Posted 11:49 AM

MS needs a clue

A report on ZDNet |UK| ("Microsoft aims to break down Office resistance") pretty well sums up the lack of anything new being introduced at this week's TechED conference in Dallas. It seems business is reluctant to upgrade from Office 2000 to Office XP and Office 2003 is due out this fall. MS is touting Office 2003's XML base as a way to tie into to 3rd party apps - "...administrators will be able to tie documents into corporate databases and integrate them with back-end systems. "
But Office 2000 integrates with databases and back office apps quite nicely. XML will make it a bit easier to integrate, but hardly worth what should be a hefty upgrade price. Look for more incentives to be offered in the fall to encourage upgrades but also look for both a surge in use of OpenOffice as well as a decrease in sales of MS Office.
Redmond needs to develop a new game plan.