The planned summer release of Office 2003 has been delayed to permit another round of beta testing. Microsoft is calling the new beta a "beta refresh," because it will be a downloadable patch that can be applied only to existing beta installations. Although Microsoft had said only that it will release Office 2003 in "mid-summer," the delay is likely to push Office’s release to manufacturing into August or September and general availability to October or November.

Reasons for the Delay

Microsoft did not cite a specific reason for the delay, but indicated it was related to the company’s "commitment to quality."

The company might also be a victim of its own success in rolling out Beta 2 of Office. The US$29 product was purchased by more than 600,000 people and has built-in error-reporting mechanisms that automatically report usage data and bugs to the Office development team. It is likely that the company has had, as a result, more feedback on this beta than any it has launched before.

The company could also be considering the release of additional versions of particular Office applications. Beta testers have only had access to "professional" versions of Word, Excel, Outlook, and Access, but Microsoft says it will also release versions of these applications that lack certain features, such as the ability to use custom XML schema and rights management (the ability to restrict printing, copying, forwarding, and other actions on a document). Releasing betas of these standard versions would make it possible to test interoperability between the two versions of applications.

Finally, the release schedule for Office 2003 was unusually ambitious to begin with. It took about nine months for Office XP, for example, to go from its first beta to release. A similar schedule for Office 2003 would put its release to manufacturing in August—about two months later than its original plan for Office 2003, but approximately in line with what the company is planning now.

Effect on Customers

The delay could affect the shipping schedule for related applications, such as Exchange Server 2003, which has many features that are designed for use with Outlook 2003. The later Outlook ships, the less useful an early upgrade to Exchange 2003 will be. The delay for both Office and related applications like Exchange could also mean some customers will see their upgrade rights on these applications expire without ever getting an upgrade. However, this will affect only a small number of customers—most customers have upgrade rights that will take them into 2004.

The flip side of the coin is that some important Office features, such as document collaboration and rights management, depend on add-ons to Windows Server 2003 that have not yet been released. For example, some new Office features for group authoring will rely on Windows SharePoint Services, expected to be available in midsummer, and rights management will rely on Rights Management Services, not expected to appear before the fall of 2003. Thus, a later release of Office means that customers won't have a major impact on how long customers must wait to use these features.

Availability and Resources

The beta refresh is expected to be available in "late spring," according to Microsoft.

More information about the Office 2003 beta is available at www.microsoft.com/office/preview.

Microsoft’s rights management technology for Office is described in "Rights Management Comes to the Enterprise" on page 11 of the Apr. 2003 Update.