“Microsoft has tried to radically change the design philosophy behind its office suites from 2003 to office 12. The difference between the interface of Office 12 and Office 11 (2003) is nothing short of staggering. The attempt has been to enhance the user’s ability to actually get to the function he wants to use quickly and without getting lost in the labyrinth of toolbars and menus.” You can find info on beta testing Office 12 here. In related news, the slides from the PDC presentations are now available for download.
This product is sooo different, my users will never be able to pick it up.
I can’t migrate to this product without causing major headaches for those users already used to the way that Microsoft Office works.
Maybe your users are really dumb? After all, they ARE users 🙂
But the interface doesn’t look like you need to have studied rocket science. It looks evene easier than ever.
The MS Office suite is nearly feature complete. The office wars of the future will not be about functionality, but about glitter and user interface.
They even mostly removed the menu bar!
Its starting to look like they have some strange obsession with MacOS or somthing… weird.
The last version is office is not office 2003 (for PC) but office 2004 (for mac), so I guess they liked the improvements in office 2004 and are going forward now.
Agree! New office top menu bars look like very much like the mac Office2004 Formating Palette. Anyway, probably they are developing the best Office product ever but they will have a lot of problems making the users changing their perpective.
Did you ever use macos? There is a menubar on top of the screen. It changes when you switch an active application.
Personally I see no significant similarities between office 12 and mac os x or any of its applications.
— “Did you ever use macos? There is a menubar on top of the screen. It changes when you switch an active application.”
Ive used Apples (not just Macs) for as long as I can remember, starting with the Apple II. I currently own an iBook. Oh, and I used to work at Apple.
Anyway, what I meant was that they are removing the menu bar from the window. Menu-less windows are generally a MacOS trademark IMHO.
— “Personally I see no significant similarities between office 12 and mac os x or any of its applications.”
Right, because there is nothing new at all about a brushed aluminum look in MS Office…
So what if it looks similar? Don’t get your panties all up in a knot. If the Office on the Mac is easier to use, what’s stopping MS from migrating those features/designs to the PC? After all, they did design both suites.
I hate you fanboys that are all like “OMG ____ is copying _____!” So fucking what? We’ve come to a point where true innovation in the software industry is extremely difficult to come by, mostly because 99.9% of everything has already been done.
I’m sure all those users out there that are barely computer literate as it is will enjoy the long evenings they will spend learning this new, simpler interface. Especially the older peopllike the over-50s.
Typical MS arrogance, let’s take an interface that has remained about the same for over 15 years and change it around. Why ? The answer is in the article : “The priority of this mission has been so high that they haven’t included too many new features.”
In other words : they ran out of features to add when they introduced Clippy, but hey we can’t have people using the same software for too long – so we’ll just change the interface and sell it to you again.
It actually reminds me of Dreamweaver’s interface, not bad at all, but like Tyr said, its just the same MS office, I am not going to pay $300 for a piece of sofware that I already have, a new interface doesn’t do it for me.
Stay tuned… the interface is just scratching the surface of what Office 12 will offer. There are big new feature areas in 12 that only work in 12, including an entirely rewritten charting engine, 3D object design including effects like reflections, glows, shadows, etc…
As an example, Powerpoint 12 is vastly superior to 11. The content in 12 is so drastically better that many people will feel it necessary to switch just to keep competitive. People with 12 will simply be producing higher quality, more professional looking content.
Julie Larson’s channel 9 presentation is a good place to start if you want more detail on what is in the product. Even this presentation just scratches the surface of the total feature load though.
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=114720
Believe me, there are a lot of reasons to move to Office 12 if you’re currently using Office 2003. Even if you currently use OO.o or another suite because of personal preference, you’ll find that people using Office 12 are getting new features that you don’t have access to, features that are actually compelling in main-line usage scenarios instead of isolated enterprise or vertical applications.
was feature-complete.
Microsoft Office is a +platform+ for developing business solutions. From working with data to customizing the applications, Office 2003 and now Office 12 bring major changes. Sharepoint integration is also very important from a team point of view.
Your notion of an office suite has to broaden to understand Microsoft’s vision, and where the value is.