GAMEWASTE: Office Professional 2007

Microsoft Office Professional 2007 is a complete suite of productivity and database software that includes the 2007 versions of Publisher, Excel, Outlook, Outlook with Business Contact Manager, PowerPoint, Access, and Word. Powerful contact management features help you consolidate all customer and prospect information in one place, while improved menus present the right tools exactly when you need them. Professional 2007 also lets you develop professional marketing materials for print, e-mail, and the Web, and produce effective marketing campaigns in-house. In addition, you can create dynamic business documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, and build databases with no prior experience or technical staff.

Tasks are easy to follow up on because they are included on the new To-Do Bar and within Outlook reminders. You can also drag tasks onto your calendar. View larger.

You can customize the new information dashboard in Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager to display your sales pipeline. View larger.

Business Contact Manager also combines contact, customer, and project information in one place. View larger.

With Access tracking templates, you can create databases and generate reports quickly. View larger.

Fast and Efficient Operation Whether you're working on a financial spreadsheet, creating an important presentation, or building a customer database, Professional 2007 helps you find and use the features you need faster and more easily. The intuitive look and feel of this software, including task-based menus and toolbars that are automatically displayed based on the feature you are using, improves your productivity. With Publisher 2007, you can create and publish a wide range of marketing materials for print, e-mail, and the web with your own brand elements including logo, colours, fonts, and business information. Or take advantage of hundreds of professionally designed and customisable templates, and more than 100 blank publication types. This software also lets you reuse text, graphics, and design elements, and convert content from one publication type to another. You can also combine and filter mailing lists and data from multiple sources, including the 2007 versions of Excel, Outlook, Outlook with Business Contact Manager, and Access, to create personalized print and e-mail materials, and build custom collateral such as catalogues and data sheets.

Save Time and Stay Organized Because it contains so many efficient software options in one package, Professional 2007 gives you access to a multitude of options that save you time and keep you organized. For example, Outlook with Business Contact Manager lets you create, manage, and track marketing campaigns, while PowerPoint gives you the ability to craft more dynamic presentations from an extensive library of customisable themes and slide layouts. When it's time to create powerful charts, SmartArt diagrams, and tables, you can quickly preview formatting changes using the new graphics tools in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and save yourself time-consuming future edits.

Locate and Prioritise E-mail Because so much important communication is now done via e-mail, Professional 2007 includes several features that help you manage key correspondence. Instant Search capabilities in Outlook with Business Contact Manager let you quickly find critical information while the Colour Category feature helps you to easily sort and manage e-mail messages. And because nothing is more inefficient than troubleshooting problems that compromise the security of your computer, this software package includes improved junk mail and anti-phishing filters to filter out unwanted e-mail and manage the remaining messages.

Keep Track of Tasks and Deadlines Keeping track of appointments and deadlines can be stressful, but Professional 2007 streamlines the process so you're ready for whatever the day brings. For instance, the To-Do Bar in Outlook with Business Contact Manager consolidates your tasks, e-mail messages flagged for follow-up, and appointments in one view. Additionally, tasks scheduled in Outlook appear on your calendar, or you can drag them directly onto your calendar to help you stay organized.

Manage Customer Information in One Place Outlook with Business Contact Manager also provides a complete customer and contact management solution by centralizing all contact, prospect, and customer information--including communications history, projected sales value, and probability of closing, and tasks. This makes it easier to manage prospects and respond to customers. You also can store all types of communications with each customer in one place, including e-mails messages, phone calls, appointments, notes, and documents.

Capitalize on Key Opportunities The success of your business depends upon taking advantage of key opportunities that come your way, and Professional 2007 offers several features to help prevent any lost or missed connections. Outlook with Business Contact Manager provides a customisable homepage that helps you forecast sales and prioritise tasks. Enhanced reporting features provide a consolidated view of your sales pipeline using a variety of flexible reports that you can easily modify to suit your unique business needs.

Visualize and Analyse Information Excel provides new tools for filtering, sorting, graphing, and visualizing information so you can analyse business information more easily and make more informed decisions. For more advanced analysis, improved PivotTable and PivotChart views are now much easier to create. Manage business information using efficient tools for easily creating databases and organizing and visualizing information. Access helps you create new databases easily, with no experience required, and also includes a library of predefined database tracking applications for the most common business processes. And thanks to the task-based user interface and the data sheet view, (which is similar to Excel), it's more intuitive than ever before. When you're ready to consolidate your data, easily create reports with a single click and use improved tools to filter, sort, group, and subtotal data.

More Efficient Marketing Campaigns Outlook with Business Contact Manager has exciting features that help you easily create, manage, and track marketing campaigns while Publisher can combine and filter mailing lists and data from multiple sources--including Excel, Outlook, Outlook with Business Contact Manager, and Access--to create personalized print and e-mail materials. This feature also enables you to build custom materials such as catalogs and data sheets. You can then use Outlook with Business Contact Manager to track and assess responses so that you can determine the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

Versatile, Flexible Operation Because the future of your business may depend on your ability to work on-the-fly or from various locales, Professional 2007 lets you work offline on your laptop or Pocket PC and then synchronize data when you return to the office. Whatever the size of your business, Professional 2007 is versatile and flexible enough to help you manage everyday tasks, while ensuring that you're ready for whatever the future brings.