Office software: April 2009 Archives

Microsoft announced the availability of Service Pack 2 (SP2) for the 2007 Microsoft Office system. The service pack includes major performance enhancements for Office applications, most notably Microsoft Office Outlook, as well as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. With SP2, Office 2007 now has built-in support for Open XML, ODF and PDF, along with the dozen or so other formats that were already supported in Office 2007. In addition to the support for additional file formats, SP2 also includes the Open XML Format External File Converter. This allows developers to make any third-party document format a first-class citizen in Office. This means Office will support most government-preferred formats, and can easily be made to support any others that come along. This release offers enhanced stability for Outlook, calendaring reliability, and more improvements to applications that run on both PCs and servers. Users should notice the improved performance and stability of Outlook, better charting functionality in Excel, and more control over the appearance of SmartArt graphics. On the server side, IT professionals will notice several enhancements to the security and performance of SharePoint Server 2007, including support for read-only content databases, improvements to forms-based authentication, and an STSADM command-line utility that enables administrators to scan sites that use the variations feature for errors. SharePoint Server will also feature better support for newer versions of the Firefox browser. Customers can download SP2 right away. In addition, Microsoft will release SP2 via Microsoft Update’s automatic update mechanism no sooner than three months from now, and with at least 30 days notice. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968170

Zoho has announced access and usability enhancements for mobile users of its suite of productivity applications. Until now, Zoho offered mobile access to only a few applications and did not do so in a consistent manner. Each application had a unique mobile access URL and interface. With today's announcement, all mobile-enabled Zoho applications may be accessed at one location, http://m.zoho.com, and they share a common look and feel.

The following applications are currently available at Zoho Mobile:

• Zoho Mail
• Zoho Calendar
• Zoho Writer
• Zoho Sheet
• Zoho Show
• Zoho Creator

Zoho also announced support for additional mobile platforms.  Previously, its mobile applications were available only on the iPhone and Windows Mobile, with limited functionality on the latter. Zoho Mobile is now available for:   

• iPhone
• Windows Mobile
• Blackberry
• Symbian
• Android

Palm access is anticipated in a future release.

The text of Zoho's announcement may be found on the company's blog.

Quickoffice, Inc. announced Quickoffice for iPhone is now available for purchase in iTunes App Store. Quickoffice is an iPhone application to enable editing of Microsoft Word documents and Excel spreadsheets. The product also includes file-sharing and content management capabilities. Additional functionality including emailing files and drag and drop capabilities will be available as a free update to customers in the next few weeks. Quickoffice for iPhone offers: Edit and create .doc files and .xls spreadsheets; Text format options, such as font size, style and color; Cut, copy and paste text anywhere in Word, including to another document; Edit bulleted and numbered lists; Edit Word documents in landscape mode with wider keyboard; Wrap text at any zoom level and eliminate repetitive left and right scrolling; Access to MobileMe iDisk accounts; Viewing of iWorks, PDF and other common media files; Supports advanced features and functions for spreadsheets, including revise inputs and recalculate, and insert and resize rows and columns; Automatic save changes and auto-restore. Quickoffice for iPhone has an introductory price of $19.99, Quicksheet is currently sold for $6.99 and Quickoffice Files currently has a price of $1.99. All three applications are available now for purchase in iTunes. http://www.quickoffice.com

Microsoft Corp. released a public beta of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, part of Microsoft's unified communications family. Exchange 2010 is part of the next wave of Microsoft Office-related products and is the first server in a new generation of Microsoft server technology built from the ground up to work on-premises and as an online service. This release of Exchange 2010 introduces an integrated e-mail archive and features to help reduce costs and improve the user experience. The next wave, which includes Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010, is designed to give people a consistent experience across devices, making it easier to create and edit documents and collaborate from any location. In addition, to help businesses reduce costs, the next wave will introduce new delivery and licensing models, improve deployment and management options for IT professionals, and provide developers with an expanded platform on which to create applications. Exchange Server 2010 will become available in the second half of 2009. Additional Office products including Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010 are scheduled to enter technical preview in the third quarter of 2009 and release to manufacturing in the first half of 2010. A public beta of the server is available for download starting today at http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010