Future Versions of Office to Evolve by Swallowing Prodiance Technologies

Microsoft confirmed that future versions of Office will evolve by swallowing technologies from Prodiance, an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) software provider that the Redmond company acquired. According to Albert Chew, Senior Product Manager for Office, the move was necessary in order to better equip customers running forthcoming releases of the productivity suite as well as its components better mitigate the risks associated with key spreadsheets and data being created in uncontrolled environments.

So far it’s not yet clear whether Office’s data compliance and control capabilities will be enhanced as early as the successor of Office 2010, or if customers will need to wait until Office 16, for the new features.

Microsoft has not confirmed that the Prodiance technologies will be integrated into Office 15, the next generation of the productivity suite.

“Prodiance is a valued Microsoft partner and the company will now become a wholly-owned subsidiary,” Chew explained.

“The acquisition of Prodiance enables deeper integration of compliance-related solutions into future versions of Office and SharePoint, namely:

• Increased security and control over critical business information in spreadsheets

• Comprehensive audit trails, policy enforcements and continuous monitoring of documents

• Risk mitigation and improved compliance through automated risk assessment.”

Neither Microsoft nor Prodiance wished to disclose the financial terms of their agreement, or offer any insight into the deal.

The existing Prodiance solution is designed to run on top of Excel and SharePoint Server. With the acquisition, current capabilities will be swallowed by Office and SharePoint completely.

“Prodiance has enabled over 100 Fortune 2000 companies to address some of their most complex challenges - mitigating the risk of material errors, while preventing fraud and non-compliance. The company's customers include the world's top computer manufacturer, several leading global insurance providers, and 4 of the top 5 largest financial services firms in the world,” Chew added.