Microsoft is preparing a new edition of Office
to help small businesses operate better, and taking on
Intuit and its QuickBooks product in the process.
An edition of Office for small business management will include
the familiar Office 2003 applications along with a new financial
management product called Office Small Business Accounting and an
updated version of Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager. It
will be available in the US at the end of next year.
Microsoft said the new Office edition would let small businesses
manage customer, financial and business processes. Payroll will
come through integration with services from outsourced payroll
services provider Automatic Data Processing.
Microsoft's Office group developed the new edition jointly with
the Microsoft group that sells business applications, and will
offer an easy migration path to the latter products.
Analyst Paul DeGroot said that by offering a path up to its more
sophisticated business products such as Great Plains and Microsoft
CRM, Microsoft was filling a significant gap in its product range
and taking on Intuit.
"Microsoft has basically left small business to Intuit, and
QuickBooks is the dominant product in that area," said DeGroot. "As
a consequence there has not been a ladder for small businesses to
climb on and get to Great Plains. This is an important gap that
Microsoft needs to fill."
For the smallest businesses, Microsoft today offers a simple
chequebook-type application called Money Small Business. The next
step up is Small Business Manager, an entry-level enterprise
resource planning product.
"There is a gap today where people need an entry-level
accounting system, but don’t need entry-level ERP," said Microsoft
vice-president Steven Guggenheimer.
"There are standalone accounting applications out there today,
but they do not connect very well with the other applications most
people use in their business. They don't have the seamless
connection with contact management or Excel, which some people use
for their accounting."
The new Office suite will be able to mark hours as billable when
a calendar entry is created in Outlook. The information can then
easily be transferred to the accounting application.
Guggenheimer said easy invoicing would be available from Word.
Data from the accounting application will be pushed to Word for use
in invoice templates.
Microsoft will offer tools for users of QuickBooks and Excel to
migrate to the new suite.
According to Terry Hicks, director of product management for
QuickBooks, more than 2.6 million small businesses in the US alone
use QuickBooks. He said that Intuit had competed successfully with
Microsoft before, maintaining its leadership in the market for
small business accounting software.
Aside from winning more customers for Microsoft's business
products, the new suite also fits in with Microsoft's strategy to
grow its Office business by tailoring product bundles for specific
audiences. The company already sells a Small Business edition of
Office 2003, introduced last year, which includes Excel, Outlook
with Business Contact Manager, PowerPoint, Publisher and Word.
Guggenheimer said the bundled updated Outlook with Business
Contact Manager would support peer-to-peer networking, the new
Microsoft Small Business Accounting product and Pocket PCs. Outlook
with Business Contact Manager will be updated for all markets where
it is currently available.
Microsoft did not disclose pricing for the new Office edition
and said it was too early to discuss plans for international
availability.
A beta test version of Microsoft Small Business Accounting is
available from today. Those interested can sign up online at:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/accounting.
Joris Evers writes for IDG News Service