Microsoft allowed customers to begin downloading the Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) which, as a result of their feedback, delivers continued improvements in reliability and performance for the Microsoft Office System as well as new enhancements for Microsoft Office OneNote 2003 and Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003.

“Microsoft really listens to its customers,” said Teresa Grote, chief information officer at Dinsmore & Shohl LLP, a law firm in Cincinnati. “We’ve worked closely with Microsoft to suggest improvements to the security and rich media features in OneNote. We’re thrilled to see that those features are included in the SP1 release, and we expect them to continue increasing our staff’s productivity and improving their overall work product.”
“Office 2003 Service Pack 1 illustrates Microsoft’s commitment to innovate based on industry partner and customer feedback,” said Steve Myerow, president of Texcel Systems, Inc., a provider of forms conversion tools. “I’m pleased that the InfoPath feature enhancements included in SP1 reflect so many of our direct requests. Using our new version of FormBridge for InfoPath based on SP1, customers will benefit greatly by the ability to easily replicate more complex forms in InfoPath.”
Since early in the Microsoft Office System beta testing process, Microsoft has been gathering technical data and customer feedback through an innovative combination of Microsoft error reporting tools, Office Online and the Customer Experience Improvement Program. These feedback tools enabled Microsoft to identify and prioritize the top customer issues before the launch of the Microsoft Office System last October.

“Thanks to our customer feedback and connection tools, we’ve made huge strides with the Microsoft Office System in continuing to improve product reliability through each successive release,” said Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of Office at Microsoft. “At the launch in October, customers were already experiencing an increase in the average time between product errors by seven times over the first beta release. But we didn’t stop there; with SP1, we’ve improved product reliability even further by taking action on the top issues affecting product performance.”

Along with improved security, stability, and reliability, customers can take advantage of the following feature enhancements in SP1:

-More support for InfoPatch developers

-Richer OneNote integration with Office 2003 editions and mobile devices

-Greater spam control on Outlook

-Reduced deployment and support costs with the Access Conversion Toolkit

For more information go to http://www.microsoft.com/office/

Jeremy Muncy is a staff writer for www.webproworld.com