MS Seeks a Cure for Office 97 Headache

Software giant to deliver fix for backward compatibility problems experienced by corporates

Microsoft has acknowledged that customers are having backward compatibility problems for Office 97 and will ship a fix to correct it.

Corporates ran into difficulties with Office 97 after they discovered they could not view the documents when running previous versions of Office.

According to the software giant, the problems began after it decided to use a different file format for Office 97 adding functionality like hyperlinks.

One reseller said: ?It?s caused a lot of confusion and emailing is a nightmare. If you?re a corporate in a mixed environment, using Office 97 you can?t save as normal: you?ve got to save as Office 95 if you want to be able to read the files using Office 95.?

Shaun Frohlich, chairman of Bytes Computers, said: ?There is a problem with backward compatibility but it?s more of a dull toothache than a real pain. We?re looking forward to getting the cure from MS.?

The vendor is rushing out an Office 97 Service Pack, which is due out in July, to fix the technical hitch.

Johnathan Hulse, Office product manager at Microsoft, said: ?There have been some issues with backward compatibility so we have released this service pack to try to make it easier for large corporates to migrate. We underestimated our installed base.?

Microsoft intends to train 10,000 solution providers to deal with Office 97 migration this year and will be holding a series of workshops over the summer.

J Microsoft has recruited 29 resellers, including Skillsgroup, Management Software, Research Machines and Akhter to become communication tools for schools resellers, helping to support the software vendor?s sales push into education.

The dealers were all signed up after a free day?s training last month.