RSSLate June Targeted for Office 2003 Beta Refresh
By Nate Mook | Published June 9, 2003, 9:03 PM
In an e-mail sent to Office System testers Monday, Microsoft beta coordinators officially unveiled details behind the much anticipated Technical Refresh of Office 2003 Beta 2.
"We haven't sent a specific date, but are targeting the last half of June for most languages," the company said. "The languages are the same as Beta 2; English, French, German, and Japanese. Note The English-language version includes a multilingual user interface (MUI) pack for Chinese (simplified or traditional), Korean, Arabic, Japanese, and German."
Redmond first announced its intentions to issue a refresh of the latest beta release in April, with plans to make "a number of improvements to the Beta 2 versions of the Office System products."
To reduce the time it takes to distribute the update and avoid major delays to the final launch of Office 2003, Microsoft will make the refresh code available via download. Only Office files will be updated. "Downloads of update (patch) files will be available as the primary means of distribution," beta testers were told.
"A limited number of CD kits will be available for IEP or OEP technical beta participants who cannot use the download option. However there can be issues with delivery to some worldwide locations and the CD's could take 2 or more weeks to arrive."
Microsoft says it is still "on track to finish the product in the late summer," but has yet to announce a final ship date. A company spokesperson would not speculate as to what changes will be made to the Office 2003 release timetable to accommodate the Beta 2 refresh.
OOO is great if you're not using Exchange as an email solution for your enterprise, and have the choice to use a different client. As for OOO, I've used it, and it's not a bad product. However, until local training facilities start offering training on OOO, as well as local colleges and schools, Office is currently the defacto std. Remember when WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 were? Office is no different. Someday another, perhaps OOO, will knock them off the top, but until then you'll have a hard time getting enterprises to move, especially if they've already made the investment...
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|MS is getting closer. Check out http://officeint.microsoft.com/home/default.aspx. The int is internal, not International [FYI]. You'll need to have the 4920 release of Office 2003 installed; either the BETA or Technical BETA. Cool beans...
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|There are some very large enhancements to Outlook is you're running in an Exchange environment. You now have the option of downloading headers only/first which is great if you're on a dial-up. While I haven't tried it yet, with the newest version of Exchange you're supposed to be able to come in on port 80 via HTTP tunneling which is great news for us home users without a VPN. but i would agree that the rest of the suite is just cosmetic. i have zero use for XML files because if i have data to store i use SQL, not word or excel. unless outlook contact manager can replace Act! it's useless to me. infopath, nope. i do think the new frontpage is nice, they're getting a lot closer to dreamweaver. i was really impressed with the intellisense for javascript coders that they have. onenote is so-so on a tablet. maybe its my toshiba protege, maybe its onenote, maybe it the concept in general, but i cant find myself making a recommendation for a tablet any time soon. hopefully the rumors will be true and Mac will make one, thus upping the bar for the PC world. while some people might not like Macs, you have to admit they're good at innovation.
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|LOL :)
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|I 've seen some of the great interface changes they've made, especially in Outlook but how many more features can you really add to Word?
Personally, I don't see purchasing another copy of excel or word unless it can write what I want while I'm thinking about it :)
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|This is excellent news to hear that they are really working to make this a solid product. I can't wait for my refresh.
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