Review by Christopher Wanko

O2k3 is Microsoft’s latest iteration of their cash cow product, Office, and in some ways fully realizes their previous dreams of integration and utility.nFor example, the taskpane that now appears stage-left (screen- right) does more than display a stacked clipboard; if you’ve been repeating a series of formatting commands, those too appear in the stack for easy access. This is what computers have promised to deliver for some time now. In this and other ways, Microsoft is finally bringing it to users in a usable, intuitive manner.nPrevious features such as spellchecking, grammar, integration and smart cut-copy-paste operations are all present. Perhaps the best addition to the suite is Microsoft’s OneNote, which promises to capture freeform notes and text in whatever way you like, digitizing tablet handwriting or keyboard entry; the killer app is how it recognizes the handwriting and indexes the text for finding your notes again. Call it system-wide Graffiti for Windows.nStill, this is Office and the usual bloat in disk space, system requirements, and price tag all apply. This is a release most-targeted for businesses that can afford to roll this out to many users under a favorable license. If a company such as GE had to pay $450 a seat, you can bet GE would be using a competitor’s product tomorrow. So for an individual, Office is still a four-star player.nFor anyone considering Office 2003, let me weigh in with a wet blanket on previous rave reviews: if you have Office 2000/2002/XP, you don’t need this release. Honestly. This iteration does not contain a truly compelling feature set that will bring you to spend a few hundred dollars. Microsoft’s OneNote is good, maybe even killer, but you’ve gotten along without it for quite some time now, haven’t you?nTo put all this in a single paragraph: if you’re on Office 97 or earlier, and can score the upgrade, and have the bucks, this is a good release to use. However, if you don’t have the bucks, Office 2002 or even Office 2000 are still viable alternatives that provide 95% of the features at 30-70% of the cost.