Introduction

Microsoft has launched the Office System, a new brand applied to client applications (including the Office suite), server products, and other offerings, most of which come from Microsoft’s Information Worker business unit. (See the chart “What’s in the Office System?“.) The term Information Worker effectively means any business computer user. It not only applies to one of Microsoft’s seven business units but it also summarizes a major part of Microsoft’s strategy to significantly expand that unit’s US$9 billion business, currently dominated by sales of the popular Office suite. The strategy, if successful, could pay off both for customers who adopt the products and partners that sell solutions built on the products.

Reinventing the Office Business

The Information Worker strategy has three facets:

• Secure existing Office customers by helping them use current products more effectively in their business processes (the mission of the company’s 400 Business Productivity Advisers in the field)