to organize clips and find new digital art on the Web are part of the updated Clip Organizer (formerly Clip Gallery).
Conceptual diagrams Word, Excel, and PowerPoint include a new gallery of conceptual diagrams. Choose from diagrams such as Pyramid for showing the building blocks of a relationship, Radial for showing items in relation to a core element, and more.
Voice commands and dictation In addition to mouse and keyboard methods, you can now select menu, toolbar, and dialog box items by speaking. You can also dictate text. This feature is available in the Simplified Chinese, English (U.S.), and Japanese language versions of Office, and has some special hardware requirements.
Support for handwriting You can use handwriting recognition to enter text into an Office document. You can write by using a handwriting input device — such as a graphics tablet or a tablet-PC — or you can write using your mouse. Your natural handwriting is converted to typed characters. In Word and Microsoft Outlook, you can also choose to leave text in handwritten form.
Improved fidelity of pictures and drawings In Office XP, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Microsoft FrontPage, and Microsoft Publisher are using an improved graphics system (GDI+). With this new graphics system, shapes and WordArt have smoother outlines and adjustable levels of transparency with true blending. Digital pictures stay sharper and clearer when you resize them.
Accessibility Office XP programs support Microsoft Active Accessibility 2.0. This technology makes accessibility aids, such as screen readers or screen enlargers, more effective.
Find printers If your organization uses Microsoft Windows 2000 and the Active Directory directory service, you can search for printers across your network from the Print dialog box in Office XP programs.
Storing documents with Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 You can store Microsoft Office documents on Exchange Server 2000 and access them through the File Open, File New, and File Save dialog boxes, as you would any other Office document.
Document recovery and safer shutdown Documents you are working on can be recovered if the Office program encounters an error or stops responding. The documents are displayed in the Document Recovery task pane the next time you open the program.
Office Safe Mode Microsoft Office XP programs can detect and isolate startup problems. You can bypass the problem, run your Office program in safe mode, and keep doing your work.
Office crash reporting tool Diagnostic information about program crashes can be collected and sent to your company's information technology department or to Microsoft, allowing Product Support Services (PSS) experts to correct these problems so they don't interrupt you again.
Digital signatures You can apply a digital signature to Microsoft Word, Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint files to confirm that the file has not been altered.
Increased protection against macro viruses Network administrators can remove Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications, the programming language of Microsoft Office, when deploying Office. This can decrease the possibility of viruses spreading via Office documents.
the first part of this is a (shrinked) list of "what's new" from excel 2002 (xp) alone. the last part is from office xp as a whole. there is plenty of new things in the new versions of office. office 2003 has even more that's new. would you like a list of what's new in all of office 2003?
Last edited by 9158 on 12 Oct 2003 - 04:48
list is long. just hope the list is not contentless.
HAHA
Office is meant for just that: offices. And offices have much to gain with the beefed up integration and SharePoint/Exchange services.
jedimasterk, it figures that you, ignorant of this, would just use it as an excuse to start your anti-MS bull again. Get a clue.
Gee. Maybe that's because Office 2003 isn't meant for home users. Ever think of that? I guess you've never heard of volume licensing, either.
Well, I'd love to meet a person who has *THREE* computers in their home. They must have a lot of time on their hands to fiddle aimlessly with three computers all day.
I own an Mac, programme in Java and use Office X. Why on gods green earth would I need another 2? what is the point of owning three?
Thats awesome. I've been debating getting a Mac for Java dev for a while. Money ain't no problem its just that my favorite IDE doesn't support it yet. Oh and by the way, they are in development of java packages that interface with Open/Star Office which could be cool if done right.
I have 2 pcs. One I dual boot with linux and windows and I use it for all my work stuff. The other one is just games and nothing else. My one pc gets pretty bogged down when you have everything installed on it... application server, messaging server, ide's, db2, mysql, tomcat, ect and so forth. So, 2 was the way to go.
I have three, too, so that my family can use the computer without waiting for whoever's on. The only thing is I don't somehow feel compelled to buy Office 2003 on all of them like he says.
I have 2 pcs. One I dual boot with linux and windows and I use it for all my work stuff. The other one is just games and nothing else. My one pc gets pretty bogged down when you have everything installed on it... application server, messaging server, ide's, db2, mysql, tomcat, ect and so forth. So, 2 was the way to go.
I assume you use Borland JBuilder? IMHO, I put up with its bugginess for long enough. I tried out Eclipse, however, I found it lacking. Netbeans 3.5.1 is rock solid. The only thing I would suggest is making sure you have at the bare minimum 512MB RAM installed.
I've got 4. I seriously doubt its that uncommon to have 3 or 4 computers in a home these days.
Noone has six machines all over their house simply for the convenience of being able to do the exact same thing in another room. Honestly, that's about as stupid as blaming Microsoft for multiple licenses. You paid for multiple computers. Deal with it.
Honestly I don't know what the fascination is with having computers all over the place at home. Unless you're building a poor-mans cluster, you're more than likely just wasting electricity or creating a fire hazard.
Having said all this, I think it's reasonable still to have one machine per person, and that still equates to one license per person.
A computer in both bedrooms (not like my apartment-mate and i couldn't share a computer, but i think we'd all agree that wouldn't work), a server in the closet and a laptop that roams around the apartment. So, when we're both at home, there's usually about 3 of the 4 computers being used at any given time (i am counting the server even though its not interactive, its still being used), and at least the two in the bedroom are kept pretty up-to-date on hardware and software (in other words, they're not just junk machines sitting around).
I don't see why that's a problem. Maybe i'm missing your point or something, sorry.