[43] in sw-release-announce
MS Office XP Release Effort Underway
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bryant C. Vernon)
Wed Jul 25 15:44:18 2001
Message-Id: <5.0.2.1.0.20010725145207.00a5ec68@po14.mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 15:41:43 -0400
To: support-lt@MIT.EDU, service-lt@MIT.EDU, thenewgroup-tl@MIT.EDU,
itpartners@MIT.EDU, winpartners@MIT.EDU, macpartners@MIT.EDU,
sw-release-announce@MIT.EDU
From: "Bryant C. Vernon" <bcvernon@MIT.EDU>
Cc: itag@MIT.EDU, infosys@MIT.EDU
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Date: July 25, 2001
To: Members of the MIT Community
Re: MS Office XP Release Effort Underway
Office XP Release Effort Underway
-------------------------------
On May 31st of this year, Microsoft released the latest version of its
office suite, Microsoft Office XP, for the PC platform.
The MS Office XP Release Team will soon begin testing the compatibility of
MS Office XP with other supported office suites, including cross-platform
behaviors and the functionality of supported business applications within
the MIT environment, with the goal of establishing support by the end of
Summer. (IS will support the standard version of Office only, and only
certain programs and features of it).
IS does not recommend that MIT users upgrade to Office XP until the team
has had a chance to fully evaluate it. Although users can no longer
purchase copies or licenses for Office 2000, you can purchase Office XP
licenses and use them as Office 2000 licenses. Later, those same licenses
will still be valid if you choose to upgrade to Office XP. For more
information about this policy, you can contact MIT's NECX account
representative, Maurine Devlin.
Furthermore, even if the software proves fit for MIT, note that the
software has higher system requirements than previous versions of the
product, thus there may be hardware upgrades needed before you can run the
program.
New Features
------------
Office XP provides bug fixes and many new features:
-- New Smart Tags appear as needed (when you paste data, for example, or
make an error in a Microsoft Excel formula) to provide options for
completing a task quickly.
-- New Task Panes that organize relevant commands in a convenient side window.
-- Office Assistant is now hidden by default and only appears when help is
activated. Furthermore, you can ask a question simply by typing a question
into the office menu bar without launching the Answer Wizard or Office
Assistant.
--New Application and Document Recovery features provide a safe method for
quitting a program that has stopped responding; it lets you initiate
recovery of a document while you are shutting down the program.
An overview of the new product features is available at
http://www.microsoft.com/office/evaluation/fastfacts.htm,
with a full feature tour at
http://www.microsoft.com/office/evaluation/indepth/default.htm.
Testing
-------
We will be soliciting testers within the next few weeks and will send a
separate message with details.
Software Distribution
---------------------
You can purchase MS Office XP from NECX.
More Information
----------------
If you have any questions about the release effort, please contact the MS
Office XP Release Team at officexp-release@mit.edu or visit the MS Office
XP release notebook: http://web.mit.edu/swrt/officexp/
Bryant C. Vernon
Office XP Product Release Coordinator
Software Release Team
Bryant C. Vernon
Product Release Coordinator
MIT Software Release Team
