OneNote Ships with Toshiba Portables

Microsoft's OneNote digital note taking application will find its way onto all new Toshiba laptops and Tablet PCs sold worldwide.

While the differences between portables and paper are distinctly obvious, OneNote is designed to be a versatile solution that captures the spirit of each medium - the motif of a writing notepad coupled with the advantages technology has to offer.

Although some critics have dismissed OneNote 1.0 as an immature product, it must now cut the mustard for Toshiba's vast base of clients.

The NPD Group reports that dollar sales of notebook computers sold surpassed that of desktop computers among retailers this past May, and Toshiba is one of the leading manufactures in this space, with over 3.5 million portables shipped in 2002 according to IDC.

"We feel OneNote will add tremendous value to our mobile PCs as tools for collecting and managing information. For that reason, we've taken the rare step of including one specific application in all of our portables worldwide," said Toshiba corporate vice president Atsutoshi Nishida. "Our mutual customers will be the real beneficiaries of our collaboration to bring digital note-taking capabilities to the notebook and Tablet PC experience."

OneNote is a new program -- similar to the Tablet PC's native Sticky Notes -- that has emerged with Office 2003. OneNote allows text and drawings to reside anywhere on a document.

In the world of OneNote, rigid formatting traditionally found in applications such as Microsoft Word no longer applies. Information can be flagged for organizational and browsing purposes. Special objects dubbed "containers" can also pull information from other sources such the Web.

Containers -- the built-in content manager of OneNote -- also host audio recordings to supplement hand-written notes. For example, a journalist can record a telephone conversation and embed it into notes at any point.

While it is classed as a full-fledged member of Office System 2003, OneNote touts limited interoperability with other Office programs. However, greater Office support is already planned in Microsoft's roadmap for a future release.

During OneNote's development, internal testing by BetaNews revealed usability quirks while handling containers with pen-based Tablet PCs. More often than not, creating and managing notes was a clumsy and awkward process. Microsoft sought to work out the kinks for the final OneNote release, which BetaNews has yet to evaluate.

Despite perceived setbacks, Microsoft is pushing forward with OneNote as the natural progression of note taking in the new millennia. OneNote's general release will come October 21, during the launch of Office 2003 in New York. More information, including pricing, can be found on the OneNote preview site.