Microsoft Canada Co. Launches Microsoft® Office System To Tackle Business Challenges Facing Canadian Organizations

Canadian companies gain strategic advantage with the help of Microsoft Office System software, through improved business processes, better collaboration and easier access to information

Mississauga, Ontario - October 21, 2003 — Microsoft Canada Co. today announced the availability of Microsoft Office System. Building on the familiar applications of Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office System addresses the challenges facing Canadian organizations by providing them with the tools to help create effective teams, streamline business processes, extract intelligence from information and improve personal productivity.

"In developing Microsoft Office System, we worked with 600,000 beta testers worldwide - including 45,000 Canadians - enabling us to deliver the most powerful release of Microsoft Office ever," said Frank Clegg, President, Microsoft Canada Co. "We believe Microsoft Office System will help Canadian organizations overcome major challenges such as inefficient collaboration, inaccessible information and e-mail overload."

Microsoft Office System is composed of industry-leading productivity programs, servers, services and solutions such as Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft Office SharePoint™ Portal Server and three new Microsoft Office applications: OneNote™ 2003 note-taking program, InfoPath™ 2003 information gathering program and Live Communications Server 2003.

Using Microsoft Office 2003 as the cornerstone of Microsoft Office System, Microsoft has tightly integrated these different applications, servers and services. This provides a framework for businesses to help bridge the gap between disconnected activities and data, enhance collaboration, provide access to enterprise information from multiple devices, and overcome information fatigue.

"Access to up-to-date business information is imperative for driving improvements in Canadian workforce efficiency, whether it's increased efficiency in collaboration, decision making or dissemination of knowledge across the organization," says Warren Shiau, Senior Analyst Software, IDC Canada. "Microsoft Office System allows the information worker to move from creating and working with static documents to using and leveraging dynamic information. This opens the door to producing a high return on investment by providing businesses with more timely access to the information needed for better, faster and more accurate decision making."

Canadian customers who have adopted Microsoft Office System are already experiencing increased productivity through improved collaboration capabilities and better process management.

Using Microsoft Office System, Edmonton-based PCL Constructors Inc. has coupled Windows® SharePoint Services operating system with familiar Microsoft Office 2003 applications. This has helped the company to save valuable time and resources, and enabled teamwork across disciplines and among North American locations. The Alberta Cancer Board has also found that Microsoft Office System provides an effective means to disseminate data and collaborate on patient and research information through Windows SharePoint Services, Microsoft Office 2003 and Windows Server™ 2003 operating system. And in British Columbia, the Fraser Health Authority is significantly reducing the work required to initiate, approve, and implement new business projects with Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003 and Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003.

Microsoft Office System

Microsoft Office System allows businesses to tap into the knowledge of their workforce and share information across the organization. Microsoft Office System helps create smart clients, which offer familiar Microsoft software interfaces as front-end connections to simplify the use of complex back-end line-of-business applications. To provide students, small business owners, and volume-license businesses with the tools they need, Microsoft Office Editions are customized for each customer set, including retail, preinstalled, volume-license or academic-license editions.

Microsoft Office System includes:

Worldwide Availability

Microsoft Office System family of products was designed for customers worldwide and is available in retail stores on October 21, 2003.

More information is available at http://www.microsoft.ca/office

About Microsoft Canada Co.

Established in 1985, Microsoft Canada Co. is the Canadian subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq "MSFT") the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. Microsoft Canada provides nationwide sales, marketing, consulting and local support services in both French and English. Headquartered in Mississauga, Microsoft Canada has 10 regional offices across the country dedicated to empowering people through great software - any time, any place and on any device. Visit Microsoft Canada's web site at www.microsoft.ca

© 2003 Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft, FrontPage, InfoPath, OneNote, SharePoint, Visio, Windows and Windows Server are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

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