New Office Solution Strategy

A new Office Solution Showcase Web site signals broad change in Microsoft’s strategy for promoting the Office System as a development platform. In particular, the company will no longer develop Office Solution Accelerators, supported packages of software and documentation for tasks such as preparing sales proposals. Instead, it will promote solutions from partners. For both partners and Microsoft, the new strategy could reach more customers by promoting solutions that are directly relevant to more kinds of businesses. However, the strategy also means less software and support from Microsoft for the Office solutions it promotes.

Office Solution Accelerators Ended

The Solution Showcase represents a shift in Microsoft’s efforts to promote Office System products-Office, Project, SharePoint Portal Server (SPS), and other products from its Information Worker division-as platforms for vertical applications and other kinds of custom solutions. For example, customers might use a custom solution based on Outlook and SPS to track resolution of customer complaints, rather than using a custom CRM client or a browser-based application. Microsoft contends that such Office solutions benefit users: they can automate important tasks, but also let users keep working with familiar applications that they used to use to do the tasks manually.