As
stated, the codename for the upcoming release of Office, currently
slated for a 2009/2010 release timeframe, is Office “14.” Extending on
the mention of superstition in the description of this article, in
response to a comment regarding “Office 13” in a TechNet radio chat in
December of 2006, Eric Vigesaa, Program Manager for Office system
client applications, stated “![Wilted Flower [W]](http://bink.nu/emoticons/emotion-52.gif)
ell,
13 is unlucky, so we’re calling it Office 14,” so the next time someone
wants to question Microsoft’s belief in superstition, one need not
question any further. Naturally, with the beginning of a project comes
planning… and in the world Microsoft lives in, it takes money to make
the planning come alive; LOTS of it, so just how much is Microsoft
committing to spend on Office “14?” ~20% in R&D funding than Office
“12” with total R&D expenditure expected to be around $930 million PER YEAR!
Here’s a term for you: Office System.
It’s
important to start familiarizing yourself with the notion that almost
no major product within Microsoft is ever final. Products reach a phase
where, yes, they are released to manufacturers but as soon as the
product reaches that state, it’s on to the next phase and building off
of the most recent binaries. It’s a cycle: stable plateaus are reached
and development continues from it.
In lieu of the
aforementioned, a lot of the innovations that go into the Office System
are long-term investments which build upon the foundation and
functionality delivered in previous releases; in this case, Office “14”
will initially take away and benefit from Office “12.”
These are the current bets Microsoft is making for Office “14” but as previously noted, the details are destined to change:
Three major organization-wide areas of investigation and investment will be “Enterprise Content Management,” which pertains to the authoring, management, and organization of complex documents and content, “Communication and Collaboration,” which pertains to keeping communities, co-workers, partners, and customers in sync, and finally, “Business Process and Business Intelligence,”
which involves making the right information available throughout the
process of doing business. At the center of these three areas is “Individual Impact” which is explained as helping businesses amplify the impact of their people/customers.
At
the base are what are described as the Office Business Platform and
Manageability & Security. The notion of each is to make it simple
to build client and web-based business applications and making
worldwide deployment reliable, secure and easily manageable. Some key
points that Microsoft references are focus on enterprise with emphasis
on empowering the individual, an end-to-end solution viewpoint ranging
from the individuals working in the Office system programs they’re
familiar with to the enterprise servers providing the capabilities to
address organizational needs to “cloud services” providing capabilities
and/or assistance to users, and lastly, these commitments aren’t a
one-release focus; they are long-term commitments.
