Office 2003 Editions can help organizations and their employees transform information into impact. New and familiar products, features, and functionality improve how people and organizations connect to people, information, and business processes.

Advances in intranet collaboration through integration with the collaboration and information-sharing portal, Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003, enable employees to access and share information both internally and externally. Support for information rights management (IRM) and industry-standard Extensible Markup Language (XML) provide a platform on which to quickly build cost-effective solutions that can have an immediate impact.

Includes:

• Word 2003


• Excel 2003


• Outlook 2003


• PowerPoint 2003


• Access 2003


• Publisher 2003


• Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager

Connect People

Streamline communication and collaboration between internal and external team
members by using the desktop productivity programs that many people rely on
every day.

• Enable teams to modify, access, and save documents in a central location
  by using Document Workspaces. In addition, the Shared Workspace task pane
  displays tasks, related documents, links, and member lists that notify you
  when your team members are online. Document Workspaces and the Shared Workspace
  task pane require Microsoft Windows Server 2003 running Microsoft Windows
  SharePoint Services.


• Share documents with team members for modifications and have control over
  what gets changed. You can choose permission settings and allow coauthors
  to alter only the sections or formatting that you choose.


• Improve the efficiency of your meetings with Meeting Workspaces, which offer
  a centralized location for sharing agendas, visual resources, and other documentation.
  Meeting Workspaces require Windows Server 2003 running Windows SharePoint
  Services.


• Contact team members quickly with instant messaging (IM), which can be displayed
  in most programs in Office 2003 Editions and lets you know when your team
  members are online. Online presence information requires Windows Server 2003
  running Windows SharePoint Services.


• Schedule meeting times quickly with team members. When you use the personal
  information manager and communication program, Microsoft Office Outlook
  2003, with Windows SharePoint Services, you can compare schedules side by
  side or view team calendars.

Connect Information

Manage, prioritize, and act on an ever-increasing volume of
business information.

• Read e-mail more quickly. The Outlook 2003 Reading Pane displays twice as
  much content as previous versions of Outlook, reducing the amount you need
  to scroll to read e-mail messages.


• Prioritize e-mail messages by using Quick Flags to indicate a priority or
  time-sensitive messages.


• Save time spent rereading e-mail messages in threaded conversations. You
  can group all messages by subject line and then quickly scan or delete entire
  conversation threads.


• Find important e-mail messages immediately. Use Search Folders to save commonly
  used searches and then use them when you need them. Store the resulting messages
  in any folder, and still access them quickly. Search folders require a connection
  to Microsoft Exchange 2003.



• Help block junk e-mail messages from cluttering your Inbox with the new
  Junk E-Mail Filter in Outlook 2003.


• Use Outlook 2003 in different network environments. Outlook stays connected
  to a network even when you roam between different connections.


• Help protect your privacy. With Outlook, you can choose when to include
  Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) content in an e-mail message, and can help
  prevent unsolicited attachments from automatically returning information to
  the originating server.


• Keep working regardless of your connection status. If your network connection
  is unreliable, the Cached Exchange Mode in Outlook 2003 saves and displays
  the information from the last time you connected to the network. Caching requires
  Exchange Server 2003.


• Access resources while working on a files. The new Research task pane can
  help you access electronic dictionaries, thesauruses, online research sites,
  and proprietary company information while working in Office 2003 programs.
  You can find information and incorporate it into your work quickly and easily.
  


• Take notes directly in your files. If you use a Tablet PC, you can use the
  tablet pen to add comments.