2007 Microsoft Office System Suites Comparison

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Contents

• Flexible Solutions for the New World of Work
• Powerful Tools for Individual and Organizational Productivity
  • Increasing Personal Impact
  • Simplifying How People Work Together
  • Support for Business Processes and Increased Security for Sensitive Business Information
• The 2007 Microsoft Office Suites
  • Microsoft Office Standard 2007
  • Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007
  • Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007
  • Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007
  • Home Use Program (HUP)
  • Flexible Deployment Options
• Differences in Applications
  • Overviews of the Microsoft Office Applications
• Differences in Features
  • Information Rights and Policy Management
  • Integrated Content Management
  • Advanced Support for Electronic Forms
• Conclusions
• For More Information
• Appendix: Full Suite Comparison Table

Flexible Solutions for the New World of Work

The ability of organizations to meet the new challenges of the global, information based economy depends on the ability of employees and teams to work more efficiently and effectively with information. At the organizational level, challenges include streamlining business operations and managing increasing volumes of content, as well as finding ways to collaborate more effectively within organizations, across corporate boundaries, and across time zones and geographies.

At the individual level, information workers more frequently find themselves faced with overwhelming amounts of information. Time spent searching for and managing information and the difficulty of sharing information effectively with others inside and outside the organization conspire to reduce the individual's ability to have a positive impact on organizational performance.

Solving these challenges requires tools and technology to manage the vast amounts of business data, facilitate the efficient flow of information through the organization, and simplify the ways people work together to produce results. The products and technologies that comprise the 2007 Microsoft® Office system provide organizations with a broad set of capabilities and tools to achieve these goals. By deploying the 2007 release, organizations can increase information worker productivity, enhance content management, and facilitate collaboration on document based business processes.

Although the challenges of the new world of work are fundamentally the same, every business has specific needs, unique to its people and processes. To allow organizations and individuals the flexibility to address their specific challenges, Microsoft has a variety of Office suites to select from. Each suite includes a set of applications and features tailored to meet the needs of a particular type of organization or set of users. Microsoft Office customers now have more flexibility than ever before to purchase the specific solutions that best meet their needs. This paper describes the commonalities and differences among the suites of the 2007 Microsoft Office system: Microsoft® Office Standard 2007, Microsoft® Office Professional Plus 2007, and Microsoft® Office Enterprise 2007and Microsoft® Office Ultimate 2007. Each suite provides the core Microsoft Office applications as well as features that support integrated content management, information rights and policy, and integrated electronic forms; however, they differ in the selection of included applications and the ways in which advanced features are implemented. This paper is intended to help organizations and individuals understand the applications and capabilities offered, and identify the suite that best fits their needs.

Powerful Tools for Individual and Organizational Productivity

The 2007 Microsoft Office system is designed to address the evolving needs of customers as well as emerging workplace trends. High level goals - ranging from an easier to use interface to increased security - are accomplished through broadly implemented changes and targeted differentiation. Carefully selecting not only the applications, but also the advanced features available in each suite helps us address the concerns that are top of mind for organizations of all sizes. The following sections detail a few of the specific organizational challenges addressed by the 2007 release.

Increasing Personal Impact

As workplace dynamics change - particularly efforts to run organizations as leanly as possible - there is substantial pressure on the individual to work efficiently and effectively. Improving personal impact is the key to improving operational performance across the larger organization.

The 2007 release delivers a compelling set of new capabilities in each of the individual programs. Its Microsoft Office Fluent^TM user interface makes it much easier for users to access the full power of these programs so they can deliver better results faster.

Simplifying How People Work Together

Improving the way teams work together and manage information is key to improving business value and meeting organizational objectives. To work as efficiently and effectively as possible, organizations must provide teams with tools and processes that support the way they work - including technology that supports mobility and work across organizations and locations.

The 2007 release delivers a broad set of capabilities ranging from streamlined calendar sharing, enhanced document reviewing tools, and, together with Windows® SharePoint® Services technologies, self service provisioning of team worksites that reduce the busywork associated with collaboration.

Support for Business Processes and Increased Security for Sensitive Business Information

Streamlining business operations and managing content more effectively is necessary not only to drive operational efficiency, but to meet the increasing demands for visibility in corporate operations. Increased pressure on organizations to comply with regulatory requirements has also renewed emphasis on document based processes.

The 2007 release addresses these needs by integrating workflow, tracking, and approval capabilities into familiar Microsoft Office system programs, making it easier to create and approve content. Advanced electronic forms technologies help organizations lower costs by streamlining everyday business processes.

On an application level, improved integration with Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) enables organizations to safeguard digital information - both online and offline, inside and outside of a firewall. Improved permissions capabilities allow an organization to define who can open, modify, print, or forward content. RMS also enables organizations to create custom usage policy templates such as "Confidential - Read Only" that can be applied directly to information such as financial reports, e mail, and more.

The 2007 Microsoft Office Suites

Though each suite supports these high level goals, the multiple suites of the 2007 Microsoft Office system have been tailored to meet the demands of a specific subset of users. The availability of various suites allows organizations and individuals to license and deploy the applications and features most relevant to their needs and their business.

Office Standard 20071, Office Professional Plus 2007, and Office Enterprise 2007 are available under volume licensing agreements - all build on the capabilities of the other. Office Ultimate 2007 is available through retail, OEM and academic licensing programs. Overviews of each of these suites are provided below, going into greater detail on the applications and features that differentiate these suites from each other and from the other available suites.

Businesses with enterprise licensing agreements typically consider Office Professional Plus 2007 and Office Enterprise 2007, as both focus on advanced functionality and increased collaboration. While Office Professional Plus places emphasis on individual and team productivity, Office Enterprise adds capabilities that enable collaboration and information sharing across functional and even company boundaries through unique combinations of applications and features. These advanced suites also support seamless integration between the Microsoft Office applications, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and information rights management (IRM) technologies.

Microsoft Office Standard 2007

The applications included with Office Standard 2007 - including Microsoft® Office Word 2007, Microsoft® Office Excel® 2007, Microsoft® Office Outlook® 2007, and Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007 - empower business users to manage e mail quickly and easily create professional looking documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Each of the programs in Office Standard 2007 includes compelling innovations that will make it substantially easier for users to deliver better results faster.

The primary focus of Office Standard 2007 is on personal productivity, enabling individuals to create content, manage personal information, and engage in basic collaborative activities, for example, through e mail. While Office Standard 2007 does not include many of the advanced features and capabilities discussed in the following sections, users of Office Standard 2007 can access many of these capabilities (for example, workflow and content management features) through a browser interface. In this way, all users are able to participate in an organization's document based processes.

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007, the new name for an updated release of Microsoft Office Professional Enterprise Edition, delivers a powerful set of tools designed to help people and organizations reach new levels of productivity and performance. Office Professional Plus 2007 is designed for individuals and their organizations that require efficient tools to create, manage, analyze, and share information.

Office Professional Plus 2007 programs simplify the way information is shared and people work together. Improved integration with Windows SharePoint Services and the new Office SharePoint Server 2007 create new ways to coordinate and collaborate on everything from schedules to document reviews.

Efficient, Flexible Information Gathering

Advances in Microsoft® Office InfoPath® 2007 enable organizations to harness the power of electronic forms to streamline business processes. Improvements to InfoPath 2007 include extending the reach of forms through browsers, mobile devices, and e mail messages; improved administration; and new tools for design and deployment through the Microsoft Visual Studio® integrated development environment.

Support for Data Integration and Custom Solutions

Office Professional Plus 2007 also improves the ways organizations connect information workers to vital business data and processes.

New capabilities for data integration in Office Professional Plus 2007, including a new level of support for XML, enable organizations to make more effective use of corporate data resources by reducing the cost and complexity of connecting documents and worksheets to central data sources (line of business applications, Windows SharePoint Services sites, and back end databases) so that users can feel confident they are working with consistent, accurate information.

Office Professional Plus 2007 also supports document based solutions built using Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office system. Organizations that rely on custom solutions for Excel 2003 and Word 2003 benefit from rapid solution development and enhanced developer productivity, as well as the ability to create and deploy solutions tailored to meet specific business needs.

Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007

Building on the mobility and collaboration strengths of Office Professional Plus 2007, the new Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 suite helps teams share information easily and more securely across geographic and organizational boundaries, even with users outside an organization, whether workers are online or offline.

The result is dramatic efficiency gains for information workers - including mobile workers, dispersed teams, project managers, and people who work with customers and partners - as they consolidate, organize, access, and share information with less effort. Organizations benefit from enhanced control over the ways people work with documents and content, as well as the enhanced ability of teams to deliver better results faster.

New Tools for Collaboration

The inclusion of two additional, powerful programs, Microsoft® Office OneNote® 2007, a note taking program and Microsoft® Office Groove® 2007, a collaboration software program, helps team members maximize their collaboration efforts and effectiveness. By extending collaboration and mobility support across locations, Office Groove 2007 and Office OneNote 2007 ensure that people get information they need when they need it, whether online or offline.

Office OneNote allows teams to organize a large volume of information from disparate sources. Organizations that rely heavily on team meetings for getting work done benefit by giving all members simultaneous access to the same OneNote notebook, saving time and effort on getting people aligned on discussions and plans. Office OneNote also streamlines collaboration outside of meetings by taking collaborative activity out of e mail and into one common place where everyone can consolidate the unstructured information that is critical to project success, but that often gets lost.

<>Groove workspaces also help teams working across locations stay on the same page, keeping information secure and available at all times to all team members. Automatic updates keep everyone apprised of changes, while integration with SharePoint and other Microsoft Office components helps to ensure that intellectual property and business information are retained for reuse.

Support for Advanced Collaboration Scenarios

Office Enterprise 2007 is the most complete set of tools Microsoft provides for people who must collaborate and work efficiently to meet their objectives, regardless of their location or whether online or offline. Designed to solve inefficiencies and difficulties in sharing information and reduce the overhead costs associated with collaborative efforts, Office Enterprise 2007 appeals to organizations that include:

• Mobile/laptop users. Organizations such as professional services or consulting organizations that need to support mobile workers with tools to make them efficient, regardless of location. Organizations that perform emergency response or mobile sales, where workers need to stay up to date on new information associated with quickly changing situations.
• People who work frequently with people outside their immediate organization. Teams and individuals that must gather and share program information securely across departments and locations - or collaborate outside the corporate network. Organizations need to protect intellectual property or assets while in use.
• People who work on many projects of short duration. Workers with multiple projects, who need to consolidate documents and information with project context added, for greater efficiency. Teams that need a way to work together and share documents in real time.
• People who use SharePoint sites and need to work offline. Teams and individuals that need to consolidate documents and project notes as well as Web content, images, and other material in one place. Teams that need to capture and share documents, project records, and unstructured information and maintain an archive or record of project activity after completion.

Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007

Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 provides people at home or work with a comprehensive set of tools that helps them gather and consolidate virtually any type of information, find what they are looking for quickly, and easily share information with others across geographical or organizational boundaries so they can deliver better results faster.

Today's work environment is very different from five years ago. You have access to more powerful software and computing systems, wireless connectivity, and mobile devices such as laptop computers, Smartphones, and handheld devices than ever before. The definition of a workplace or team can now span locations, organizations, time zones - even cultures. An "office" can mean any place from which people create, share, and store information or collaborate with coworkers, partners, customers, and others on projects and business processes.

By focusing on results as well as features, Office Ultimate 2007 makes it easier and more enjoyable for you to get things done. You get the tools you need to quickly deliver the quality outcome you want. You can also coordinate your time and tasks in a simpler, more efficient manner.

Office Ultimate 2007 includes the entire Microsoft Office toolset that you are accustomed to working with at the office: Microsoft Office Word 2007, Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager, Microsoft Office Access 2007, Microsoft Office Publisher 2007, Microsoft Office OneNote® 2007, Microsoft Office Groove® 2007, Microsoft Office InfoPath® 2007, and Office Accounting Express 2007.

Home Use Program (HUP)

Also available with the 2007 release, the Home Use Program (HUP) enables organizations to extend Software Assurance coverage to an employee's home office and ensures the compatibility of documents created at work and at home, boosting employee productivity.

Under HUP, each Office Application License covered by the organization's Software Assurance plan entitles a user of the licensed device to install and use a copy of the product at home.

Flexible Deployment Options

Flexible volume licensing programs enable organizations to choose the exact suite - or combination of suites - that is right for them. While the majority of volume enterprise customers license Office Professional Plus 2007, the decision to deploy Office Enterprise 2007 to all or a portion of the workforce depends on two primary considerations:

• The degree to which the organization relies on collaborative processes and the extent of collaboration, both across the enterprise and with customers and partners.
• The number and needs of the organization's mobile and remote information workers.

Experience shows that many organizations will deploy Office Enterprise 2007 on a departmental level, or to users with common usage profiles (for example, to the sales field or researchers). While individual users and teams or departments will realize the benefits of increased collaboration and mobility provided by Office Enterprise 2007, the benefits to the individual increase as the Office Enterprise 2007 is deployed more widely across the organization, enabling more users to initiate and participate in the rich collaborative and remote work processes.

Tight integration among the applications that comprise the 2007 Microsoft Office system ensures seamless exchange of information and allows IT organizations to efficiently maintain environments that include a mix of suites.

Differences in Applications

The applications included with each suite of the 2007 Microsoft Office system provide unparalleled support for increased individual impact and simplified team collaboration. Each was designed with the understanding of how customers' needs intersect with trends in the workplace.

Note that although it is less cost effective to do so, individual applications can be licensed and deployed separately. For example, organizations that deploy Office Standard 2007 may also license Office InfoPath 2007 for select users.

The table below identifies the applications included with each of the volume licensing suites. Overviews of the programs themselves are provided in the following sections.

Overviews of the Microsoft Office Applications

The following sections briefly describe the Microsoft Office applications available in suites that target business and professional users. For detailed information on these applications (features, system requirements, etc.) visit www.microsoft.com/office.

Microsoft Office Access 2007

Microsoft Office Access 2007 provides a comprehensive database solution for beginning or advanced users. Pre built databases - each adaptable to changing business needs - help workers track and report information. The improved, results oriented Office Fluent user interface combines with interactive design capabilities to optimize efficiency. Office Access 2007 also supports increased integration with other Microsoft applications, allowing workers to easily import information from other sources, such as Office Outlook and Office Excel. Workers can even attach documents, images, and spreadsheets to any record within a database.

Office Access 2007 is included in Office Professional Plus 2007, Office Enterprise 2007 and Office Ultimate 2007.

Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007

Office InfoPath 2007 enables organizations to develop and deploy detailed, dynamic electronic forms. Office InfoPath 2007 provides an efficient, reliable way to collect, share and reuse information. Users can create electronic forms that allow responders to fill in the blanks, or sophisticated forms that consume data from enterprise business systems or line of business applications. Close integration with Office Word, Office Excel, and Office Outlook enables Office InfoPath 2007 to quickly convert documents and workbooks into electronic forms - and then embed the form within an e mail message.

Office InfoPath 2007 is included in Office Professional Plus 2007, Office Enterprise 2007 and Office Ultimate 2007.

Microsoft Office Communicator 20073

The solutions contained within Office Communicator 2007 - including instant messaging (IM), phone and voice conferencing, video conferencing, and Web conferencing - enable increased communication with users across locations and even time zones. Integration with Microsoft Office applications such as Office Word, Office Excel, Office PowerPoint, Office OneNote, Office Groove, and SharePoint allow teams instant access to a full set of collaboration tools. Office Communicator 2007 is included in both Office Professional Plus 2007 and Office Enterprise 2007.

Microsoft Office OneNote 2007

Office OneNote 2007 is a digital notebook that provides a flexible way to gather and organize much more than notes. Powerful search tools allow users to find information, such as spoken words in audio and video recordings and text in scanned documents or pictures. Shared notebooks give teams a place to work together and automatically merge and update people's contributions when connected to the Internet, and integration with other Microsoft Office applications means it's familiar and easy to use. Office OneNote 2007 enables users to focus on their work instead of on managing information.

Office OneNote 2007 is included in Office Enterprise 2007 and Office Ultimate 2007.

Microsoft Office Groove 2007

Office Groove 2007 is a collaboration software program that lets information workers and team members work together dynamically and effectively on projects and activities - from any location. Office Groove 2007 workspaces add context to work and enable users to organize and find information faster. Users can invite remote colleagues, partners, and customers to workspaces without worrying about server space or security. And because Office Groove 2007 workspaces are stored locally on the user's computer, users can work online and offline, inside and outside the office, without having to download, upload, or e mail changes to information and documents

Office Groove 2007 is available in Office Enterprise 2007 and Office Ultimate 2007.

Differences in Features

In addition to differences in the applications they include, the 2007 Microsoft Office system varies in the way certain advanced features are implemented. Differentiated features are grouped into three functional areas:

• Information rights and policy management
• Integrated content management
• Advanced support for electronic forms

The differences apply primarily to the ability to initiate processes or to create electronic forms or rights protected content. Initiation of content management processes or application of rights managed constraints typically require Office Professional Plus 2007, Office Enterprise 2007 or Office Ultimate 2007. In most cases, however, users are able to participate in document based processes or to consume content regardless of which suite of the 2007 release they are using.

Office Professional Plus 2007, Office Enterprise 2007, and Office Ultimate 2007 generally offer an enhanced user experience for users of these advanced features. In these suites, advanced features are fully integrated with the Microsoft Office applications and typically surface as features accessible directly from the Office Fluent user interface. In contrast, users of Office Standard 2007 may have access to these features, but in a less integrated fashion (for example, interacting with SharePoint libraries through a browser interface). The most notable exception to this model is support for electronic forms, which require that Office InfoPath 2007 be installed on the client computer.

Each of the three feature groups is discussed in detail in the sections that follow. The tables in each section include detailed descriptions of the specific capabilities available in each of the three suites.

Information Rights and Policy Management

The 2007 release includes sophisticated IRM capabilities and policy controls designed to help organizations safeguard digital information from unauthorized use. Through integration with Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) for Microsoft Windows Server^TM 2003, these IRM features enable information workers to define exactly how recipients can use the information contained in Microsoft Office documents.

Specific features include:

• Information Rights Management. In conjunction with Windows RMS, the IRM features of the 2007 release enable users to define exactly who can open, modify, print, forward, and/or take other actions with the information in Microsoft Office documents.
• Policy Statements. Organizations can create policy statements for specific e mail message types and embed these statements in the e mail message. Policy statements can instruct the reader how to handle the email message content or serve as a flag to trigger Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 to process custom defined rules.

Integrated Content Management

In conjunction with SharePoint Server 2007, the Integrated Content Management capabilities of the 2007 release provide secure access to business information through a number of differentiated features and capabilities, including integrated document workflow, PowerPoint slide libraries, label and barcode attachment, and the new Report Center portal.

• Workflow. The workflow capabilities of the Microsoft Office applications and Office SharePoint Server 2007 support sophisticated document life cycle and enterprise content management. Integration between the Microsoft Office applications and Office SharePoint Server 2007 allows users to initiate review and approval workflows, simplifying content review and approval processes, and reducing time spent managing documents through their life cycles. For documents stored in a SharePoint library with an associated workflow template, users can initiate the workflow process from the File menu in the Microsoft Office application or from a browser based interface.

  Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes user configurable workflow templates that can guide review and approval processes. Developers can also use Microsoft Visual Studio® or Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 to define custom workflows, create document handling processes, help users collaborate through portals and workspaces, and connect users to information in enterprise business systems.

• PowerPoint Slide Libraries. Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides centralized storage for presentations and individual slides. PowerPoint Slide Libraries enable users to easily repurpose existing content and build presentations from existing slide sets, reducing the need to recreate content. Users can publish presentations to a PowerPoint Slide Library directly from Office PowerPoint 2007.
• Report Center. In organizations that deploy Microsoft Office Excel Services, Office Excel 2007 adds the capability to publish worksheets with full fidelity to the Web, portals, and dashboards, provided by Office SharePoint Server 2007. The Report Center, a central repository for reports and spreadsheet data, ensures that all users have access to the same version of critical business information. The user who publishes the worksheet can control access to the information by defining what data is visible to others in Report Center and defining which cells can be edited by other users.
• Barcodes and Labels. The 2007 release facilitates document and records management with the capability to generate and embed barcodes and labels within documents. Text based labels or barcodes can be generated from document metadata, such as subject keywords or customer numbers. Labels and barcodes are printed with the document and can be updated automatically.

Advanced Support for Electronic Forms

The 2007 release streamlines data collection through integration between Office InfoPath 2007 and the core applications. Electronic forms can be presented as standalone forms in the Office InfoPath 2007 client or in the browser, imported into Office Groove 2007 workspaces, embedded in Document Information Panels and Task Panes, or embedded in Office Outlook 2007 e mail messages so colleagues can complete forms without leaving the familiar Outlook environment. With Office InfoPath 2007 and Microsoft Office InfoPath Forms Services, organizations can also extend electronic forms solutions outside the corporate firewall, enabling customers, business partners, and mobile or remote users to complete electronic forms using many different Web browsers and mobile devices.

Features that take advantage of Office InfoPath 2007 forms include:

• E Mail Forms. The ability to embed an InfoPath form within an Office Outlook 2007 e mail message provides a fast, efficient way to collect information.
• Developer enhancements. Enhanced development capabilities enable developers to display richer content, including InfoPath forms, within custom Task Panes.
• Document Information Panel. Support for InfoPath forms within the new document Information Panel enables organizations to define custom document properties and to initiate business processes from within a document based on those document properties.

Conclusions

By offering suites that include tailored sets of applications and features, the 2007 Microsoft Office system helps address the unique needs of an organization and its employees. Office Standard 2007, Office Professional Plus 2007Office Enterprise 2007 and Office Ultimate 2007 all boast features and applications that support information rights management, integrated content management, and customized electronic forms - with varying degrees of integration. In addition, the variations in included applications allow organizations to license a software suite with the specific tools users need to perform key tasks.

While Office Standard 2007 enables users to participate in document based processes and simple collaboration, Office Professional Plus 2007, Office Enterprise 2007 and Office Ultimate 2007, in conjunction with Office SharePoint Server and other Office Servers provide advanced functionality that supports sophisticated collaboration and the ability to define and initiate business processes. The decision about which suite or suites are best suited to a particular organization should be based on an understanding of the business needs and collaborative style of the organization and its employees, as well as on the applications and functionality available to meet those needs.

For More Information

Information about the 2007 Microsoft Office system can be found on Office Online at: www.microsoft.com/office

Detailed information about the suites discussed in this paper may be found at:

• Microsoft Office Standard 2007 Product Guide
• Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 Product Guide
• Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 Product Guide
• Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 Product Guide