Analysts are advising most IT departments that upgrading to Office
XP is not a good idea, saying that it does not offer enough
additional benefits.
The advice follows a preliminary release of Office XP to
Microsoft's key customers and industry partners.
Meta Group programme director Ashim Pal said, "It is not as
revolutionary as Microsoft claims. The radical implementation will
be the one after XP - which will be based on Microsoft's .NET
principles -when the user interface will look more like a portal.
You should call it 'xp' not 'XP'," said Pal.
Kevin Lucas, senior research analyst at AMR Research, said,
"There are new features that Office users will appreciate when the
time comes, but few compelling reasons to spend hard cash now."
One exception is the introduction of a calendar that several
users can share, said Lucas. "Some companies have been crying out
for this. These are organisations that are heavily team-orientated
but don't want to invest in a team management product," he
said.
The XP release also includes smart tags - wizards that guide
users through finding and using functionality. With a software
developer kit, companies can develop customised tags for keywords,
helping users send an e-mail to a specific person or find more
information on a subject, for example.
Microsoft senior vice president Steven Sinofsky has called XP
"the most significant version of Office ever released." To enable
Office users to work closer together, Microsoft has introduced
SharePoint Team Services, a set of intranet applications. These
enable users to build their own sites.
Pal said organisations that have already implemented Office 2000
should not consider installing XP, but companies planning a new
version of Office from the third quarter onwards should.
"It's a robust system which is slightly more user-friendly than
Office 2000, but there's relatively little to compel people to
change existing plans," he said.
Office XP will be available this spring. Microsoft has yet to
set pricing and system requirements.