Microsoft Word's website resources and user support strategy

Microsoft Word

Microsoft's commitment to its Office Suite of applications via their website is world-class, and illustrates how popular Microsoft Word has become throughout businesses, colleges, and homes throughout the world. The section of the Microsoft website dedicated to Word provides, in broad terms, tools for the beginning, intermediate, and advanced user, in addition to guidance for corporations looking to standardize on this application. This last group of Word users is considered enterprise-level, as the companies they work for license thousands of copies of the application for use throughout the company. There are also sections for developers who are building applications on the Microsoft Word platform. These five segments form the basis of the website's content, focusing on the diverse needs of beginnings, intermediate-level users, then advanced, with wide-scale deployment tips for enterprise users, followed lastly with guidance for developers.

Microsoft's approach to organizing information for all these audiences is to provide discussion groups, access to Word experts, links to the Microsoft Press for books, a marketplace where Word add-ons can be purchased, and support from TechNet for developers. There is also a very useful section called Reader's Choice: Top Picks that lists the top five most requested tips on the website, and as of today they are creating a resume, changing page margins, creating a calendar, creating or modifying e-mails and creating a conference record. There are also key tips for growing skills and for those in charge of supporting many users in an enterprise deployment of Word, support for Training and Certification programs.