Office 2013 offers “breakthrough in productivity” according to Forrester

Forrester has published an in-depth report into Microsoft Office with three key takeaways: that Office 2013 offers an improved user experience across all products; that integration across the family of products drives value; and that integration can also drive lock-in.

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT HERE.

Aimed at CIOs, the report dives into the benefits – and potential drawbacks – of committing to the Office platform.

According to Forrester, benefits include better integration that will benefit “feature-rich content-centric workloads”, thanks to the continued advances seen in SharePoint.
“The explicit (though sometimes buried) links between SharePoint and Exchange hold big promise as firms look to consolidate their messaging, collaboration, communications, content, and social tools into a single information workplace,” the report says.

It goes on to cite benefits such as:

  • A cohesive user experience
  • Common information archiving
  • Unified search capabilities

The report explains why Forrester Research believes the “Yammer acquisition strengthens Microsoft’s position in social”, with “best-in-breed activity streams that will delight users”.

It goes on to praise aspects of Lync, including a robust architecture that moves the solution “closer to a private branch exchange (PBX) replacement”, but criticises the “Windows, first and best” positioning compared to more mobile-focused rivals.

The report covers many other topics – including Microsoft’s renewed focus on mobile, Office 2013’s enhanced cloud capabilities and the individual enhancements made to individual apps such as Word and Excel – but closes on a number of key questions for CIOs.

For instance, whether a suite of products trumps a best-of-breed solution, whether the pace of innovation matches the needs of your business, and whether a lack of touch-first and cross-platform delivery will hinder adoption.

For full details, download the Forrester report here.

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