Due out in the second half of 2006 Citizen Gates will highlight many of its features in a keynote address at Microsoft's CEO Summit. Although the software isn't due out until the second half of 2006, Bill Gates highlited some of its features during an opening address at the company's recent CEO Summit.

An interview with Microsoft executive Chris Capossela, recentlty posted on the company's Web site, gives more nuts and bolts details of the Office 12 plans.

Look for the focus to leverage the investment made in Groove Networks. Key areas such as collaboration, business intelligence, and knowledge management functions will be included in Office 12. Microsoft will make heavy use of XML based technologies as well.

The new tools will rest solidly on the Sharepoint Portal Server platform where users will be able to set up shared workspaces in order to foster collaboration and communication. Office 12 will leverage peer-to-peer functions like secured, enterprise messaging to ensure that key stakeholders can easily establish channels of communication.

Secure Enterprise Messaging is the logical next step in Microsoft providing remote telepresence capabilites into its product portofolio. The company has made large investments in the Live Communications Server 2005. Check out Microsoft Communicator at for more insight regarding Redmond's Collaboration strategy.

Office 12 will most probably focus on the need to discover corporate information in a highly visual format. Look for Excell to offer real-time dashboards and balanced scorecards from Enterprise Data contained in spreadsheets. Also look for data visualization to merge with real-time data collection and discovery tools currently under development. Watch for Microsoft to extend it's data analysis capability within Excel marrying the tool with SQL Server Analysis Services.