Information Worker Focus of New Client Plans

While Office remains at the core of Microsoft’s client applications business, related Microsoft client applications offer more opportunities for growth than this mature product. To generate more revenue from desktop clients, Microsoft plans to put more muscle behind marketing its desktop productivity applications to large customers, promote better integration of desktop clients with server applications, and redefine who in the corporate world is a client for productivity applications.

The strategy is intended to maintain the value of the desktop client in the face of competition from lightweight clients, such as Web browsers, and convince corporate buyers to keep upgrading Office to take advantage of new features that are not only built into Office itself but are provided by complementary products and integrated solutions.

As a result, the complexity of desktop products is likely to increase as Office is positioned less as a standalone, do-everything suite and more as the client interface for collaboration or comprehensive solutions built on Microsoft server applications.