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Chris Barry, Director of Office Enterprise, Microsoft
Eight years ago this month we launched Office 2003. In honor of that anniversary, we took a trip down memory lane for some of the momentous shifts in technology since 2003:
A lot can happen in eight years. And, the world of productivity software is no different.
Today, almost a decade after the launch of Office 2003, employees want to use the most recent tools to be fully productive on the go. They want to use a smart phone to get things done. They want to access their work and important documents confidently from anywhere. They want to balance busy professional lives with busy personal lives.
It's against this backdrop of incredible technological change-a new norm-that we launched Office 2010. It's the fastest-selling version of Office ever. One copy of Office 2010 is sold worldwide every second, and nine out of ten customers say Office 2010 is the best version yet.(1)
The end of extended support for both Office 2003 and Windows XP is coming up in April 2014. Customers should start planning their migration to Office 2010 and Windows 7 now.
But don't take our word for it!
Industry analysts are advising businesses to start planning their upgrade Office 2010 and Windows 7 now to make sure companies don't run unsupported software in 2014. Additionally, analysts recommend that businesses plan a joint upgrade to Office 2010 and Windows 7 to save on IT labor costs and reduce lost user productivity. Also, a Forrester Research survey found that Microsoft leads "in the attributes that respondents find to be more important: familiarity/intuitiveness, integration, and security."(2)
Customers like Daimler AG, Sprint, Cadwalader Wickersham and Taft LLC, and the Kyoto Prefecture in Japan have started to upgrade from Office 2003 and Windows XP. These organizations and many like them are making the move to gain the benefits of running modern software. Office 2010 allows people to better collaborate, get work done from anywhere, and they can do it securely and confidently. In addition, not only do they use Office applications they already know and love, but they also benefit from greater integration with Exchange, SharePoint and Lync.
As Masato Hirose of Kyoto Prefecture explains it, "What was particularly important was being able to use our data at any time, and under any conditions, without any problems. To that end, we had to select software that could guarantee that our data and files would be available and stable."
We're pretty sure that most of you aren't using the same cell phone you bought in 2003. We think your productivity software and operating system need an upgrade, too. Deploy Office 2010 and Windows 7, or sign up for Office 365 today to start the migration process. We have published free tools and planning guides to aid with your migration. Find out more in our Springboard series here.
Footnotes:
Comments: (5) Collapse
So did nothing happen in 2008, 2009?
Fascinating little look back at how far we've all come. Wasn't there a phone, too? Around 2007? Might've done quite well for itself.
The only new feature Word has added since version 4 on the Mac that I rely on regularly is the ability to add hyperlinks to documents. Migrating from .DOC to .DOCX format means that resumes under 100k are now over 100k (sometimes doubling in size), making them unpostable to potential employers. There was absolutely no reason to change the way that menus work in word, and have worked since Word 3 when I first started using your products. You've now made Word and Excel more difficult for new users (I've had to give training to my mom and others) and wasted screen space at a time when people are migrating to laptops from desktops. Please, just stop the madness.
I beg to differ. Forcing users to learn a new interface to use their favorite software they were familiar with for years was mean-spirited. Microsoft should have built-in a Ribbon tab with the familiar menus and toolbars. Whether or not the Ribbon is better is not the question. The important thing Microsoft should have cared about is UI backward compatibility. I have upgraded but I still miss Office 2003.
Amazing. And although I was a Solaris (Unix) and Linux user back then I still have memories of Office 2003 as well. "Baby" OneNote 2003 came pre-installed on my Toshiba laptop (which runs XP, and I kept it that way) and I immediately loved and embraced it. My regular desktop computer at that time ran Linux one so I couldn't really share much info but I still loved OneNote for what it did, awesome program!
But.. you kept on supporting Office 2003 for -11 years- even though 2 other Office versions have been released in the mean time (2007 & 2010)? That is usually unheard of with open source software projects. And I also somehow doubt that Office 2003 will suddenly go "poof" and stop working after the official support has ended. I think that is really impressive.
I really came to change my opinion on several of Microsoft products recently and this is one of those reasons. Its also where I honestly believe Microsoft has an advantage when it comes to closed source vs. open source: the length of provided support. I mean; Office 2003 was released in, what, 2003? ;-)
Seriously, I think that's commendable and quite impressive. And as you said; a lot has changed. Back then I picked OpenOffice over MS Office due to the costs and the stuff I could do (there were differences, but in my opinion the overall also had much similarities). OpenOffice was free, MS Office costs a few bucks and - generally speaking - provided a lof of the same functions. At least thats how I picked it up back then.
Fast forward 8 years later and it has become a day & night difference. I demo'd the Office 2010 while having used OpenOffice for approx. 6 - 7 years now and made the switch permanenent. Without any disrespect intended towards the project itself, but to me the switch felt like coming out of the stoneage.
2010 has become both extremely advanced as well as extremely affordable (IMO of course). You don't get an Office program these days; you get a virtual Office environment.
So yes, Happy birthday Office 2003 but unfortunately your bigger brother has got the best of you now :-)
Comments: (loading) Collapse