Office 2000 Garners Top Honors and Critical Acclaim from Industry Press and Leading Analysts
REDMOND, Wash., January 18, 2000 — Microsoft Office 2000, the world’s leading desktop productivity suite, has garnered top honors and acclaim from industry press, analysts and customers since its release.
Office 2000 has been recognized with top awards — including
“Product of the Year”
for 1999 — from industry publications. In addition, leading analysts Giga Information Group and GartnerGroup have found that Office 2000 significantly improved overall productivity and decreased the total cost of ownership for organizations that participated in their independent research.
Office 2000 Touted as
“
Best-of-Breed
”
Office 2000 has garnered numerous industry awards since its release, evidence of the strong quality of the product, according to Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft’s senior vice president of Office.
”
Receiving recognition from these respected publications means a great deal to us,” Sinofsky said. “We are extremely proud to be honored among the best products in the market because we work very hard to listen to our customers and to continually improve our products. We feel Office 2000 has truly addressed the needs of our customers.”
Awards Office 2000 has won include:
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PC Computing: Most Valuable Product, productivity suite
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InfoWorld: Product of the Year 1999, business productivity software
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Information Week: One of the ten most important and influential products introduced in the last decade
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Home Office Computing: One of the 100 Best Products of the Year
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Computer Shopper Magazine: 14 Annual Shoppers’ Choice, business productivity
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PC Magazine: Editors’ Choice award
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PC Week: Best Productivity Software
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C/Net: One of the best products in 1999, software
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The Washington Times: One of the best new software products of 1999
Office 2000 Improves Productivity, Reduces Costs
Two recent analyst studies indicate that deploying Office 2000 can significantly lower the total cost of ownership (TCO) for an organization and improve end-user productivity. Organizations were found to receive significant business value due to the self-repairing applications, the
“Custom Help”
feature, the collaboration features and the deployment tools included in Office 2000.
Giga Information Group’s Total Economic Impact (TEI) framework measures benefits, flexibility and risk by assessing the overall financial impact of a specific technology. The TEI methodology quantifies the impact of technology changes on all areas of an organization by measuring the estimated changes to the environment. Giga Information Group’s study at Rhone-Poulenc Rorer (now Aventis Pharmaceuticals, following a merger with Houscht-Marion Roussel) found that Office 2000 greatly improved business productivity and significantly decreased costs. Specifically, the study found that deploying Office 2000 could:
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Reduce desktop operating costs by 17 percent over Office 97, due to self-repairing applications, its
“Custom Help”
feature, and lower information technology (IT) deployment and maintenance costs -
Offer a potential 16 percent to 25 percent improvement in business productivity over Office 97
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Offer a potential internal rate-of-return ranging between 134 percent and 333 percent
GartnerGroup’s Total Cost of Ownership Assessment examined the potential impact of Office 2000 on TCO compared with Office 97 for two global organizations. Results of this assessment demonstrated nearly identical results in reducing overall TCO and indirect end-user costs for both organizations that upgraded from Office 97. These results are especially noteworthy since these organizations are in completely different industries and geographic locations, and reflect different organizational and social cultures, Sinofsky said. Both studies show that Office 2000 lessened indirect end-user costs and reduced the organization’s TCO. Specifically:
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Overall TCO decreased 10 percent and 9 percent respectively at each organization over Office 97– an estimated savings of $1, 708 and $1,200 per user per year for each organization.
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Deployment planning and configuration time were reduced by more than 70 percent for each organization due to Office 2000 deployment features and tools.
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The number of deployment packages was reduced by over 50 percent due to a single worldwide executable for Office 2000.
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Indirect end-user costs such as self-support, peer support and application development decreased 17 percent for each customer once Office 2000 was deployed.
Customers Increase Business Value by Upgrading to Office 2000
Customers are also recognizing the benefits of upgrading to Office 2000, Sinofsky said. For example, Aventis Pharmaceuticals, a global leader in the pharmaceutical industry, plans to deploy Office 2000 on more than 30,000 desktops. The company upgraded to Office 2000 because of the software’s strong collaboration features, self-repairing applications and rich data analysis tools, said Carlyle Maranhao, a global project manager for Aventis.
“The Giga TEI analysis is compelling because it quantifiably shows how deploying Office 2000 addresses both present and future organizational needs,”
Maranhao said. “The collaboration features, self repairing applications and deployment and maintenance tools in Office 2000 make it a compelling upgrade.
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Banco BBA, a leading Brazilian investment bank that has deployed Office 2000 to 90 percent of its organization, found that Office 2000 decreased end-user downtime by approximately 41 percent. Banco BBA chose Office 2000 because of its collaboration features, ease of deploying a single worldwide executable, better deployment and maintenance tools and self-repairing applications, said Francisco Manuel Coelho, General Manager for IT at Banco BBA.
“Reducing indirect end-user and direct deployment planning and configuration costs have allowed us to reallocate IT resources to more strategic value-added business initiatives,” Coelho said. “We are excited that our upgrade decision has already enhanced our competitive advantage.”
