Microsoft has released the first beta of the next version of Office, currently code-named Office 11, to a select group of beta testers. The next release of Office is intended to be a better client for XML Web services and for workgroup collaboration scenarios.

Focus on XML, Information Workers

Most products in the Office 11 suite have gained the ability to work with XML documents and user-defined schemas (which define the elements of an XML document, including whether they are required or optional and what type of data they must contain). Access, Excel, and Word, in particular, will be able to import and export XML documents while preserving the schemas and other crucial data. (Microsoft has also revealed plans for a new product in the Office family, XDocs, for working with forms and XML data, but it is likely to be shipped separately from Office 11.)

Microsoft is also positioning Office 11 as the core of its "information worker" strategy by adding new collaboration features and tying it closely to upcoming server releases, says Gytis Barzdukas, director of product management for Office. Workgroups will have new options for Office documents posted to intranet sites built with SharePoint Team Services (STS). For example, "you can take a list in an Excel spreadsheet and post it to a SharePoint site, where it will show up as a list, rather than a spreadsheet," Barzdukas says. STS has shipped as a free add-on to certain versions of Office and FrontPage in the past, and an updated version will ship shortly after the release of Windows .NET Server release in 2003.

Office will also mesh well with the next version of Exchange, code-named Titanium. The Outlook e-mail client will have improved offline capabilities, and online users will be able to view message headers before downloading the entire message, a boon for users who connect over low-speed connections. This behavior mimics that of a Pocket PC, which already offers the ability to view headers only.

When linked to a document stored on a STS server, an attachment sent to an Exchange user and opened in Outlook can be "live": changes made to the copy on the STS server will be propagated to users when they open the attachment.

Other key features include a new user interface for Outlook and new ways to organize messages and message threads; the ability for developers to modify task panes (the context-sensitive user guides that first appeared in Office XP); features designed for the capabilities of the new Tablet PC (see "Windows XP Tablet Edition Nears Delivery" on page 3 of the Sept. 2002 Update); and "subdocument" security, so that portions of a Word document can be protected from change while other portions are editable.

Availability, Resources

Bundling and pricing have not yet been announced. The initial beta is expected to be followed by a second beta that will go to a larger group of users in the spring of 2003. Final release is expected in mid-2003.

Microsoft’s main site for Office is www.microsoft.com/office.

XDocs is described in "XDocs Delivers Office XML Interface" on page 12 of the Nov. 2002 Update.

For more information about SharePoint Team Services, see www.microsoft.com/frontpage/sharepoint.

Exchange Titanium is described in "Interim Exchange, Outlook Upgrades Coming in 2003" on page 3 of the Oct. 2002 Update.