Microsoft today highlighted key areas of investment for the next major release of Microsoft Office System (code-named Office 12) scheduled for general availability in late 2006. Microsoft is making moves toward the information workplace, with improvements in collaboration, communication, and enterprise content management. For example, Microsoft’s focus on content will provide a broad range of easy-to-use and deploy tools for managing the complete life cycle of content. This announcement hints at significant improvements in Microsoft’s content, collaboration, portals, and office productivity tools and increases the likelihood that Microsoft will be one of the first vendors to begin delivering partial information workplace solutions in the next two years, with a fuller offering delivered within the next five years.
