While a lot of you saw the big announcements from Microsoft last week about Windows 10 and Office 2016, you might have missed more subtle announcements from Microsoft lately that show they are going to be a significant force in the legal IT realm.
Matter Center – Microsoft’s New Legal Document Management Software
Microsoft is no stranger to document management software for Am Law 100 law firms like Sheppard Mullin, but, while SharePoint is a very powerful tool, it’s difficult to set up on your own and requires a lot of firm-wide cooperation on its implementation. That’s where Matter Center comes in. A few months ago, Microsoft announced that it will be coming out with a new legal document management program called Matter Center. It integrates with Office 365 and OneDrive and provides better tools for organizing your case files. From the Matter Center webpage, Microsoft describes Matter Center as follows:
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We’re improving the way law firms and attorneys work together by making it easier to organize files by client and matter, review documents, and find information when needed without ever leaving Microsoft Word or Outlook. Because Matter Center works with Office 365 and is built on an enterprise-grade platform, these productivity gains can be realized while reducing risk and cost.
Here are some screenshots of some of the things you can do in Matter Center from the video on their site:
OneDrive – Microsoft Bolsters Its Cloud Storage
OneDrive is the main storage hub of documents for Office 365 and Matter Center. It allows for the ability to access your documents and use Matter Center when not online. A few months ago, I mentioned how Microsoft increased its storage capacity for OneDrive for Business users to 1TB and allowed for the storage of files larger than 1GB (such as video deposition files). Well, a few months later, they took the lid off and offered unlimited storage.
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Equivio – Microsoft Buys E-discovery Tools
Last week, Microsoft announced that it is moving further into the legal IT realm by purchasing the e-discovery analytics company Equivio. Equivio provides advanced analytics for e-discovery data, including de-duping, finding near dupes, and e-mail threading.
Microsoft notes on its blog:
Microsoft is serious about providing customers with tools to manage the legal and compliance requirements that are key to responsible business practices. Office 365 includes robust eDiscovery and information governance capabilities today, and we’ll use Equivio’s machine learning technology to make these vital tools even more intelligent and easy to use in the months ahead. I am extremely excited about the innovative technologies and experienced team we’re bringing to Microsoft as we advance this important work.
Just a few days after the Equivio announcement, Microsoft announced that it purchased Revolution Analytics, a predictive analytics tool for organizing and analyzing large amounts of data.
Microsoft has not announced its intentions for buying these tools, whether it is looking for e-discovery hosting and online review platforms, or to simply own some tools and get some of that e-discovery market action. Regardless, Microsoft is going to be offering much more powerful tools for working with e-discovery.
Windows 10 – Moving on from the Past
The big announcement last week was about the features in Windows 10. I’ve already downloaded Windows 10 and looked at how it can be used by law firms. It will be a free upgrade for the first year for Windows 7 and 8 users. That’s not a one-year license – Windows 7 and Windows 8 users will get the full version of Window 10, complete with upgrades and support. One of the new features announced is a Siri-like personal assistant named Cortana built in to the task bar. Not only does Cortana answer your questions about random things, but also helps you find what you need to do on your computer.
Another key area of focus for Microsoft was the ability to unify and normalize the Windows experience across your computers, tablets, and phones. That segues into the next topic…
Office 2016 – More Friendly Tablet Interface
We don’t know a whole lot about Office 2016 other than the new simplified interface that it will have for working with tablets and 2-in-1 devices like the Surface Pro 3. Here are some screenshots from the preview video that show the redesigned interface:
Conclusion:
Ever since the iPad came out, we’ve seen some great advancements in mobile computing for lawyers. Microsoft seems to finally get that and is moving to develop better tools for both mobile and workplace environments.
Jeff Bennion is a solo practitioner from San Diego. When not handling his own cases, he’s consulting lawyers on how to use technology to not be boring in trial or managing e-discovery projects in mass torts/complex litigation cases. If you want to be disappointed in a lack of posts, you can follow him on Twitter or on Facebook. If you have any ideas of things you want him to cover, email Jeff at [email protected].