[humorix] Office 2005 To Be Available Before Office 2003

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

Office 2005 To Be Available Before Office 2003
John Elfrink
September 23, 1999

REDMOND, WA -- In a move that has been declared
"unfortunate but necessary", Microsoft today announced that
its productivity suite Office 2003 will again have its
shipping date pushed back 3 months. This puts the shipping
date on Office 2003 later than the estimated release of
2005. 

"It's really not that big a deal," a spokesman for
Microsoft said at a press conference today. "From the very
beginning of the Office 2003 project in the mid 90's we
have known that its shipping date would be in 2004. That
has not changed nor do we expect it to change." 
Nevertheless, Microsoft must take care if it plans to keep
the release date in 2004 because today's announcement
places the release date for mid-December of that year. 

While this move has been expected for some time, it did
cause much discussion among industry experts. It was an
anonymous user on the Internet that first pointed out that
the new shipping date would be after the November 2004 date
that Office 2005 will be available for beta testing in. 

The spokesman defended the beta test, saying, "It's
important to Microsoft to keep the release date for Office
2005 on schedule. In order to do this we need feedback from
the users as early as possible telling us what improvements
over Office 2003 they most liked." In order for the
feedback on Office 2005 to be collected, analyzed, and
implemented the estimated release date of Office 2005 must
be eight months before the shipping date. 

The obvious difficulty in this is that there is no way for
the beta testing to show improvements over Office 2003 if
Office 2003 is not yet in use. To work around this problem
Microsoft has announced that a special beta-testing team is
being put together. 

"Because the release date for Office 2003 is still 30 days
before the shipping date there will be a short window of
opportunity for special high profile users to get Office
2003 a month before it is available to the public at
large," the spokesman explained. The special beta-testing
team will be part of that special high profile user group. 

Craniates for the group are being selected currently.
Training for the group will begin before year's end based
on the advanced projection from the beta test. Once the
beta test for Office 2003 is released to the public the
special group will already be training on the production
version. Once the production version of Office 2003 is
released to the public the special group will be fully
trained in its use and ready to beta test Office 2005. 

"Our estimates of the projection of the beta testing of the
pre-release of the release of Office 2005 will go hand in
hand with the post shipping release's projected estimate of
Office 2003. The final release shipping of Office 2005 will
implement our projection of what the beta testing group
will estimate since a full estimate is not projected to be
done in time," said the spokesman to a perplexed audience. 


UPDATE from the Editor:

Just as this article was going to press, a member of our
Vast Spy Network(tm) informed us of the major new feature
that is planned for Office 2003... a Dancing Billionaire
Office Assistant.

Our informant sent us a preliminary screenshot showing a
character resembling Bill Gates dancing on an Excel
spreadsheet.  The new Office Assistant will, according to
our source:

* Walk around the screen while wads of cash fall out of his
  bulging pockets.

* Stomp on bugs that will occasionally crawl across the
  screen while saying "You didn't see that."

* Erase any text that is negative towards Microsoft or Bill
  Gates.

* Insert trademark symbols next to words like "Microsoft",
  "windows", and "internet" in your document.

* Respond with "This feature requires Microsoft Office 2003
  Plus Pack! available for $129.95 at your neighborhood
  Microsoft Store" if you attempt to access the Help menu.

* Randomly insert Microsoft advertisements in your
  documents.

Stay tuned for future updates about this rapidly unfolding
situation.


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