Microsoft Office Standard 2007, Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007, and Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 suites comparison

This suites comparison provides a feature-to-feature comparison of Office Standard 2007, Office Professional Plus 2007, and Office Enterprise 2007.

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• Information rights and policy management

• Integrated content management

• Advanced support for customized e-forms

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Office Standard 2007
Office Standard 2007 provides software essentials to home consumers and small businesses so that users can get tasks done more quickly and easily. With Office Standard 2007 you can create great-looking documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, and easily manage your e-mail messages, calendar, and contacts. Office Standard 2007 has the Microsoft Office Fluent user interface, enhanced graphics and formatting capabilities, new time and communication management tools, and more reliability and security. These tools and capabilities make it easier and more enjoyable for you to get things done at home or at work.

Office Professional Plus 2007
Office Professional Plus 2007 will help you and your organization work more efficiently and effectively with a new set of powerful tools for creating, managing, analyzing, and sharing information. The Office Fluent user interface makes Office Professional Plus 2007 easier to use. And the new graphics capabilities make creating great-looking, high-impact documents a snap. With Office Professional Plus 2007, you can deliver better results faster.

Office Enterprise 2007
Office Enterprise 2007 is the most complete Microsoft solution for people who must collaborate with others and work with information efficiently, regardless of location or network status. Office Enterprise 2007 builds on the strengths of Office Professional Plus 2007 and provides two additional tools: Microsoft Office Groove 2007 and Microsoft Office OneNote 2007. With these tools, users can collaborate and efficiently gather, store, organize, find, and share any type of information. Office Groove 2007 provides a rich and more secure collaboration environment for teams to work together, regardless of location, with minimal IT support. Office OneNote 2007 provides complete information management capabilities for virtually any type of content, so teams can deliver better results faster.

Information rights and policy management

The information rights management (IRM) capabilities and policy controls in the 2007 Microsoft Office system help organizations safeguard digital information from unauthorized use. Through integration with Microsoft Windows Rights Management Services (RMS), IRM enables professionals to define exactly how recipients can use the information that is contained in Microsoft Office documents. Specific features include:

• Information rights management. In conjunction with RMS for Microsoft Windows Server 2003, the IRM features of the 2007 system enable users to define exactly who can open, modify, print, forward, or take other actions with the information in Microsoft Office documents.
• Policy templates. Organizations can create customized usage policy templates that can be applied directly to information such as financial reports, product specifications, customer data, and e-mail messages.
• Policy statements. Organizations can create policy statements for specific e-mail message types and embed these statements in the message. Policy statements can instruct the reader on how to handle the message content or serve as a flag to trigger Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 to process custom-defined rules.

KEY:
= Feature Included

Features and Benefits	Office Standard 2007	Office Professional Plus 2007	Office Enterprise 2007
Create IRM-protected documents and e-mail messages. Grant access and editing permissions, and apply policy templates to protected content.1
Read and use IRM-protected documents and e-mail messages when given appropriate rights.1
Apply policy statements to e-mail messages before sending.1
Read policy statements associated with received e-mail messages.

¹ Requires Windows Rights Management Services for Windows Server 2003.

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Integrated content management

In conjunction with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, the Integrated Content Management capabilities of the 2007 system provide more secure access to business information through a number of differentiated features and capabilities. These features and capabilities include integrated document workflow, Microsoft Office PowerPoint slide libraries, label and barcode attachments, and the new Report Center portal.

• Workflow. Integration with Office SharePoint Server 2007 streamlines review and approval workflows. This integration simplifies content review and approval processes and reduces time spent managing documents through their life cycles. Integration between servers and the 2007 Microsoft Office programs also provides opportunities for developers to define custom workflows, create document-handling processes, help users collaborate through portals and workspaces, and connect users to information in enterprise business systems.
• Office PowerPoint Slide Libraries. Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides centralized storage for presentations and individual slides. PowerPoint Slide Libraries enable users to easily repurpose existing content and build presentations from existing slide sets, reducing the need to re-create content. Users can publish presentations to a PowerPoint Slide Library directly from Office PowerPoint 2007.
• Report Center. Microsoft Office Excel 2007 adds the capability to publish worksheets to Office SharePoint Server 2007 or to the Web while maintaining full fidelity. A central repository for reports and spreadsheet data helps ensure that all users have access to the same version of critical business information. The user who publishes the worksheet can control access to the information by defining what data is visible to others in Report Center and defining which cells can be edited by other users.
• Barcodes and labels. The 2007 system facilitates document and records management with the capability to generate and embed barcodes and labels within documents. Text-based labels or barcodes can be generated from document metadata, such as subject keywords or customer numbers. Labels and barcodes are printed with the document and can be updated automatically.

KEY:
= Feature Included

Features and Benefits	Office Standard 2007	Office Professional Plus 2007	Office Enterprise 2007
Initiate document workflows and complete workflow tasks from within the Microsoft Office system of programs.
Initiate document workflows and complete workflow tasks from the browser.
Publish presentations and individual Office PowerPoint 2007 slides to PowerPoint Slide Libraries for later reuse.
Browse to Slide Libraries from within Office PowerPoint 2007, build new presentations from individual slides, and get updates when slides change on the server.
Publish spreadsheets to Report Center. Specify parameters and viewing permissions for spreadsheets and specific cells that are published to Report Center.
View and use spreadsheets that are published to Report Center from the browser.
Create printable labels and barcodes from metadata, and insert barcodes and labels into Microsoft Office documents.
Read, print, and update existing labels and barcodes in Microsoft Office documents.

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Advanced support for customized e-forms

The 2007 Microsoft Office system streamlines data collection through integration with Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007. Electronic forms (e-forms) can be presented as stand-alone forms in the Office InfoPath 2007 client or in the browser; embedded in Microsoft Office Word 2007 and Office Excel 2007 documents (through customizable Document Information Panels and Programmable Task Panes); or embedded in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 e-mail messages.

Features that take advantage of Office InfoPath 2007 forms include:

• E-mail forms. The ability to embed an Office InfoPath form within an Office Outlook 2007 e-mail message provides a fast, efficient way to collect information.
• Developer enhancements. Enhanced development capabilities enable developers to display richer content, including InfoPath forms, within custom Programmable Task Panes.
• Document Information Panel. Support for InfoPath forms within the new Document Information Panel enables organizations to define custom document properties and initiate business processes from within the document, based on document properties.

KEY:
= Feature Included

Features and Benefits	Office Standard 2007	Office Professional Plus 2007	Office Enterprise 2007
Complete, collect, and organize Office InfoPath e-mail forms in Office Outlook 2007.2
Host embedded, fully customizable InfoPath forms in Office Word 2007, Office Excel 2007, and Office PowerPoint 2007.2
Complete forms in Programmable Task Panes. 2
Complete custom fields and execute custom business logic in Document Information Panel forms.2

² These capabilities require that Office InfoPath 2007 be installed on the client computer. Office Professional Plus 2007 and Office Enterprise 2007 include Office InfoPath 2007. Organizations that acquire other suites can purchase and install Office InfoPath 2007 separately.

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