Up to now, Windowgrated packages have simply been bundles of applications that offer a big discount to the price of the programs bought separately, but now, US PC Week hears, Microsoft Corp and Lotus Development Corp plan to go rather further, offering technology to integrate their Windows software suites tightly: one of Microsoft’s first efforts will be to integrate the query-by-example engine of its Access database into its next-generation applications, starting with versions of Word and Excel due out in the autumn; both companies also plan to give users more automation and interface customisation capabilities across applications, by using common programming languages.
