Questioning Office 2007 Priorities

A recent report written by Forrester Research principal analyst Kyle McNabb, looks at how well Office 2007 features map against business priorities and what are the best metrics by which IT managers should evaluate the software.

For the report, Forrester surveyed about 120 IT executives regarding the functionality they expect "in future productivity suite" solutions.

My analysis, here, somewhat diverges from Forrester's. Please assume that anything not attributed to Forrester is my own opinion, including the second graphic below.

The bottom-line recommendation from the report's executive summary:

Stay away from generalized evaluations of Office 2007 Desktop Applications, and don't simply compare this new release with Office 2003, XP, or 2000. Instead, focus on how distinct roles within the enterprise—such as financial analysts, marketers, or legal—could benefit from this new release of desktop and server technology, and plan on role-based rollouts.

I would add that some of Microsoft's most important objectives for Office 2007—XML-based file formats and "Smart Client"/Office Business Applications' CRM and ERP integration—are way out of synch with IT organization priorities.

That said, Office 2007 addresses, in one form or another, the top five priorities IT executives surveyed said they want from a productivity suite (see my chart directly above).

The question is this: where do IT mangers want these functions? Forrester asked, "What end user functionality are you looking for in future office productivity solutions?" IT managers could choose four priorities from a list of 17 possibilities.

However, to take full advantage of the four priorities, most businesses would need some kind of server software. The exception is a "task-based" user experience," which Microsoft addresses through Office 2007's new user interface, now called "Fluent."

The revamped UI does away with the old menu motif and replaces it with visual cues organized by tasks and by direct format changes to content as the cues change.

"Sometimes less is more," McNabb wrote in the report. "People will find it easier to access functions and commands previously buried in menu hierarchies." McNabb also praised the format functions, including SmartArt graphics, which I used to create the graphic below.

Of the remaining four of the top five IT manager priorities, three of them—"stronger collaboration integration," "document management integration," "enterprise search integration" and "improved document editorial review and publishing—hugely depend on server software-based features.

Forrester asked about priorities "in future productivity suite solutions." Does the use of the word "solutions" mean a productivity suite and something else or just a productivity suite? I see the question as being somewhat ambiguous.

If McNabb means the latter, Microsoft has failed to truly meet IT manager priorities. I assume he means the latter because of "integration" connotations, which would be to the productivity suite rather than from something else.

Commenters, your feedback would be helpful. What do you want and where do you want it?

The answers are hugely important for understanding whether Office 2007 meets enterprise priorities. Again, assuming IT managers want the features added to Office, Microsoft has met the top wants of the IT managers polled, but it put them where they serve greater benefits to the company rather than its customers.

IT departments would have to buy Office 2007 and something else and something else again to get the additional functionality they desire—at the least the SharePoint Server.

Forrester is fairly upbeat about server-based functions and what benefits they bring to the enterprise. In the report, McNabb wrote:

"Many enterprises will look to this integration between desktop programs and server as a strong reason to upgrade or to switch from other vendors' products. Others will press their existing ECM [enterprise content management] vendors to provide a similar level of functionality, demanding that they replicate Microsoft's own integration between document authoring tools and ECM back ends."

I don't see a clear connection to that conclusion from the data presented in the report. The conclusion could be right, but based on what? Again, I would ask commenters to pipe in. If you're an IT manager, please tell us whether you want to edit, manage and search for content from the productivity suite or from server-based software.

Reminder: Server-based functions increase upfront software acquisition costs. That which means the total cost of ownership benefit could mitigate upfront costs for some organization but not for others.

After the top five priorities, Microsoft enters a sinkhole of murky objectives with Office 2007. For example, the number 7 priority of IT managers, as stated in the report, is social networking support.

Social networking support isn't addressed by Office 2007. Microsoft's idea of social networking support is SharePoint Server 2007, which doesn't meet the priority.

Priority number 10 is a stinker for Microsoft too. Only 17 percent of surveyed IT executives want "XML content authoring support," which I take to reflect poorly for the OOXML (Office Open XML) formats. Microsoft has invested huge resources in trying to gain coveted standards approval for OOXML.

Microsoft's big push is with ISO (International Organization for Standardization). Office 2007 is the authoring tool for OOXML, but it provides "XML content authoring support" that most IT organizations don't want.

Forrester strongly encourages IT organizations to deploy Microsoft's OOXML compatibility pack for ensuring format interoperability:

"Regardless of whether your enterprise plans to adopt Office 2007 now or much later in the future, you should implement the compatibility pack now... Enterprises can largely insulate themselves from Office document compatibility concerns by supporting the new file formats now in their existing Office installations."

The advice presumes that most enterprises will move to Office 2007 and switch to the OOXML. The need for the advice also reveals just how closed is Microsoft's so-called "open" format.

Open source advocates shouldn't whoop and cheer. Only 18 percent of the IT managers surveyed want "industry standard file format support." The priority is foreboding for ODF (OpenOffice Document Format).

Priorities number 11 and number 13—"ERP integration" (15 percent) and "CRM integration" (12 percent), respectively—bode poorly for Microsoft's "Smart Client" concept, which it pushed hard during last week's partner conference by way of new OBAs, or Office Business Applications, tools.

Microsoft's long-term goal, as it has been for about four years, is to convince enterprises to use Office as the front end to all their back-end data. From all appearances, the so-called Office smart client is the centerpiece of Microsoft's enterprise strategy.

Forrester's data explains why Microsoft's approach hasn't taken off: IT managers favor 10 or more other productivity suite priorities.

Related Posts:

• Obla De OBA Da, Microsoft Watch, July 12, 2007
• Why This Services Stage?, Microsoft Watch, July 11, 2007
• Software Assurance Storm Warning, Microsoft Watch, July 9, 2007
• Microsoft's Closed Book on Open Standards, Microsoft Watch, July 2, 2007
• When Is 'Open' More Open for Microsoft?, Microsoft Watch, May 17, 2007
• Microsoft's Open Debate Is Nothing of the Kind, Microsoft Watch, Feb. 14, 2007
• How 'Fluent' Are You in Office 2007?, Microsoft Watch, January 23, 2007