Hello,

It is rare that I copy from MS newsletters, but I suspect many people do not get the UK MSDN (developer) newsletter, so since this issue talks about the online videos for Office 2007 and scenarios on how it all works together, I thought I should highlight David Gristwood, a great colleague who cares passionately about Office Development and also wrote this little article.  I have clipped it to remove some of the more developer oriented content.

Note the links for the videos to see more of the product.

ttfn

David

Office Developers Conference, Redmond - David Gristwood

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One of the big announcements was openXMLDeveloper.org , a community site supporting Open XML. You can see the video on demand here. (Bill Gates also gave an interview with InformationWeek just before the dev con, which you can read here, which explains more of his thinking)

Part of the keynote included a very compelling demo, that showed end to end the various client and server elements of the Office platform all fully integrated (Excel services, SharePoint, Open XML, Workflow, etc). It showed a number of scenarios that I think many people can relate to, and find relevant to their own business or systems they need to build / integrate with.

The new Office UI seemed to be well received, especially as delegates got to see the recently released Technical Refresh 1 version. Most seemed very positive about the amount of time it would take users to get used to it, and how much more discoverable it is, and how difficult it would be to go back to 2003. One of the best ways to see the new UI in action is to check out this short video . You can also see some screen shots and discussion on Jensen Harris's blog.

There was a big emphasis on the server side element to what has traditionally been a more client based offering. Many attendees were impressed how rich the server technology stack now is. SharePoint 3.0 provides integrated workflow support (via Windows Workflow Foundation), native support for ASP.NET 2.0, as well as out-of-the-box support for new Web technologies such as blogs, wikis and RSS (The SharePoint team also have a blog).

The Office SharePoint Server 2007 introducing new functionality including enterprise content management capabilities, business intelligence with Web-based spreadsheet capabilities delivered via Excel Services, electronic forms via InfoPath Forms Services, as well as information and people search enhancements. I can see many developers looking to build on these or integrate into these technologies.

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The ability to manipulate the Office Open XML documents under programmatic control was evident in many sessions, with demos showing how custom applications can more easily create or manipulate the data within a document, leading to much better integration between Office and external systems, as well as automating the production of many types of documents. If you want to know more about Open XML Format, check out Brian Jones's blog who delivered some of the sessions at the event.

You can find out more information at the Office Developer Centre and this site is also a great source for information.

David Gristwood is a senior Application Architect at Microsoft UK to find out more check out his blog.