The codename for the upcoming release of Office, currently slated for a 2009/2010 release timeframe, is Office "14." Yep, Microsoft is superstitious and doesn"t believe in using the number 13. In December 2006, Eric Vigesaa, Program Manager for Office system client applications, stated during a TechNet radio chat: "13 is unlucky, so we"re calling it Office 14." So how much exactly is Microsoft committing to spend on planning Office 14? Around $930 million per year in R&D funding, which equates to about 20% more than Office 12. A lot of the innovations that go into the Office System are long-term investments which build upon the foundation and functionality delivered in previous releases; in this case, Office 14 will initially take away and benefit from Office 12.
Microsoft hopes to focus on everything from the enterprise perspective to the individual viewpoint. The software giant is breaking down its "Investigation Areas" for Office 14 into the following categories:
- Enterprise Content Management: Author, manage and organize complex documents and content
- Communication and Collaboration: Keep communities, co-workers, partners and customers in sync
- Business Process and Business Intelligence: Make the right information available throughout the business process
- Individual Impact: Amplify the impact of your people
- Office Business Platform and Manageability & Security: make it simple to build client and web-based business applications and make worldwide deployment reliable, secure and easily manageable