Office 97 supported with new Web site, IS tools

Microsoft has revamped its Office Web site as Office Update, a service andsupport community for users of Office 97. A corporate support program called Enterprise Empowerment Pack (EEP) will follow.

The Office Update Web site has three main areas that offer users assistanceand help, tool downloads, and Office 97 add-ons, patches, and updates.Product manager Andrew Dixon says the site is "intelligent" and can profileusers if desired so that they receive appropriate email updates about thesite, for example.

"Customers need to see an on-going value," said Dixon, adding that other Microsoft products will get similar Update sites eventually. The Office product will be updated from this site until the next version, Office 99,becomes available. "Only when there is a significant architectural change in the product will Microsoft launch another version [of Office]," he said.

If you use Office 97, you really need to check out the Office Update Web site.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise Empowerment Pack will be supplied to IS managerson a CD-ROM, updated on a regular basis. It will contain over 600 MB of help files, tools, and updates. The release version will come out some timein the next week; Ford Motor Company has been using a beta version forseveral months.

"The Enterprise Empowerment Pack was designed for large organizations. It includes TCO and return-on-investment tools to help IS mangers decide whether to upgrade or not," Price said