What Is Office System 2003?
| Microsoft Office has been used as a de facto office productivity tool by business and consumers to author and share information. Whereas Microsoft Word is used primarily as a document-creation tool, Excel "excels" in its capability to analyze data on-the-fly and present it in various representations, including tabular data, graphs, and so on. Access is a desktop-based database used for storing more structural data, and PowerPoint is famous for its capability to present information to a large set of audiences using the notion of slides. Outlook adds messaging and interconnectivity with email systems such as POP3/IMAP or Microsoft Exchange. All these products are collectively known as the Microsoft Office Suite. With the 2003 version, the suite was renamed Office System, and it is not just a simple nomenclature change. Office System 2003 includes all the products mentioned earlier, but it also includes additional productivity tools such as FrontPage (for Web document creation and publishing), OneNote (for note taking and management), Publisher (a desktop publishing tool), Project (for project-management tasks , including scheduling, resource management, and budgeting), Visio (for dynamic charting and modeling), and InfoPath (for electronic forms). In particular, OneNote and InfoPath are totally new products, whereas other products have been enhanced for ease of use and integration with the whole system. A key aspect of the products included in Office System 2003 is the set of server-side products that work closely with the Office applications. Server products include Project Server 2003, SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (which is an enterprise portal, document management, and team collaboration and search application), and Live Communications Server for real-time collaboration (including Instant Messaging). Integration with .NET for some of the Office Server products, particularly SharePoint Portal Server, will be explored in the next chapter. Apart from the nomenclature and product additions, key highlights of Office System 2003 include the following:
EditionsMicrosoft Office System is available in five editions. Typically, large enterprises use either the Office Professional Edition 2003 or Office Professional Enterprise Edition. This edition includes all the application products of Office, including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, and Publisher. The Enterprise Edition also includes Microsoft InfoPath, a new Microsoft electronic forms product (discussed later in the chapter) of the Enterprise Volume Licensing arrangement. Small Business Edition, for small- and medium- sized businesses, doesn't include Access. The Standard Edition, which is often preinstalled by OEM vendors on consumer desktop computers, includes only Excel, Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint. There is also an edition focused on the education sector, known as the Office Student/Teacher edition. Other components of Office System, including OneNote, Visio, and Project, are licensed separately. |
