Microsoft Touts Newest Element Of OfficeMicrosoft Touts Newest Element Of Office

Microsoft on Monday parsed what it had been calling XDocs, the newest member of its Office line, as InfoPath. It also outlined applications it sees the XML-based data gatherer and forms editor assuming, particularly in health care.

InfoPath, scheduled for release in midyear, uses XML to capture data from other applications or Web services, then lets users build dynamic forms to share with others.

Monday's announcement came in San Diego, where a conference of health-care industry professionals demonstrated how InfoPath forms can be used to route data using the Clinical Document Architecture format, an XML standard adopted by health-care organizations to exchange data. InfoPath, Microsoft said, can save its forms in CDA-compliant format, which in turn can be read by back-end systems such as hospitals, Web services, portals, or document-management software.

For instance, a physician filling out an InfoPath-made diagnosis form could pull information from an external database to pinpoint the medication covered by the patient's insurance, check for potential interactions by polling the patient's file, and submit the order to the patient's pharmacy.

Paul DeGroot, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, a research firm that specializes in following Microsoft's every move, sees InfoPath as "a very good product for data-entry situations" such as health care. A side benefit to Microsoft, he said, is that it extends Office into markets in which it doesn't have a strong showing.

"Data-entry clerks may not be using Office," he noted.

Health care is a prime target for something like InfoPath, DeGroot said, because of the driving force of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. "HIPAA is forcing an entire industry to adopt XML and look at electronic forms," he said. "There's a huge and immediate opportunity for Microsoft for this kind of thing."

Microsoft also took the opportunity to tout InfoPath's general application in businesses.

"InfoPath provides enterprises with a flexible information-gathering tool that combines the familiarity of a word-processing application with the robustness of a traditional forms package, with features like data validation and the like," said Dan Leach, lead product manager for the Information Worker Productivity Group.

But although virtually every business uses forms of one sort, other industries may have a harder time adopting InfoPath. The problem, DeGroot said, is that companies may find partners, such as suppliers or contractors, that are unable to digest the XML stream InfoPath's forms produce. Microsoft's Leach countered by noting that while "we see XML as being the best-case scenario for using InfoPath, the application also supports ADO ActiveX Data Object. So enterprises who are not yet using XML can still benefit from InfoPath."

Microsoft won't commit to a pricing structure for InfoPath or say whether it will be bundled with the next version of Office, which still goes by the code name of Office 11. But its place within the Office lineup is something Microsoft is clearly betting on. One of Office 11's most distinguishing new features is its enhanced support for XML, with its core applications all now able to save documents in XML format. InfoPath, said Microsoft, will be able to mine XML data in Office documents for information collection and sharing.

"I think InfoPath is pretty compelling," said Ronald Schmelzer, senior analyst with ZapThink, a market-research firm that specializes in covering XML issues. "Microsoft hasn't been a strong player from the content-management perspective, where the key problem is how to you allow people to reuse content."

He sees InfoPath as a major step by Microsoft in the move to bring nontechnical content creators into the fold of those able to create forms that are independent of any back-end system but can still be integrated with those systems.