MS Office, Sharepoint, InfoPath, Whidbey Convergence

In a recent InfoWorld interview with Microsoft's Gydis Barzdukas, Director of Office Product Management, Barzdukas discusses the positioning of Office as a development platform and the relationships between Office and server technologies such as Sharepoint and .NET. Of note is the potential impact that Whidbey has to shift the SharePoint portlet or "Web parts" rapid development capabilities. Following are a few highlights from the interview. InfoWorld: You have been promoting Office System as a development platform. How is that message resonating with corporate and third-party developers? Barzdukas: ...we are starting to get some traction with the engineers and developers, who are looking more at Office as a true platform. ... InfoWorld: What is the biggest thing people do not understand about your strategy of integrating Office System 2003, SharePoint Server, and Windows Server 2003? Barzdukas: ...users' assumption that they need to buy into the whole enchilada to get any value or benefit. ... InfoWorld: How important is Whidbey to Office Systems 2003 as a development environment? Barzdukas: ...Whidbey will be very important in terms of things like Web parts. The Web parts framework is part of the SharePoint technologies today. You will be able to build Web parts directly from within Whidbey, so it will be very important. Read the interview.