Office 2007, IIS 7.0, Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008, and MOSS are the new rage for Office integration. If you are using all or even some of it and set up your Office software to integrate with your file system it is a pretty slick system.
And "no", you do not have to be a republican.
"Take Back Your Life" by McPhee is a book about the Office 2007 components and organizing your life. I highly recommend it if you use Outlook.