LAS VEGAS, Nov. 11, 2001 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that it will extend Microsoft® Office XP, its industry-leading desktop productivity suite, to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the Tablet PC mobile computer. The new functionality will incorporate support for the Tablet PC’s mobile form factor and pen-based technologies in Office XP applications, including Word 2002, Outlook® 2002 and PowerPoint®
2002. The functionality will be delivered as an add-on and will be available at approximately the same time as the Tablet PC in the second half of 2002.
“The Tablet PC represents the next wave of mobile computing, so it’s natural we’d extend the power of our Office XP applications to give our customers the best experience on this versatile platform,” said Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of Office at Microsoft. “Our goal has always been to give customers the tools they want, when and where they want them, and enabling Office XP to take advantage of this highly mobile PC helps us to deliver on that goal.”
The Tablet PC, based on the Microsoft Windows®
XP Tablet PC Edition operating system, represents an evolution of today’s laptop PCs. What makes it compelling for the Office XP user is that it allows knowledge workers to use the full power of their PC and their productivity tools in more aspects. In addition to enabling pen-based capabilities, Tablet PCs also will be among the most mobile PCs ever built, with long battery life, high-speed microprocessors, built-in wireless capabilities and a high-resolution display. They will weigh as little as 2.5 pounds.
The Office XP add-ins will enable Windows XP Tablet PC Edition users to do the following:
-
Create Outlook e-mail messages handwritten in ink to send to any recipient
-
Add comments to Word documents handwritten in ink (in addition to the typed-text comments)
-
Mark up PowerPoint presentation slides electronically with digital ink to provide feedback and suggest changes
-
Integrate handwritten notes taken in the Tablet PC’s Journal (a note-taking utility) with the contacts, calendar and task information in Outlook
Microsoft also announced that an upcoming version of another Office family application, Microsoft Visio®
, the business and technical diagramming application, would include native ink support and new Tablet-specific features. With this new functionality, customers will be able to more naturally capture and convey complex systems, ideas or processes in ways never before possible with a desktop software package. A preview of this functionality was presented at last month’s Professional Developers Conference.
About Office XP
Office XP provides a much smarter work experience for individuals, teams and organizations. Office XP makes productivity simple for people by helping them get the most out of Office and giving them tools they can rely on. Office XP also provides a flexible way to solve business needs by delivering rich business solutions and improved security and reliability tools that businesses need to deploy and manage Office.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.
Microsoft, Outlook, PowerPoint, Windows and Visio are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.
