Microsoft reveals Office 2007 line-ups -- ADTmag

Microsoft reveals Office 2007 line-ups

By ADT Staff
February 17, 2006

Microsoft has announced the lineup of its 2007 Microsoft Office system products, previously code-named Office "12," including new and improved suites, apps, servers and services. General availability is expected by the end of year.

For volume license customers, Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007, the new name for a significantly updated release of Microsoft Office Professional Enterprise Edition 2003, is designed to deliver improved information management and teamwork solutions through integration with new Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 capabilities, as well as inclusion of Microsoft Office Communicator, according to the company. In addition, a new offering called Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 builds on the capabilities of Office Professional Plus 2007 by extending collaboration and mobility scenarios through inclusion of Microsoft Office Groove 2007 and Microsoft Office OneNote 2007.

Office Groove 2007, an updated release of Groove Virtual Office software, is designed to enable teams to work together dynamically inside collaborative work spaces, regardless of location or network connection. Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007, partially based on Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 technologies, is part of the next-gen Web design tools Microsoft created to help customers create and customize SharePoint Web sites and build workflow-enabled apps using SharePoint technologies.

As part of the 2007 release, Microsoft is releasing a range of new and improved servers to integrate solutions across collaboration, business intelligence, enterprise content management and forms, and enterprise project management scenarios. Office SharePoint Server 2007 will become the single server that unifies portal and content management, business insight and business process capabilities to enable customers to collaborate more effectively, make more informed decisions and control content across line-of-business applications, Microsoft says.

Specialized servers such as Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 will deliver project and portfolio management and electronic forms management solutions, respectively. In addition, Microsoft Office Groove Server 2007 is meant to provide the centralized management, data relay and data integration capabilities customers need to deploy Office Groove 2007 across the enterprise. For smaller deployments, Microsoft Office Groove Enterprise Services may provide cost-effective, hosted management and data relay services.

Two client access license (CAL) suite options have been designed to help customers purchase a solution that delivers the power of the integrated desktop and server environment in a simplified manner and at a significant discount from the cost of individual components. Available today, the Core CAL combines the access licenses for Microsoft's most popular servers, including Windows Server, Microsoft Exchange Server, Office SharePoint Portal Server and Systems Management Server. The new Enterprise CAL will consist of the Core CAL plus new capabilities such as enterprise data searching, spreadsheet publishing, Web-based form creation and unified messaging. It will also include new offerings from Microsoft Operations Manager, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server, Windows Rights Management Services and Microsoft Security products. For more information and to register to receive the 2007 Microsoft Office Beta 2 release when it is available, see the preview.