Nice comprehensive review of Office 12 (you know the code name of the new Microsoft Office) …
When Microsoft says the next version of Office is its most important revision in over a decade, it’s not kidding. New XML-based default file formats and a major interface revision are intended to make the market-dominating productivity suite more flexible and accessible than ever.
While veteran users may find that the changes in the new version, code-named Office 12, take some getting used to, they seemed well worth the adjustment in my initial tests of the first beta release. The final version is scheduled to go on sale next year.
Read the whole article on : PC World
Oh dear. MS have enough problem getting folks to upgrade to 2003. They call customers who havent done so yet “dinosaurs”.
So in two or three years time, when this is finally delivered (no doubt missing large numbers of features as is normal for a large MS deliverable like this), your saying that it’ll be a huge learning curve ?
Ouch.
How on earth are MS going to get people to upgrade to *that* ? At gunpoint ?
its a shame that one of the two MS profitable franches is so hell-bent on killing its customer base -what with the ODF/XML screwup, and the ever increasing bloat in the products.
Whatever happened to “easy to use” ?
—* Bill
@john
>I couldn’t find anything around a huge learning curve, but if you could point it out for me I’d appreciate it.
Apart from the title of the article you mean?
Although this term of reference isn’t used much within the article, to me it seems implicit that there will have to be significant training investment to get grass roots users up and running with all of the new functionality. Looks impressive though, I must admit, will look forward to seeing it when released
@ Andrew,
You are right that the title of the article creates a certain perception upfront and users will most certainly have to get used to some elements of the new UI. However if this would really require “significant training” is the question. From personal experience I can say that the new UI is much more intuitive and “actitivity driven”. It will all depend on the type of user more or less.
Hi Bill,
I couldn’t find anything around a huge learning curve, but if you could point it out for me I’d appreciate it.
I’ve got some stats around usability testing that we’re doing based on the new UI. They’re pretty impressive as are the reviews we’re getting. I’d be more than pleased to point you in the direction of these if you’d like to see them.
As for delivery, if you’re interested in the Beta Prog next year then please let me know.
Hi Andrew,
We’ve done a lot of work around making the UI a lot more intuitive – If you’re interested in checking out what changes have been made and more importantly why you could do worse than check out Jensen Harris’ Blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/ There’s some really useful background information on there.
Cheers,
PS: My error and apologies to Bill for missing the title. Is it really only Thursday ? 🙂
John.