Office 2003 'still has potential for channel'
Partners can build services around two-year-old product, MS says
Just a few months before the product's second birthday, Microsoft said it has reached a crucial point in the deployment of Office 2003, and claimed opportunities are still there for the channel.
Richard Glew, director of the partner marketing information worker business group at Microsoft, said: "It's been 20 months since Office 2003 shipped and it is reaching the tipping point in terms of customer demand. We are feeling very bullish. It has evolved from a personal tool to a solution development platform."
According to Glew, demand for Office 2003 is outstripping previous versions of the software. This is despite the fact that last March the vendor snubbed its reseller partners by offering IT retailer Tiny.com the chance to bundle a trial version of Office 2003 with new PCs in an exclusive deal.
At the time, Microsoft said: "This pilot is currently available only to OEMs, not resellers. Microsoft is seeking to test customer reaction to the trial product."
However, this seems not to have had an adverse effect on sales. Glew claimed sales of Office 2003 have been higher than XP. "We are expecting sales of Office 2003 to account for 30 per cent of the mid-market by the end of our financial year," he said.
Target markets for the software include enterprise project management, the public sector and HR, and sales and marketing management, Glew added. Microsoft is doing well in the financial services market, where Office plays a key role around compliance issues, he said.
Terry Doherty, chief executive of Microsoft Gold Partner Doherty IT Solutions, agreed that there are channel opportunities.
"We pair the Office system with Windows SharePoint services, and it is the first version of the software that we can go to customers with and say truthfully that it's a compelling reason to upgrade," he said.
"There are lots of ways for partners to build additional functionality into the product suite, and we have generated a lot of new revenue from the software. Microsoft has finally joined all the dots with a product that connects to the back end of the infrastructure and it is truly a platform to build applications on."