Telenor's Communication Solutions in Microsoft Office 2003
Telenor AS and Microsoft Corp. today announced the "Telenor Plug-in" for Office 2003. This joint development project leverages Telenor's portfolio of communication services ( http://www.telenor.no/ ) and the Extensible Markup Language (XML) capabilities of Microsoft® Office System programs to provide users with access to Telenor's mobile, fixed, online, and satellite services while working in Microsoft's Office 2003 applications. The solution, called the "Telenor Plug-in", will be available for download in the Office Marketplace ( http://www.office.microsoft.com/marketplace/ ) at no additional charge in a few weeks.
By integrating Telenor's Web Services, Telenor's Plug-in for Microsoft Office System will provide Microsoft Office System users with convenient and seamless access to Telenor's portfolio of fixed, mobile, satellite, and international services from within Microsoft productivity applications via the Telenor Plug-in. Users will be able to access many of their personal Telenor services; send a SMS and/or MMS, purchase online utilizing their Telenor e-commerce account, check for Broadband availability, query the directory service (Opplysningen 1881), and Canal Digital TV Guide, all from within their Office 2003 document, e-mail message or presentation.
For example, a customer writing a Word document could easily from within the document find someone's address by queering Telenor's directory service, send that person a MMS with the same document attached, and before going home that evening quickly ordering a Canal Digital Pay-Per-View service or a DVD from the Top 10 DVD listing, all from within the Word document that has the Telenor Plug-in. Alternatively, a home user can quickly check their Online.no email, send multiple MMS with attachments of pictures or invitations to an upcoming party to multiple friends and family, all easily accessible via the Telenor Plug-in.
The Telenor Plug-in, a feature in the Microsoft Office 2003 Edition desktop applications (Word, Excel, the Outlook® messaging and collaboration client, the PowerPoint® presentation graphics program and Access) and in Microsoft Office System products OneNote (TM) note-taking program, Publisher and Visio® drawing and diagramming software, uses industry-standard XML to enable users to retrieve and navigate relevant internal or external Web-based information, all from within Office programs.
"By using the advancements of the Microsoft Office 2003, Telenor AS and Microsoft Inc. are transforming the role of the desktop into a more dynamic interactive interface to communication services for Office customers in Norway," said Birger Steen, CEO of Microsoft Norway. "Telenor is breaking new ground in its use of XML-enabled Web Services that connect data from disparate systems, allow greater access to services, and create a more valuable experience for its information workers".
"We are excited to help make our services more easily available to all our customers," said Telenor's CEO, Jon Fredrik Baksaas. "Microsoft's Office 2003 solution adds significant convenience for Microsoft's users and Telenor's customers in embedding our most used communication services within their most used Microsoft applications. We look forward to launching this service in additional international markets like Hungry (Pannon) with our local mobile operations."