Office has its limits

A distinction that Microsoft is making between professional and standard versions of Office 2003 means that many customers will not get all the features they've been expecting, including broad support for web services and an opportunity to unlock their data from proprietary Microsoft file formats.

For more than a year, Microsoft has touted Office 2003's support for XML, a highly anticipated new feature of the productivity suite. But Microsoft now plans to deliver the feature fully only in the two high-end versions of the product, one of which will be available only to businesses subscribing to Microsoft's volume-licensing programme.

Full support for XML will mean that users can make their data easily accessible to other, non-Microsoft applications. Microsoft's move means that most users will continue to use proprietary formats that are only readable by other Microsoft applications.

Two other features are also similarly restricted: the document protection technology Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) and Excel List, a feature for improving analysis of data lists.

Microsoft plans to deliver the three features only in the Enterprise and Professional versions of Office 2003, the company confir med two weeks ago.

At no time dur ing two phases of testing, one in October and another in March, did Microsoft make it widely known that XML support would not be available in all versions of Office 2003. The most recent beta test version, available to an estimated halfmillion testers, delivers the full XML feature set promised by Microsoft.

Judging the limitations of Office's XML capabilities is difficult, since the beta sent to testers by Microsoft contains the Enterprise version. But Microsoft claims that the differences in XML support aren't all that great and are justified because of the target markets.

"In talking to customers about their interest in these capabilities and what they are used for, it was clear that they would be of most interest to enterprise customers who commonly purchase Office Pro," said Dan Leach, Microsoft's lead product manager for Office. "By only having this in the Pro version, customers who don't want this aren't paying for it."

But analysts contend that Microsoft hasn't made much of an effort to communicate this distinction to potential Office 2003 customers. In marketing material posted the same day last month that Microsoft announced the release of Office 2003 Beta 2, "userdefined" XML schemas are highlighted as one of the suite's important new features.

source: Business Post