Microsoft Office 2000
Introduction

How much training will you need? This introduction may be helpful. Focus now on what tasks that you'll need to do with office software. For example, maybe you could be making better use of the World Wide Web. Do you need to collaborate with people across time zones and borders, or in the next office? Would you like to create and maintain an intranet for your company, or create a newsletter for your customers?

Office 2000 has the tools that can help you work more efficiently and creatively. The articles and tutorials point out some of the new ways to work with Office. Use an hour or two per week to discover efficient ways to use Office tools.

Microsoft Office 2000 is a suite of applications that includes a word processor, a spreadsheet application, a database application, and a graphical presentation package. Office also includes a personal information and mail manager, a web development tool, a graphics design system, and a desktop publishing application.

Early versions of Office aimed to provide users with integrated applications that had a similar look and feel. This would reduce the learning curve for users and improve their productivity.

Office 97 extended the original aims of the product and offered improved features for communicating and for sharing data and documents. It also took advantage of the Internet by including applications that enabled Internet and intranet access and providing some web-publishing capabilities.

Office 2000 introduces a range of new features and incorporates new applications. It also introduces a number of new tools that use web technology to improve collaboration and information sharing.

Office 2000 was designed with three main objectives in mind:

1. Simplify the user experience
2. Increase Office integration with the Web
3. Reduce the cost of PC ownership

To simplify the user experience, Office focuses on its intelligence features, which personalize applications according to the way they are used by each user. It has also improved its help functions, including the Office Assistant, to better aid the user. It has strengthened its provision of end-user training and assistance.

In a large number of businesses today, people need to use and share information quickly and efficiently. A lot of this information is stored on personal hard drives or network servers. By integrating web technology, Office 2000 provides central sites that are convenient for storing and managing resources.

Office 2000 offers more integration with FrontPage 2000, simplifying the creation and management of intranets. It also facilitates better information sharing by integrating with the Microsoft BackOffice family of products.

BackOffice is a comprehensive set of integrated server products to help you run your business. It includes fast file and print, messaging and groupware, database, host connectivity, systems management, Internet and Web, and information retrieval and search services.

To reduce the cost of PC ownership, Office 2000 introduces a number of new features for the installation, deployment, and administration of the package. This includes central control over these tasks and self-repairing applications.