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New Small Business Edition of Office Slated for Fall

A new edition of the Microsoft Office 2003 suite will try to attract small business users with an accounting program tailored to their needs. Microsoft Office Small Business Management Edition is slated for public availability in "early fall," Microsoft said this week.

The key feature of the Small Business Management Edition is called Small Business Accounting.

"Small Business Accounting will include core accounting, inventory management, quotes, sales orders, invoices, purchase order processing, employee management, job tracking, banking and financial reporting," Dave O'Hara, vice president of business development with Microsoft Business Solutions, said in a Q&A posted on the Microsoft Web site.

In addition to Small Business Accounting, the suite will include an updated version of Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager. According to O'Hara, integration of the accounting program with the business contact manager will give small businesses a more complete view of their business, help manage finances and offer customer relationship management functionality.

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.

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