Office System Beta 2 Officially Unleashed

Microsoft on Monday officially launched the long-awaited second beta of Office 2003, which will be marketed as part of the newly dubbed “Office System.” 500,000 copies of beta 2 will ship worldwide to partners and testers, as well as customers who order beta kits.
SharePoint Products and Technologies facilitates easy, connected collaboration

  across an organization by combining the collaboration features of Microsoft

  SharePoint Portal Server and Microsoft Windows? SharePoint Services. SharePoint

  Portal Server integrates information from various systems into one secure solution

  through single sign-on and enterprise application integration capabilities.

  It provides flexible deployment and management tools, and facilitates end-to-end

  collaboration through data aggregation, organization, and searching. SharePoint

  Portal Server also enables users to quickly find relevant information through

  customization and personalization of portal content and layout, as well as through

  audience targeting. Audience targeting is a method to aim information and updates

  to individuals based on their organizational role, team membership, interest,

  security group, or any other membership criteria that can be defined using notifications

  or Web Parts.

Windows SharePoint Services allows you to create Web sites for information

  sharing and document collaboration. A key component of the information worker

  infrastructure delivered in Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Windows SharePoint

  Services provides additional functionality to the Microsoft Office System and

  other desktop applications, as well as serving as a platform for application

  development. SharePoint sites provide communities for team collaboration, enabling

  users to work together on documents, tasks, and projects. The environment is

  designed for easy and flexible deployment, administration, and application development.


Changes in Current Version:

  Multi-machine topology support for all services

  Alerts for items aggregated by the portal

  New e-mail format for alert results

  Extensible object model

  Improved security

  Improved performance

  Improved administration

  Office System Beta 2 consists of Microsoft Office 2003, FrontPage 2003, InfoPath

  2003, OneNote 2003, and SharePoint Portal Server 2.0. Microsoft Visio 2003 and

  Project are also part of the Office System umbrella, but will ship separately

  this summer. The beta 2 kits will include Windows Server 2003 RC2, Windows SharePoint

  Services 2.0 and Exchange Server 2003 Beta 2 as well.

"Today’s work force is geographically dispersed, information-hungry and

  constantly striving to be more effective and efficient," Microsoft’s corporate

  vice president of the Information Worker Product Marketing Group, Joe Eschbach,

  said of Monday’s release. "The applications in the Microsoft Office System

  are central to addressing these problems, and by offering them all together,

  we are giving customers the opportunity to experience firsthand how deploying

  the Microsoft Office System can improve communication and collaboration across

  enterprises – small and large."

Office 2003 beta testers are expected to receive their kits by Wednesday. BetaPlace

  has been updated to reflect the release, with a new survey asking testers for

  opinions on the product’s appearance.

MSDN subscribers will be provided beta 2 downloads once again starting March

  11, after Microsoft mistakenly posted and removed the beta 2 release last month.


Non-testers can order

  Office System Beta 2 kits for $19.95 USD to cover shipping and handling

  for the fifteen included discs. The beta software can be installed on up to

  five PCs and will expire on November 30, 2003.

SharePoint Products and Technologies 2.0 Beta 2, which includes Windows SharePoint

  Services and SharePoint Portal Server, is available for download free of charge.

  OneNote 2003 Beta 2 can also be ordered

  individually for $7.95 USD.

Office System products will ship in final form in mid-2003. Microsoft has yet

  to specify pricing or launch dates.

More…


Download

  (190MB)