RSSBeta Test Office for Small Business Management
By Nate Mook | Published November 8, 2004, 11:04 AM
Microsoft has announced a new version of Office that will join its repertoire in late 2005, called Office for Small Business Management. The suite, code-named Magellan, takes on small business rival Intuit by bundling an accounting package and an improved Business Contact Manager for Outlook, alongside the standard Office System wares.
Microsoft is seeking beta testers for the new release, and is offering $300 American Express gift cards and a final boxed copy of Office for Small Business Management as a carrot those who submit at least five bug reports and complete two surveys.
Interested Office users can apply by visiting Microsoft Beta and using the Guest ID: smallbizsolutions. Participants will be contacted based on their survey results.
One of the problems that we have, we are a 12 person business, less than 10M a year an revenue. A canned product like Quickbooks or Simply accounting isn't functional enough for us. We currently use QB Enterprise, which allows 10 users and is not upgradable. It doesn't really support serial numbers or sophisticated inventory tracking, which would make our job easier but is not a requirement we can't live without.
Intuit just cancelled their Enterprise venture, which is a killer for us, because there really is no competing product.
I hope that this new product from Microsoft will allow us to grow the business, and more importantly allow the additional of modules (hopefully custom coded) that I can add myself.
Of course, I applied for the beta, but I don't know if I will get in. Hope so.
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