Snippets from an eWeek article.
The most likely scenarios for Office 12 include enterprise content life cycle; knowledge directory and insight; unified communications, which would bring instant messaging, telephony and other communications together; and integrating them all into business process automation, enterprise project automation, deployment and small business.
Sketching some of the broad trends that Office 12 will address, Capossela said there is a real need for users to cross corporate boundaries more easily, so Office 12 will address this by allowing self-hosted, shared sites outside the corporate intranet.
There are also huge pressures around having an “always-on and always-connected” scenario, which will be addressed in Office 12 by giving people access to the information they need to make core decisions. These innovations will come through things such as its upcoming Scorecard Manager product, known as Maestro.
“Search, a frustrating experience today, also will be taken to a new level in Office 12, as will the complex issues of compliance and meeting government regulations,” Capossela said. “This is the one where people will be most surprised at the amount of work we have done.”
“So, where are people looking for solutions? Messaging and collaboration, portals and enterprise content management, enterprise project management, Office as a smart client, and deployment. We are spending most of our marketing dollars on these five areas,” he said.
Also, take a look at an old Microsoft Watch article.