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Comeback Kid: Can
Contextual Content Save Microsoft Office from Irrelevance? |
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John Blossom
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25
August 2003 |
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Microsoft has been unveiling a steady
and growing stream of commercial content partners who are
integrating professionally-oriented wares into its Office
2003 product line via its new
Research Library. Having so much invested in the power of
its content authoring tools, it is wholly in Microsoft's interest
to give today's leading publishers - the individuals and
institutions equipped with powerful content authoring tools
- the ability to integrate commercial content efficiently.
But are publishers and the institutions that they serve really ready to accept
and manage this new environment?
There are as many dangers as there are opportunities to
explore. |
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Elvis. Sinatra. Garland. Nixon.
Napoleon. Our popular culture is littered with figures who had
left their glory days behind and yet found new life in new
packaging. Revered as much for their ability to survive as
for their dimming talents, comeback legends are inherently
appealing to those who have suffered similar fates as they have
grown up alongside these icons. So it is that we have to tip
our hat to Microsoft for its latest version of its perennial
Office suite, now equipped with content integration features
that promise new life for this omnipresent but fading software
star. Office 2003 includes a new feature called "Research
Library", which can provide "right-click" content lookup
into internal and external databases - including content from
commercial publishers such as
Factiva,
LexisNexis,
Gale Group,
eLibrary and newly announced partners
Ovid and
Thomson MICROMEDEX. Like trilling out a duet with Tony
Bennett, these major content aggregators hope to keep their
names in the limelight as institutions begin to deploy the new
Office package on a network near you.
At first glance, it appears as if this
show may have legs. Microsoft's Research Library brings
professional-grade content sources right into the most common
publishing tools in the world, thus enabling today's leading
publishers - the individuals and institutions equipped with
these and other publishing tools - to create content using
these sources more efficiently and effectively. With its
complimentary Office Marketplace ecommerce features, publishers
and distributors can lock in existing institutional clients to
their services or pick up additional revenues via spot
purchases or periodical subscriptions. To Microsoft's delight,
all of this is accomplished without people having to go to a
Web portal or search engine to initiate a query: users can stay
comfortably embedded in their good old Office apps, and stay
focused on just the tools that provide Microsoft - and their
content partners - the cream of their revenues. With the
upcoming version of Windows (codenamed Longhorn), digital
rights management capabilities will allow publishers to manage
their wares as authors using Office tools distribute their
professional content to their audiences. All in all, this
is a well-timed initiative that promises to leverage many of
today's major trends in content creation and distribution
highly effectively.
Research Library may buy both Microsoft
and its partners duet revenues for some time to come in
the institutional space, no doubt. But there are a number of
dangers in this effort for Microsoft, content vendors and the
institutions to be aware of. Here are a few of our takes as to
what to watch out for as Research Library begins to sing out:
- Beware the Google-killers.
Premium content aggregators have little choice but to follow
the context of their content's use, wherever it may lead
them. Working with a powerful and well-placed channel partner
like Microsoft that provides built-in content purchasing
channels is a far easier path for them to take than to
wrestle with contextual content sales via open Web search
engines that have no proprietary standards to leverage. But
what happens when Microsoft begins to phase in
"Google-killing" search technology into the Office content
integration picture? Content vendors may then find themselves
with far less leverage in defining the value of their
content in specific contexts versus other sources, and with
diminished ability to define that context. By propping up
Office suite sales, publishers are helping Microsoft to buy
time to close down competitive distribution channels for
professional content.
- Beware the value of Office.
It's omnipresent and defines much of the day-to-day workflow
of today's professionals. How can you argue with success? But
in fact, much of the content being created today by
professionals does not fit well into the standalone PC-based
world of Office content authoring tools. Office offers few
content collaboration tools that enable effective
collaboration between networks of authors. Emailing Excel
spreadsheets is like waiting for the
Pony Express to show up, and yet this kind of inefficient
knowledge sharing still dominates most institutional
publishing thanks to Office. Simpler solutions such as weblog
authoring tools and collaborative workflow tools such as
iManage
are much more cost-effective in delivering bottom-line
content publishing value than investing hundreds of dollars
per person in overpowered, general-purpose standalone
software. Habits are hard to break, especially when they are
so easy to maintain on many levels, but organizations that
have taken up the "No Powerpoint" chant already may take up
the "No Word" chant when they realize that organizations that
have "kicked the habit" are seeing bottom-line results from
improving how individual publishers reach their audiences.
- Beware neglecting other integration
channels. The ability to integrate vendor-supplied
content into portals and web-based authoring tools via
capabilities such as Web services is still in its infancy.
Microsoft's efforts with Office come at a time when
publishers have the opportunity to explore how they may be
able to accomplish similar goals without reliance on Office
and Windows "Longhorn" rights management hooks, and so the
timing is at least curious. The danger is that major
publishers and the institutions that they serve may be
tempted to defer figuring out what to do with content
commerce and rights management via Web services and cut off
opportunities to integrate with solutions that ultimately may
provide far better opportunities to increase the contextual
value of their content. But given how many commercial
publishers are floundering to come up with enhanced value
propositions, the allure of Microsoft's well-timed efforts
may be difficult for many to overcome - even if it may weaken
their opportunities for long-term growth.
Office is still in the building, and as
long as it is, most institutions will be glad to sing
Microsoft's tune and gain some important short-term gains with
integrated commercial content. But in the long run, this may be
a comeback act that winds up hurting its content partners as
much as it helps them. Enjoy it while it lasts, but at
some point it will be better to let Office leave the building
on its own and to strike up the band with some newer tunes.
-
John Blossom
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