What's really inside--and behind--Office 2003
ZDNet | at | by Mike
Oct. 21 promises to be a bit anticlimactic. That's when Microsoft plans to formally introduce Office 2003. What this really means is, after the 21st, the 600,000 people who've been testing the product will actually have to start paying for it. That's way different than the good ol' days, when most people didn't even know a product was coming until it was about to ship.
While we'll see some new features in Office 2003, they're not really the point here. The really important changes are happening behind the scenes. Office is becoming less and less a collection of individual apps, and more and more part of a much larger platform encompassing collaboration and online content and services.