“Microsoft (Profile, Products, Articles) is beginning to release more details of the next generation of its productivity software, code-named Office 12, emphasizing tools for greater collaboration, information discovery and content management.
Although the software isn’t due out until the second half of 2006, chief software architect Bill Gates will highlight some of its features during an opening address at the company’s CEO Summit on Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington, campus Thursday.
Gates is expected to speak on ’the new world of work,’ describing how workplaces have moved from manufacturing to services-based organizations, with demands for greater transparency and accountability in business processes.An interview with Microsoft executive Chris Capossela, posted to the company’s Web site late Wednesday night, gives more nuts and bolts details of the Office 12 plans, however.
The new version of Office will focus on areas such as collaboration, business intelligence, enterprise content lifecycle, and reducing IT complexity, according to Capossela, who is the company’s vice president of the Information Worker Product Management Group. “
Good to see that communication around the next Office release is starting. I wil do a post on Gates’ keynote in a minute, has some interesting stuff in it.
