The VAR Guy

With the upcoming release of Office 2010 expected in June, businesses at all levels are considering the upgrade to Microsoft’s latest iteration of productivity software. However, after the adoption problems of Office 2007, Office 2010 might be a hard sell. It’s likely that the many of your clients skipped 2007 altogether and are still using 2003 or perhaps even 2000.  Some clients may view the specter of a new version of Office with more trepidation than excitement.

When it comes to Microsoft Office sales, there are rumors and then there are facts. Some blogs are reporting that Microsoft had to halt Office sales on January 11 in order to comply with a recent court order. But before you press the panic button take this piece of advice: Ignore the rumors and check out Mary Jo Foley’s report, which includes proper context and comments from Microsoft.  That’s all The VAR Guy has to say about that.

It’s been 3 years since the last iteration of Microsoft Office, so that means it’s only natural for Microsoft release a new version. The 2010 version is promising a few different flavors and price points. Here’s the skinny on the Redmond cash-cow that is Office 2010.

Google’s sneaking in one more acquisition before the New Year: DocVerse, providers of a Microsoft Office plugin that enables real-time, multi-user collaboration, essentially causing Word, Excel, and Powerpoint to behave like Google Docs. While Google isn’t willing to make a statement on its DocVerse strategy, here are our quick observations.

Despite some misleading and sensationalistic headlines, there’s no need for VARs to worry about a court ruling involving Microsoft Office 2007 and Word 2007. In fact, Microsoft has issued updates for the software in order to comply with a court order. Without the updates, Microsoft would have been barred from selling Office 2007 and Word 2007 starting January 11, 2010. Here’s a recap of the legal issues so far.

Stuart Crawford, a long-time IT consultant who is fluent in all things Microsoft, claims OpenOffice isn’t ready for business. The VAR Guy agrees with many of Crawford’s points — but our resident blogger sees a bigger problem with OpenOffice that Crawford failed to mention.

Is IBM gearing up to disrupt Microsoft Office? Apparently so. In fact, Big Blue is bringing Lotus Symphony 1.2 — an open source application suite — to the Mac. (Lotus Symphony already runs on Linux and Windows.) And IBM is recruiting channel partners to back Symphony. Here’s the scoop.

Software competition on the desktop continues to increase. The latest example includes Lotus Symphony, a free IBM software suite that could give Microsoft Office a run for its money in selected business settings.  After introducing Symphony as a free Internet download last year, IBM is now back — offering annual Symphony support contracts at the flat rate of $25,000. Suite! Er, sweet! Here’s why.