Hi, Eric,
I wouldn't be too bright if I tried to make a specific recommendation
without having a much more intimate understanding of your company and its
operations--both on the business side and on the IT side. There are many
issues to consider, such as percentage of laptops, how people use Office and
their computers, how the OS is deployed, how Office and Windows are updated,
how your IT staff operates, how many users, and a variety of other issues.
Also, Microsoft won't make a specific recommendation for you, but they try
to provide as much information as they can to help you make the right
decision in your environment.
Did you happen to see this article?
Microsoft Office Assistance: Distributing Office 2003 Product Updates:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011402381033.aspx
It helps you understand better what the options for updating Office are,
based on your deployment method. It sounds like updating is one of your
biggest pains.
If you are expecting or allowing users to do their own updates, then you
probably want the LIS on the local workstation. If you plan to push the
updates yourself to keep the workstations at the same level, then you will
want more control over the installation and may want to use the uncompressed
administrative image, patching it as you go. However, if you have lots of
remote or laptop users, they will be unable to get the updates without an
LIS or a network connection.
If it helps, keep in mind that the Office Update functionality is planned to
be combined into the Windows Update utility at some point in the future. I
don't know when, or what the specific functionality will be, but it will be
a one-stop shop for updating. So, if you are deploying Windows Updates from
a corporate server, you may want to plan for deploying Office Updates from
there, also, and to have more control over them.
Hope that helps some--
