Offline and Online

The Bet is the ‘Net. That’s a common slogan in my group.

What it means is that we’re increasingly moving from offline content delivery to online content delivery. We’re increasingly betting that most Office users are either frequently- or always-connected – through corporate networks, DSL and cable modems, or increasingly ubiquitous WiFi. In fact, I commute to Microsoft’s Redmond campus from my home on Bainbridge Island, a small community to the west of Seattle, and WiFi was recently introduced on the ferry I ride. I have a wireless network in my home connected to a DSL modem, and of course, we have a pervasive high-speed wireless network on the Microsoft campus. So about the only time I’m not connected is when I’m on the bus to the ferry or from the ferry terminal in Seattle to Microsoft – a total of maybe 1-2 hours a day. The rest of the time, I’m on the ‘Net.

Sure, you may be thinking – but you live in high-tech Seattle and work at Microsoft. Easy for you to say. But part of a bet is that it is future-oriented. What we’re building now, most users won’t be using for three or more years. So if you were me, would you want to be that in 2008, much more of the world is going to be like it is in many places now – or more like my own experience today? Alan Kay, the Apple fellow, said he always wants to do development on the most advanced machines he can find, because he knows within a few years, those will be the mainstream machines.

Of course, we know most users are disconnected some of the time – they travel on airplanes, or are at client or customer sites where connecting may be more hassle than it’s worth. And as I’ve learned on the ferry, wireless access can sometimes be more of a glimmering promise than a reality. Ironically, I’m writing this right now on a train where I don’t have ‘Net access – for posting later (from my hotel room via WiFi...) So no one suggests completely eliminating offline content.

I wrote in my last posting about Content Watson. This is a key tool here. Now, for the first time, we actually know what content people are reading the most; before, we could only guess. So as we plan for the future, we can look to the Content Watson usage data to tell us what content to make sure to write first, and put in the offline format. This applies not just to assistance content, but also to templates –we have over 3000 templates available on Office Online. While we could probably just ship all those in the Office box, it would make it more difficult to add new ones and update them in response to the feedback we get with Content Watson. So we’ll probably take the top few dozen, put those in the box, and then make it easy to access the thousands more on Office Online. We’ll take the same approach with assistance content.

I’d love to hear your comments about online – offline. Do you buy the benefits of providing feedback and Microsoft continually updating content in response to that feedback? Have you used our feedback mechanism on Office Online, or in the Office 2003 application help content (“Was this helpful?” at the bottom of the topic)?