IT Bulletins
For Northern California Small Businesses

Microsoft Office 2003 Evaluation Kit
Office 2003 Editions can help organizations and their employees transform information into impact. New and familiar products, features, and functionality improve how people and organizations connect to coworkers, information, and business processes.

Here are some of the many new features of Office 2003:

• Document Workspaces simplify the process of working with others to co-author, modify, and review files. Document Workspaces are centralized web-based repositories that provide files, tasks, and lists of links and team members and are accessible through the Shared Workspace task pane.
• The Shared Workplace Task Pane lets you check for updated versions of files, see if team members are online, see related links and files, and view file properties. You can receive an e-mail alert when any of the items in the shared workspace change.
• Information Rights Management (IRM) functionality in Word 2003, Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, Excel 2003, and PowerPoint 2003 allows you to keep information private by helping protect your e-mail messages and files from unauthorized copying, forwarding, or printing.
• The new Reading Layout View in Word makes it easier to read documents. It optimizes the document for reading on the screen, including larger text, shorter lines, and pages that exactly fit your screen.
• New features in Outlook 2003 include the ability to arrange your Inbox by conversation or thread to see all messages on a particular topic conveniently grouped together. You can easily move or delete entire threads. In addition, you can flag messages by priority or time sensitivity, and then find them in whatever folder they reside. You no longer have to keep e-mail messages in your Inbox to remind you of action items.

You can now order a 30-day evaluation copy of Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 trial software and learn how it can help you connect people, information, and business processes. To get your trial version, visit Office Professional Edition 2003 Trial Software.

Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 (SBS 2003) is designed for organizations with up to 50 computers who need high-level dependability and functionality but don't have the economy of scale that allows large corporations to absorb the cost and complexity of licensing best-of-breed enterprise software. SBS 2003 is an inexpensive and easy way to build a solid foundation for an information network with enterprise-level security, performance, connectivity, and reliability.

Windows Small Business Server 2003 will be available in standard and premium editions. The standard edition includes Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. Small Business Server 2000 included earlier versions of these products. The premium edition adds Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA Server).

Benefits of Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 include:

• Windows 2003 Server's management and security tools reduce the cost and improve the reliability of desktop computers by using centralized user policies, rights, and configurations.
• Windows 2003 Server maximizes server uptime and user availability by incorporating powerful fault tolerance features, including disk mirroring, distributed file system, and cluster configurations.
• Exchange Server 2003 improves remote and mobile access by supporting a web client that offers a nearly complete implementation of the familiar Outlook interface, including calendaring and tools. This means that mobile workers can have full, secure access to email from any Internet-connected computer with a standard web browser.
• Exchange Server 2003 uses Active Directory, providing a greatly simplified administration and security model. This makes Exchange Server easy to manage and support and also offers tight security. Security improvements include enhanced Safe and Block lists and junk email filtering, public folder permissions improvements, and attachment blocking in Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access.
• ISA Server features comprehensive support for protecting IIS servers behind the firewall, which has been one of the largest areas of hacker exploits for Windows 2000 environments.

To find out how Progent can help you benefit from Microsoft Small Business Server 2003, visit Windows Server 2003.

For in-depth information about Microsoft's security tools and technologies and to access Microsoft's security guides, visit Strategies for Reducing Security Risks on Microsoft's web site.

Microsoft has also announced new initiatives to improve seciruty resources for IT professionals. These include improving the patching experience, providing security guidance, and developing innovative safety technologies for more resilient computers, even without patches. For Microsoft's overview of these recently announced security initaiatives, visit Microsoft Outlines Ongoing Security Efforts.

To find out how Progent can help you design security into your business processes and network architecture, visit Network Security and Virus Defense.