I was poking around the archives for other nifty Office tidbits and rediscovered this article from CNET News.com:
Microsoft wants servers to drive Office sales
Here are the salient points:
“It’s been clear for a long time that they are really at a state of diminishing return when it comes to adding features,” DeGroot said—particularly when additions are not evident to the end user, he added.Adding features that depend on linkages between desktop and server software drives additional server revenue, particularly products such as Live Communications Server that are not widely used, he said. Richer features also allow Microsoft to continue offering an Office-centric alternative to Web-browser based client software, he added.
Office is “going to be a platform for applications. People are comfortable with Office in general so you can extend it a little bit and all of a sudden you have data flowing in and out. It’s not just a Word document any more,” Gerontianos said.
I think it more likely Microsoft wants Office to generate server sales, particularly the SharePoint Portal Server, Live Communications Server, InfoPath Forms Server and upcoming Office server(s). At the same time, with the move to Office Open XML and the release of the IBF 1.5, Microsoft is creating new playing fields for third-party applications and solutions. That always makes developers happy.