This week we had the opportunity to sit down and discuss Office XP with Nicole van Kaenel, Product Manager of Microsoft Office XP. Here is an excerpt:

ActiveWin.com: Why has Microsoft dropped PhotoDraw from the suite? Are there any plans to release a version 3.0 of the software in the future?

Nicole van Kaenel: Microsoft continually evaluates the Microsoft product line to ensure that the latest developments and technologies are available to our customers. Occasionally, products are discontinued to enable us to focus on developing advanced or similar products. Microsoft Picture Editor will continue to ship with Office XP for image editing and FrontPage will continue to ship with a variety of award-winning tools for web graphic creation. For consumer image editing and enhancement, there are several Microsoft PictureIt! products which are also available. In addition, Microsoft Visio is an excellent solution for a wide range of business drawing needs.

ActiveWin.com: Can you tell us about the party at Microsoft the night Office XP went gold?

Nicole van Kaenel: This was an exciting day for everyone because it was a celebration of all the hard work that the development, testing, and marketing teams had put into Office XP. The celebration included all of the teams in Office plus our executives. While it was a great party it was right back to work the next day preparing for the launch on May 31st.