Microsoft has announced the first beta of Office 11, the latest upgrade to its productivity suite. The final product is due to ship in mid-2003.

Most of the major changes will benefit businesses looking to improve collaboration, rather than standalone users.

But making the most of several features in the new application will require other Microsoft products, such as SharePoint Team Services.

Integration with SharePoint Team Services, Microsoft's content management system, provides features such as support for multiple users simultaneously editing the same document. Extensible markup language compatibility is another major addition to the product.

Gary Barnett, research director at Ovum, believes the integration between Office and SharePoint reflects a change in working practices. "There's been a shift from task-based use by individuals to making Office a part of the process of being at work", he said.

But Michael Silver, vice president and research director at Gartner, believes it will also enable Microsoft to boost sales of the productivity suite. "Integrating Office into businesses processes makes it less of a commodity and more difficult to take out and replace with another product," he said.

"In this way, there's more potential for extra revenue. Office sales have been flat, if not down, in recent years," he added.