As hard as it would be to wean yourself off Photoshop if you're a graphic designer, it would be just as hard to wean yourself from Microsoft's Office products. In current computer jargon to "google" something means to use a search engine, and for a long time now to throw something through "Word" has been a euphemism for using a word processor to edit a file. But I guess you may want to know a little about the features on offer in this particular version of this Suite. So, lets get on with it.

You would have had to have been sleeping under a rock for the last ten years not to know that Microsoft Office includes Word, Excel (spreadsheet), Outlook (email), PowerPoint (presentation manager), Access (database manager) and Publisher (desktop publishing). The 2003 suite also includes a new Business Contact Manager for Outlook. And, with all those products included, you will understand if I don't go into too much depth on each of them but offer an overview instead.

Upon the completion of a short and successful installation of the software (always a relief), I set about looking at the details of the product release.

Outlook has seen big improvements but I must admit at first I wasn't very excited about this. As an Outlook Express user I have always been reluctant to cross the Outlook threshold. But, as we all know, opening your emails has become a dangerous pastime ... pornographic spam and viruses abound ... Outlook now sports a "junk mail filter" which takes all the bother away from you by sifting through your emails and loading the suspect ones into a "junk-email" folder. This gives you the option of "skimming" through headings before pressing the "delete" key for the whole lot. Add to this the new Contact Manager, and a completely new "look" interface ... and I've now crossed that threshold and joined the Outlook supporters camp.

There are subtle changes to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Publisher with a slightly modified user interface which I think is more comfortable to use, with plumper 3d style buttons, a nice change really. Don't worry though, its still very familiar territory for existing users.

Some new features in a nutshell: Word has a new "reading view" which splits pages in half and is very eyeball friendly and finger friendly really as it takes half the time to page through a document. Access has a great new feature "object dependencies" which allows you to see what forms, queries, and tables depend on each other. Another Access new feature allows you to add Smart Tags to your Forms and Tables. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint now contain a Shared Workspace task pane where you can create new workspaces or jump to a library of shared documents specifically designed for team use. Excel has a new "compare worksheets" feature, allows two workbooks to be stacked side by side (ala Word) so comparing the contents becomes easier.

My conclusion was that this is not a major upgrade for individuals and small businesses, however, XML capabilities in Word and Excel help bridge the gap between desktop documents and databases, and give enterprises a reason to upgrade. However, I would suggest that if you avoided upgrading from 2000 to XP then this could be your opportunity to make a worthwhile upgrade purchase. It does seem that Microsoft Office 2003 Professional's biggest competitor may well be Microsoft Office XP. But regardless, I'm going to give Office 2003 Professional a thumbs up, even if the price is steep, the improvements to Outlook and the XML compatibility to Word and Excel make this an excellent upgrade choice for enterprises.