Microsoft Office update emphasises collaboration

SEATTLE — Microsoft has released a major update for one of its most successful products, Office, which will incorporate Internet-connected features such as Skype and the Cortana digital assistant in both its cloud and packaged versions. The move underscores the importance of installed software as the company adapts to shifts in how people use computers and software.

The Office 2016 versions of Microsoft’s popular word-processing, spreadsheet and email programs are heavy on collaboration tools that let people share information and work together online.

“These latest innovations take another big step forward in transforming Office from a familiar set of individual productivity apps to a connected set of apps and services designed for modern working, collaboration and teamwork,” chief executive Satya Nadella said in a statement.

Multiple people will be able to edit the same document simultaneously. As you start typing on a Word document, for instance, the letters immediately appear on your collaborator’s screen, with a flag showing you as the author.

Competitors including Google have offered this feature in their online editing software, and Microsoft has had a version of it in the Web version of Office. Microsoft executive Jared Spataro said it is the first time it is available in the more powerful stand-alone product.

Office remains Microsoft’s single biggest product, with sales of US$23.5 billion (S$33.4 billion) in the latest fiscal year.

The company has been focusing more of its engineering on the Office 365 cloud-based versions of Office, where customers can get monthly updates without installing and maintaining the software onsite. Still, only about a quarter of commercial Office customers are using the cloud version this year, meaning Microsoft needs to keep apps in the packaged version updated and modernised. More than a billion people use Office.

Office 2016 is the first major Office update for Windows computers since 2013. In recent months, Microsoft has released a series of new Office apps for iPhones, iPads and Android devices, as well as Mac computers.

Office 2016 was released Tuesday in cloud and onsite versions for Windows, and on-premises for Apple’s Mac OS — the Office 365 cloud version has been available for Macs since July. The new software adds what Microsoft calls modern attachments to its Outlook email and calendar app.

Instead of static attached files, which might miss changes made since they were sent, workers can link to a file that will always contain the latest version. Office 2016 also lets users initiate Skype voice and video calls, chats and other communication directly within an Office document.

Users can verbally ask Cortana, Microsoft’s artificial-intelligence-based assistant, to find a particular file or email, and the Bing search engine is integrated so that hovering over a word brings up a menu of choices, including Web search. Agencies