In these weeks lots of talking on forum and blogs was about the future
Office
12 that Microsoft has in progress (Beta 1 was estimated to be in
late August but September will be more appropriate).
One of the coolest things was undoubtely the new XML file format (too much
talked about this so I will not say more) but we'll have other great
features in this new version of Office that maybe could not be so clear to all.
Here a list of what I think it's so powerful and that I've learned from news on
the air:
- Office 12 will work also with Windows 2000 and XP, not only with
Longhorn.
- Office 12 will be able to work with SQL Server 2000 natively. You will be
able to interact with SQL Server tables directly from Excel or other Office
tools.
- Excel will be powered and it will be able to interact with Business
Solutions tools and with SAP and Siebel databases (can you imagine how hard is
this work now?).
- Live Communication Server will be integrated to have a better messaging
communication system (maybe also we'll have VoIP features)
- Office 12 will be centered around the "Workgroup" concept and we'll have a
totally collabourative platform, maybe centered around Sharepoint.
The promises are great... Office will be so lovely!