With the launch of Office 2003 System today (21 October),
Microsoft has shifted the focus of the software package from office
productivity to development platform. Handling electronic forms is
one of the new features that epitomises Microsoft's
strategy.
Infopath is a program within the professional version of Microsoft
Office 2003 for creating and handling electronic forms. A set of
templates is provided to help IT departments develop data entry
forms, which can be rolled out throughout the business.
Microsoft has suggested Infopath could be used to build appraisal
forms, timecards, expense reports and weekly status reports. Data
is collected using XML, which means data captured on the form can
be accessed by business applications that can read this internet
data standard.
Neil Laver, Office group marketing manager at Microsoft, said, "We
are hoping Infopath will change the way people build front-ends for
applications like SAP and Siebel."
Traditionally, users would have written the front-end or client
software for business applications in a programming language such
as Visual Basic. Alternatively, many enterprise systems offer a
web-based user interface, where end-users work with the software
via a web browser and HTML-based forms.
Infopath has a different approach. Laver said forms developed in
Infopath have the look and feel of an Office application such as
Word or Excel. They provide features such as text formatting, a
spell checker, an undo button and local authentication, where data
can be validated within the form before it is submitted.
Rival software supplier Adobe has been deploying electronic forms
technology since the release of Acrobat 6 in February. Based on the
popular PDF format, Adobe's approach is to provide electronic forms
that look like paper-based forms.
Mark Wheeler, enterprise marketing manager at Adobe, said, "Our
design criteria is to extend users' core systems to internal
employees and beyond the firewall."
Wheeler said Adobe's approach made it possible to deploy PDF-based
forms over the internet - something he said was not possible with
Microsoft's Infopath. Adobe Acrobat is a free piece of software,
widely deployed on the internet and available on Windows, Linux,
Macintosh and Unix machines. In contrast, the Windows
based-Microsoft product was designed mainly for internal use behind
the firewall.
Wheeler said Acrobat (PDF) was not only a document display format,
it also supported workflow and could be used to create interactive
forms.
Adobe has developed server software designed to switch on the
interactive features in a PDF document. This means end-users who
want to fill in a PDF-based form only need the free Acrobat Reader
software. No additional software (or licence) is required.
Like Microsoft, Adobe's technology can be used as the front-end to
enterprise resource planning systems. In particular, SAP offers
PDF-based access to its enterprise software. Users including Rolls
Royce and Astra Zeneca are deploying PDF-based access to SAP.
Microsoft and Adobe have provided two approaches to creating and
using XML-based electronic forms. But with few enterprise
applications able to use the XML produced by these forms, true
electronic form processing may be some years away.