First Visio 2003 Beta Set for Release

The first beta release of Visio 2003 has been completed, Microsoft announced at the 57th Annual Quality Congress and Exposition. Visio 2003, Microsoft's drawing and diagramming solution, is slated to ship late this summer in Standard and Professional Editions.

The Visio 2003 beta will initially be available only to Redmond partners and testers, but Microsoft has posted a public signup page for customers interested in receiving Beta 2. Although Visio 2003 is part of Microsoft's Office System, the beta was not ready in time to ship alongside Office 2003 Beta 2 in March.

"The new features and enhancements in Microsoft Office Visio 2003 make it a comprehensive and essential diagramming tool for enterprise customers," said Joseph Eschbach, corporate vice president of the Information Worker Product Management Group at Microsoft. "With Visio 2003, we're providing customers with a tool to visually navigate, understand and improve their business processes."

Visio 2003 will include new templates, enhanced diagramming capabilities, improved importing and exporting, as well as better integration with other Office System applications.

"We're working on capabilities to show users in a work-flow where they are in the process," said Visio General Manager Richard Wolf. "So for example, if you were filling out an InfoPath form, from one point of view you're just filling out a form. You don't know the next step. But what if you could see a diagram that could show you who it's been to, what the routing has been so far, some of the other options, where it's going beyond you, in a flowchart type fashion. We're working on features like that, and expect to be talking more about those later this year."

Microsoft has yet to announcing pricing or an exact ship date for Visio 2003.