News
Office 2003 SP1 Slated for June
- By Scott Bekker
- March 03, 2004
Microsoft plans to deliver the first service pack for Office 2003 in late June.
The company released the date recently in an announcement about feature changes coming in SP1 for the InfoPath 2003 component, a forms client intended primarily for use within XML-based business processes.
According to Microsoft, the late June delivery date for Office 2003 SP1 applies both to United States and international customers.
If Microsoft delivers SP1 by that deadline, it would put the service pack out eight months after the October launch of Office 2003. That's roughly how long Microsoft waited to release the first service pack for the previous version, Office XP, which launched in May 2001 and had a service pack that December.
Office 2003 was an unusually large release in terms of number of products for the Office business unit. It consisted of 18 products from Office applications to Office-branded servers to Office-branded services all wrapped together under the title "Office System." Components include Word 2003, Excel 2003, Outlook 2003, Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager, Access 2003, PowerPoint 2003, Publisher 2003, InfoPath 2003, OneNote 2003, Visio 2003, Project 2003, FrontPage 2003, Publisher 2003, SharePoint Portal Server 2003, Live Communications Server 2003, Exchange Server 2003, Live Meeting and Microsoft Office Solution Accelerators.
There are also six Office suites bundling various components. The four available at retail are the flagship Professional Edition, the Standard Edition, the Small Business Edition and the Student and Teacher Edition. A Basic Edition is available only preinstalled on new machines. A Professional Enterprise Edition, the only package to include InfoPath, is available only through volume licensing or academic licensing.
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.