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Check out the Microsoft Office System Beta Home Page | |
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| Time: 13:15 EST/18:15 GMT | News Source: Microsoft | Posted By: Chris Hedlund | ||
Office 2003: the Successor to Office XP Read an overview of some of the new capabilities of Office 2003—the cornerstone of the Office System—and learn how it helps turn information into impact. | ||
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| #1 By 1401 (151.213.99.239) at 3/14/2003 1:23:50 PM |
| I got my beta kit. Anyone else out there get theirs? |
| #2 By 1401 (151.213.99.239) at 3/14/2003 1:49:35 PM |
|
Oh and by the way...
Does Microsoft really think that people are going to start calling Word 'Microsoft Office Word 2003' or Excel 'Microsoft Ofice Excel 2003'? I for one am not going to do it. To me it's still Microsoft Word or just Word (Maybe Word 2003)... |
| #3 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 3/14/2003 2:26:24 PM |
|
I'm just wondering if anyone has tried out the Information Rights Management features yet. I can see these making Office a "must-have" upgrade if it works as I hope it might:
- Works outside the company (if you email a document to someone outside your organization, you can set the rights for what can be done with it) - Doesn't require Office System 2003 I'm thinking this is a pipe dream, though. And there are probably easy ways to circumvent the system--a screenshot could capture the contents of a confidential document and escape the IRM settings, for example (unless somehow it prevents that as well...). |
| #4 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 3/14/2003 2:50:36 PM |
|
bluvg,
Depending on your settings - screen captures are disabled (not just for the app, but entirely on the machine until the app that loaded the IRMed document has been closed), copy/cut is disabled for the IRMed document, printing is disabled for the IRMed document. You can look at an IRMed document (if you have permission) and physically retype it yourself, but other than that it's locked rather welll. It does work outside the company. Currently the IRM servers used with beta2 are based externally, so IRM works worldwide. So far as I am aware, Office System 2k3 applications are the only apps than can interact with IRMed documents. In the case of email that isn't fully true, but in the case of Word, Excel, etc. I believe it to be accurrate. |
| #5 By 6859 (206.156.242.36) at 3/14/2003 2:58:51 PM |
| Got my kit, just waiting for my beta email and the time to install all of this software. |
| #6 By 1989 (216.145.191.89) at 3/14/2003 3:09:46 PM |
| Got my kit today also. That is a lot of CDs! |
| #7 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 3/14/2003 3:25:36 PM |
|
BobSmith--thanks for the info! Do you have links to more information as to how IRM is handled? You mentioned external servers--is this something that Microsoft is hosting, or you host yourself, or ___? It requires Windows Server 2003, correct?
Also, do you know if third-party screenshot utilities are prevented from taking screen captures? I guess at some point it doesn't matter too much, since you're right--you could simply re-type the document. You implied that email may have IRM features outside of Office System 2003--what are the stipulations on that? |
| #8 By 40 (216.68.248.200) at 3/14/2003 3:29:50 PM |
| Got mine, installed it and found some funny shit on the template server at the beta site, NCAA Mens brackets for Excel, and other brackets for excel. Other wise it is very nice, except no Visio 2003 cd anywhere, they mention it in the letter, and notes, but it was not included with the 15 cd kit. |
| #9 By 1401 (151.213.99.239) at 3/14/2003 3:44:31 PM |
|
And another thing...
I agree that the applications in Office do integrate well enough to be considered a 'System'. But I seriously doubt that the majority of users out there use it in that sense. I believe that the majority of Office users still use each application separately and do not take advantage of the integration features, especially XML... |
| #10 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 3/14/2003 3:54:14 PM |
|
Chris, it isn't whether users see it as a system now. It is whether they will see it as a system from this point moving forward. Office has never been as integrated (and XML supportive) as it is now, so it wasn't as much of a system as it is now.
bluvg, I'll do some research and get back to you. |
| #11 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 3/14/2003 3:58:12 PM |
|
I'm curious to see the InfoDocs(i.e. XDocs) stuff. I've been playing around with the idea of documenting server configurations with XML documents and wonder how that might be useful.
|
| #12 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 3/14/2003 4:40:37 PM |
| Speaking of Visio, I was thinking of trying to set up a map of our organization and linking it to Active Directory. The text in individual office spaces (name and phone extension) would then reflect any personnel changes or moves (as long as the Active Directory is up to date...). Has anyone tried doing something along these lines? |
| #13 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 3/14/2003 5:10:56 PM |
|
blue - "XDocs" has been named InfoPath. Be sure to let us know how it works for you, if you decide to use it, that is.
bluvg, the way IRM works in Office System 2k3 beta2 is this. The author clicks Permission from the file menu to restrict access to the document (just like right clicking a file and selecting security on an NTFS partition). If this is your first time setting a permission, a dialog popup and asks you to register with an IRM server. Currently Microsoft offers a free trial (bound to a Passport) of their IRM service. After you have registered your Passport with the IRM server (you recieve a certificate which the Office app uses to secure the document), you can set IRM permissions on the document. In email documents, the permission are applied to the recepients of the email. In other office documents, you explicitly state which users have which permissions (read, modify, etc.). You list users by their email addresses. When a protected document is opened, the Office app will check to see if you have certificate. If you have an IRM certificate, the email address of the certificate is compared with the list of addresses that have rights on the document. If your cert doesn't match the list (or if you don't have a certificate) a dialog pops up asking you if you want to change users. You can then add one or more certificates (e.g. Passports). You tell the office app which cert should b used to open the document. If your cert matches, the doc opens and offers you the rights the author gave you (and you can request more rights if you need more). If you don't have a matching cert, the document will not open. Going forward, I don't know exactly what Microsoft's plans are for the IRM service, what the name of the IRM server will be (if it isn't bundled into Windows Server 2k3), or other stuff like that. Email - Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 is an IRM client, so if you have the correct certificate, you can open IRMed email. If other email clients have an IRM plugin (and I don't know what standard or spec IRM is based on), they should also be able to open IRMed email. I have only tested with Outlook, so I don't have any specific knowledge of other clients. Here are some links on IRM. Some of these are specific to Office System 2003, others are not. http://officebeta.microsoft.com/assistance/preview.aspx?AssetID=HA010397891033 http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/addon/rmupdate.asp http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/addon/default.asp http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/news/bulletins/wrm.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/wrm.mspx |
| #14 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 3/14/2003 5:41:09 PM |
|
Thanks for the detailed information, BobSmith!!
After seeing http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/addon/rmupdate.asp, I think a lot of organizations might be forced into implementing Office System 11 simply because their clients start to use the IRM features. Do you think Microsoft would make add-ons for previous versions? |
| #15 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 3/14/2003 5:47:24 PM |
| I highly doubt that an addon would be available for previous versions. One of the reasons (other than the obvious financial ones) is that previous versions supported 9x, but Office System 2003 is Windows 2000 and up. |
| #16 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 3/14/2003 6:33:49 PM |
| An IRMed document is encrypted. |
| #17 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 3/14/2003 7:50:46 PM |
| kevinu, I have no idea. I haven't used Windows Server 2003 and I don't know anything about the IRM server/service. I would imagine there would be an option (if not the default) to use Active Directory of you are running your own IRM server. |
| #18 By 5444 (64.185.17.185) at 3/14/2003 9:07:57 PM |
|
#8,
While I agree with you on the integration and it has stepped forward quite abit in this release of Office. I am quite at a dilema(sp) with this version of Office given the rumors of what is coming in office 12. The nice thing is that Office 12 is at least 18 months outfrom the release date of may 2003. Some features in it will probably rely heavily on features in LH. (unified fs, ui changes to take advantage of LH for example) But the Most important aspect is of the Smart Client aspect that is rumored to be in office 12. An example of this is if you save a docuement in Word XML or Excel XML now ti saves as .xml as a matter of fact if you save as xml with data only it saves with .xml Yet when you open a document that is wordxml or excelxml it will open the right client software. either Word or excel. Now take that one step forward. and have a client that is dynamic and can accomedate any of the formats. Word, Excel, Power Point, perhaps access. mix and match between each and the client dynamically loads the needed tool bars for the type of material you are working on. OLE in a advanced way. A super smart client. For now we are starting to see some of those Ideas. One Note and Infopath. and who knows if all of this will come to pass.:) But one thing is for sure. Office 12 will be a managed APP that takes advantage of the features in LH. El |
| #19 By 37 (66.82.20.150) at 3/14/2003 9:59:44 PM |
| As an FYI, my most recent visit to Redmond covered a little about Office 12. It's about 3 years off, and it will be released after the Longhorn. |
| #20 By 5444 (64.185.18.158) at 3/15/2003 9:08:17 AM |
|
hmm 2006,
That will put it around the time of (Blackcomb??), not LH. Which makes a lot of sense actually. Outlook without its servers doesn't make to much sense at all. and (since it has publically been said that LH will not have servers) a release at years makes more sense. Release Office.net slightly after the release of the servers(blackcomb??) along with Kodiak(the next version of exchange server that changes its datastore from jet to yukon technologies). probably add the new management features. Personally I would rather it that way, that way I know the client to the servers (which office really is becoming, a client front end for servers with support for local files) is going to workwith the servers it will support. Yukon sql server, Kodiak Exchange Server. the DRM/IRM services(which started in o11) the Servers that will provide the unified storage system for kodiak (blackcomb??) and of course LH. Yes this is coming along nicely:) El:) |
| #21 By 6253 (12.237.219.240) at 3/15/2003 12:44:16 PM |
|
bluvg,
Organizations won't have to upgrade to Office 2003 just to receive IRM documents. With today's Word, you have to have Word installed before IE can open a Word document, but this won't be true of IRM documents created in Word. With Word 2003, an IRM document contains both a Word version of the content as well as an HTML version. (If you've ever received MIME email which contains both an HTML portion and a plain text portion, it's the same basic idea.) As long as you had the free IRM add-in for IE, you could open this document in IE without any version of Word installed at all. You wouldn't be able to edit it, but if it's restricted at all, chances are that editing would have been restricted to begin with. The only gotcha is that the add-in does require IE 6 on Windows 2000/XP, so if you're still on IE 5, or if you're running IE 6 on NT/9X, you would have to upgrade Windows and/or IE. And, of course, after you upgrade Windows, your system would conveniently meet the requirements for Office 2003. If an organization had to replace hardware or re-image hard disks to accomplish a Windows upgrade, it might seem logical to do the Office upgrade at the same time. So IRM does create some "encouragement" to upgrade to Office 2003, but it's not required for receiving IRM documents created in Office 2003. Also, some third-party screen captures will work. There are three basic API approaches that screen capture utilities can use. At this stage, Microsoft is only blocking one of them. The other two can't be blocked without disabling DirectX and some hardware drivers. You point out that you can look at the screen and re-type a document. What about a graphic? Sure, you could re-draw it. Heck, you could hook your video output to a VCR and tape it, but the question is whether you've managed to steal the fidelity of the original. Compare this to DRM for Windows Media. I can listen to a DRM-protected song and sing it back to you, but my harmonious vocals aren't going to win a Grammy. According to the goals of DRM, it has succeeded as long as you can't make a copy which is identical or very, very close to the original. If you re-type or re-draw my Office document, there are likely to be clues that it is not authentic. kevinu, the issue with using AD user accounts is that IRM is ultimately certificate-based. For maximum flexibility in different scenarios, Microsoft needs to associate those certificates with email addresses. If you have deployed your AD namespace so that the UPN for each user is the same as a valid email address for the user, then there is no problem. Unfortunately, this won't be the case for many large organizations. |
| #22 By 37 (66.168.16.248) at 3/15/2003 8:15:50 PM |
|
Mr. Dee, you don't have to agree with me. I am just stating the facts. Microsoft is now changing their release cycle after this Office 2003 is released. There is no benefit for them to tell ME this information as I always get the software free from them anyway.
Their estimate is summer of 2006. |
| #23 By 6253 (12.237.219.240) at 3/17/2003 7:52:30 AM |
| The next Office may be about 3 years away from now, but it'll be less than 3 years from the release of Office 2003, else Microsoft is going to have to lengthen the term of Software Assurance. Even though SA customers know that they are not guaranteed a major upgrade, everyone knows that they'd better get one if Microsoft hopes to keep selling SA. |
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