MS Office XP enters Indian marketplace

BANGALORE: Microsoft Corporation India has launched Office XP, the latest

version of its Office suite in India. The product has certain value-added

features on innovative means to interact with PCs, that includes speech and

handwriting recognition. Some of the new features are expected to improve the

efficiency of virtual teams. Furthermore, Office XP is XML-enabled and therefore

is an ideal platform for customized enterprise solutions. The estimated retail

price for the standard version of Office XP is Rs 20,500.

Microsoft India (managing director) Rajiv Kaul said, "Office XP is at

the very core of our .NET vision, redefining the end user computing experience.

With this release we give users the feature sets and functionality of Office

when they need it, where they want it and how they like it."

Office XP will be immediately available through Microsoft’s retail channel,

licensing programs and through OEMs. A 90 day-free support from all Microsoft

authorized support centres in India will offered to the customer. XP product

enhancements are based on three broad design goals, increasing end user

productivity, enabling communication and collaboration and providing flexible

and reliable business solutions, he said.

Office XP introduces four features to increase end-user productivity, and

simplify the computing experience. Smart Tags and Task Panes help simplify and

automate work processes within all Office applications, while speech and

handwriting recognition technology will enhance user experience and interaction,

he added.

Office XP has Exchange 2000; MSN Messenger and Hotmail bundled as part of the

package. It also includes new document reviewing, sharing and management

features, and a new tool called the SharePoint Team Services, which enhances

collaboration.

Office XP is available in four versions, Office XP Standard, Office XP

Professional, Office XP Developer and Office XP Small Business Edition. Each of

these products includes combination of products, including Microsoft Word 2002,

Microsoft Excel 2002, Microsoft PowerPoint 2002, Microsoft Outlook 2002,

Microsoft Access 2002, Microsoft FrontPage 2002, and Publisher 2002.

The recommended system requirements for all versions of Office XP are Windows

2000 Professional, with a Pentium III processor and 128MB of RAM. The product

will also run on Microsoft Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows ME,

Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 6 or any higher configuration.