Many organizations will struggle with the classic question: to upgrade, or not to upgrade? Organizations still using Office 2003 and 2007 should strongly consider the update, but 2010 users can afford to wait. This set will help organizations to decide between the different packages, assess pricing, understand the new features, and prepare for any challenges they might face in the upgrade process.
Some notes about the new release:
- Microsoft upgrades to SharePoint, Exchange, and Lync are limited to those that ease integration between the applications.
- Microsoft is releasing Office 2013 and offering both an on-premise and cloud-based version. The release should establish parity in terms of functionality between them, so deciding between the two comes down to deployment preference.
- SharePoint is the star of this release with improved user features. However, for most of the applications, the update was largely about streamlining and simplifying the UI.
- Document communication and collaboration is easy with the management tools (SharePoint, Lync, and Exchange) tightly integrated into the document creation applications.
Many of the administrative challenges that were introduced in 2010 still exist. The notable exception is the exchange mailbox architecture has been simplified.