Office XP Unlocks Hidden Knowledge

Gates Demonstrates How Office XP Unlocks Hidden Knowledge and Unleashes Next Wave of Productivity Gains at Office XP Launch Microsoft Office XP Dramatically Improves Personal and Business Productivity

AUCKLAND, New Zealand - Friday, June 1, 2001 - Today, at the Office XP product launch and availability announcement in New York, Bill Gates, Microsoft's Chairman and Chief Software Architect, explained how Office XP delivers the next generation of productivity advancements by enabling people to easily unlock hidden knowledge. Gates showcased Office XP innovations such as Smart Tags, SharePoint Team Services and XML integration that will enable people to capture, locate and harness hidden knowledge and greatly boost productivity.

Gates was joined on stage by Amazon.com President Jeff Bezos, Ford Motor Company's CIO Marv Adams, UPS, and Lexis-Nexis to illustrate how customers and partners are already taking advantage of Office XP to enable their employees and customers to revolutionise how they access and use information. Office XP is broadly available in retail stores today in 15 countries and more than 100 Office XP launch events are being held around the world for the most significant version of Office ever released.

"The power of Office XP to unlock hidden knowledge will transform personal productivity, enabling people to easily access the data they need, capture and share team information, and work more efficiently," said Gates. "Office XP is the key to empowering knowledge workers and unleashing the next wave of productivity gains."

Unlocking Hidden Knowledge Key to Transforming Productivity Gates described hidden knowledge as the enormous wealth of information that knowledge workers need, but cannot easily access or take advantage of today. This information exists and is being created at an ever-increasing rate, but is often hidden away in places that are not easily accessible or held by individuals who have not shared this information with others.

For example, individuals create some 740,000 terabytes of data around the world each year - including more than 610 billion email messages and other information such as billions of documents, meeting notes, and reports. This is roughly equivalent to the information contained in 7 billion copies of Webster's Dictionary.

Office XP removes obstacles to major productivity gains by making it easier to locate and capture hidden knowledge. Organizations can create smart tags and other XML-based solutions to enable people to quickly access information wherever it exists, and then use Office XP's familiar interface to improve how they work with that information. Teams can easily share information through SharePoint Team Services web sites and enhanced document and workflow collaboration capabilities. Individuals can use Smart Tags or the new search capabilities in Office XP to locate information in their Office applications, hard drive or on the Internet; or use new Task Panes to complete tasks more quickly.

Office XP Available Today Office XP is broadly available in retail stores today in 15 countries, including New Zealand. Over 100 Office XP launch events are being held around the world to launch the most significant version of Office ever released. Microsoft executives Steve Ballmer, Jeff Raikes, Steven Sinofsky, and Orlando Ayala are launching Office XP at events in Chicago, Washington, D.C., United Kingdom, and Houston. Also available today are several Office XP-family products, including Microsoft Visio® 2002, Microsoft MapPoint® 2002, Microsoft Publisher® 2002, and Microsoft FrontPage® 2002. Over 100 Web Presence Providers are also supporting FrontPage 2002-based Web sites. More information is posted at: http://www.microsoftwpp.com/wppsearch/. Office XP Product and Pricing Details Microsoft designed the Office XP suite to deliver a simplified and streamlined experience based on customer feedback. Customers will have a range of options to choose from, so they can select the Office XP suite that best suits their needs:

* Microsoft Office XP Standard. Office XP Standard is designed for users requiring a core set of desktop productivity tools and includes Microsoft Word 2002, Microsoft Excel 2002, the Microsoft Outlook® 2002 messaging and collaboration client, and the Microsoft PowerPoint® 2002 presentation graphics program.

Recommended retail prices: Office XP Standard Upgrade: $689 including GST Office XP Standard Full version: $1379 including GST

* Microsoft Office XP Professional. Office XP Professional is the most complete solution for customers, offering exciting new features in Word 2002, Excel 2002, PowerPoint 2002, Outlook 2002 and Access 2002.

Recommended retail prices: Office XP Professional Upgrade: $969 including GST Office XP Professional Full version: $1659 including GST Office XP Professional Subscription: $439 including GST

About Microsoft Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software - any time, any place and on any device.

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