Microsoft has slowly released details of the next generation of its productivity software, code-named Office 12, emphasizing tools for greater collaboration, information discovery, and content management. The new Office is due out next year.
In the area of collaboration, the company is trying to make it easier to set up and use shared workspaces in Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server, allowing users to exchange information across corporate boundaries. Office 12 will also incorporate peer-to-peer capabilities using technologies the company gained from its acquisition of collaboration software maker Groove Networks.
Office 12 will include the ability to see information more clearly through data visualization, such as new features in Excel that allow users to create real-time dashboards and scorecards from data within spreadsheets.
XML File Formats
In addition to new bells and whistles, Office 12 will include deeper integration of the Extensible Markup Language, a specification developed by the World Wide Web Consortium, originally to facilitate the creation of customized Web documents. Microsoft has said XML will make it easier for developers to create software that works with back-end systems.
New XML-based file formats will be the defaults for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. Microsoft says its new XML formats will be royalty-free, so the documents should be easily accessible in other applications that support XML. In addition, the XML files will compress everything via Zip compression technology, which will make typical files 50 percent to 75 percent smaller than they would be in today's default Office formats.
Still, the new formats will almost certainly cause problems for users of applications designed to work with the existing Office default formats--at least until these apps can be updated to support the XML formats. To smooth transition to the new formats, Microsoft plans to make available free downloadable converters for Office 2003, Office XP, and Office 2000 when Office 12 launches.
With the converters installed, people who use these older versions of Office will be able to open the new XML-based files and save them back to their respective Office Open XML formats. Microsoft will also provide bulk converters for users who maintain large libraries of old Office documents that need to be accessible in XML format.
Office 12 will continue to include support for .doc, .xls, and .ppt files dating back to Office 97. Users will even have the option of making the old formats the defaults again.
Microsoft plans to begin beta testing Office 12 in the fall.
Yardena Arar is a PC World senior editor. Scarlet Pruitt writes for IDG News Service.
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