INNOVATION:The roll-out of Office 2010 sees Microsoft move towards a less physical product, boosting its green credentials while meeting customer needs
THE LAUNCH OF Office 2010 last month, the first upgrade of Microsoft’s ubiquitous software package in three years, represented a major logistical challenge for the corporation. Much of the work supporting the roll-out of this new suite across Europe, the Middle East and Africa was undertaken in Ireland by Microsoft’s EMEA Operations Centre (EOC).
The 600-strong EOC centre in Dublin is responsible for a range of manufacturing, logistics, customer support and finance activities for the EMEA region. Some 1.4 million units of the product were built and shipped from Ireland ahead of the launch and the EOC co-ordinated the supply of Office 2010 to some 2,000 retail and distribution hubs.
Spearheading the operation is Cathriona Hallahan, a Microsoft veteran who has risen through the ranks to become managing director of the EOC, having joined the company in 1986 as an accounts clerk. Naturally, Hallahan has seen huge changes over the years. In the 1980s, floppy disks and bulky user manuals were features of Microsoft’s products. Today, around 50 per cent of the Office product is being delivered in a media-less form.
“We are offering Office 2010 in three new forms to give our customers what they want, when they want it and where they want it,” she explains. The new options are a product key card (PKC), a point of sale activation (Posa) or an electronic software download (ESD) through retail outlets.
The PKC allows the customer to purchase a card containing a product key that will unlock a pre-installed copy of Office when they buy a new computer. The Posa card is an alternative to the physical box product and is purchased in-store. The retailer activates the card on purchase and the user can then download and unlock their copy of Office.
Alternatively, consumers in Ireland, the UK, France and Germany can purchase the product from the online stores of a range of retailers.
While all this this spells bad news for the outsourced suppliers of services such as printing, CD replication and warehouse facilities, it is good news for the planet. Microsoft estimates that Office 2010’s green credentials include a 50 per cent reduction in carbon footprint, a 60 per cent reduction in packaging components, the elimination of 200 tonnes of corrugate transit packaging and a reduction of 367 trucks trailing across the EMEA region.
Hallahan says the shift to a less physical product also reflects Microsoft’s move to a cloud-based computing model where services are supplied and access on demand from data centres. The corporation’s largest data centre outside the US is located in Dublin. “We will be launching a range of add-on features that can be accessed through the cloud. These will include specialised features or high-end users. For example, someone in the publishing business may require more sophisticated fonts or art-clips than a standard user would not require,” she explains.
The shift away from a manufacturing-based model to a digitally-based delivery makes sense on a number of levels – not least for Ireland Inc. The 600 staff employed at the EOC are engaged in high-end work. The centre manages a portfolio of 1,400 products and is engaged in end-to-end processes including co-ordinating production with print and disc replication suppliers, handling customer support, order management and fulfilment, billing, partner management and managing the digital supply chain. Some $16 billion of revenues and 500 million transactions are now processed here annually.
Ireland continues to be a centre of key strategic importance for Microsoft, but it is increasingly logistics and partner management rather than manufacturing that drives this part of Microsoft’s business.
Boosting productivity is key aim of Office 2010
Office 2010 represents a significant leap forward for Microsoft’s most popular suite of software. Enhancing users’ productivity is the key aim of the package that includes enhanced versions of the applications Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint.
From a business user’s perspective, the biggest benefit of Office 2010 is the ease with which it integrates with Microsoft’s flagship collaboration tool Sharepoint, says Richard Moore, business manager information worker at Microsoft. A new version of Sharepoint has also been launched in conjunction with Office 2010 with this in mind. “It’s a much more cloud-centric version making it easier to access files, edit them and share information so it will enhance collaboration and ultimately boost productivity for organisations,” says Moore.
Office 2010 is designed to meet the increasingly sophisticated needs of business users. As an example, Moore says that 25 per cent of all PowerPoint presentations now feature video files. Previously this necessitated a third-party tool but now you can edit videos within the programme and share versions easily.
Collaboration is now also possible in Word where multiple users can work on a document simultaneously while many of the key functions such as cut and paste and print have been enhanced. The e-mail programme Outlook has also been reconfigured to allow users to set rules to prevent annoying features of being copied-in endlessly on group e-mails to be eliminated, for example.
Three versions of Office 2010 are available, one for home/student market, one for small businesses and a professional version for larger businesses. At the retail end, Declan Ronayne, managing director of DSG Retail, that runs Currys, Dixons and PC World in Ireland, says that he expects Office 2010 to provide a Summer boost to his stores. Office 2010 prices start at €99.
