Office 14: Worth a wait?
REDMOND, Wash.--Among the many tidbits in Steve Ballmer's talk to financial analysts Tuesday was the fact that folks should not expect the next version of Office, code-named Office 14, to come out this year.
"From a strategy perspective, the next big innovation milestone is Office 14, our next Office release, which will not be this year," Ballmer told the Wall Street crowd. "There's a version of SharePoint. There's a version of Exchange. There's a new version of Office Live."
As it has been with Windows 7, Microsoft has been cagey about when to expect Office 14, though some thought it might yet come out this year. Windows 7 is still expected to come out later this year, in time to be on PCs sold during the holiday shopping season.
With the last update to Office, Office 2007, Microsoft made a lot of changes to the way Office looked, completely changing the user interface and adding the "ribbon" metaphor.
This time around, the changes are focused in other areas. One of the big changes with Office 14 will be the fact that, in addition to the desktop versions, Microsoft will also be coming out with a set of "Office Web Applications" essentially slimmed-down versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote that can run via a Web browser. And not just Internet Explorer. Firefox and Safari support will mean that Office, for the first time, will also run on Linux machines as well as Apple's iPhone.
Microsoft has started early testing of both Office 14 and its Web-based parts, but public testing is not expected until later this year. Exchange 14 is also being tested by about 4 million people, though many of them don't even know it. That's because Microsoft's Outlook Live service (formerly known as Exchange Labs) for Live@edu users at tionaeducal institutions is running on an early version of the new Exchange..
As for naming, I'd expect Microsoft to call it Office 2010, based on past naming conventions as well as a few slips of the tongue I heard in some meetings this week.
Speaking of which, I'll have a bunch more posts in the coming days on the making of Office 14, based on a number of in-person meetings with folks here this week.
As a teaser, here's a video of Microsoft's Antoine Leblond talking about some of the thinking that went into Office 14.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
I'll wait until 2010, and if the features are changed significantly, THEN I'll upgrade.
So kudos to Microsoft for not feeling like they need to push something out this year.
I suspect that the new interface works better for new users than it does to "old dogs". Perhaps I will eventually like it more but after 2-years I honestly have my doubts.
It is perhaps also worth noting that when the Mac Business Unit asked their customers about whether they wanted the Ribbon interface in Office:mac 2008 the answer was "no" and therefore it wasn't implemented. Given that sort of feedback I really don't think that the Ribbon has achieved all that it was supposed to.
Everything else was blahhhh
@ jessiethe3rd
You may have to accept that people don't want to learn a new interface and that they prefer something familiar. Overall, I do not agree that the new interface makes working any faster but perhaps it works better for you.
I'm good with what I have, thanks.
They say Windows O/S and MS Office is the butter and bread of their income.
With the appearance of an ever more competent and on top of that free rival products (OpenOffice, IBM's Smart Suite etc.), which are said to surpass the functionality the average user would ever want, I wonder what new gimmicks MS could possibly add that would entice the average corporation to fork out the considerable extra money it costs to purchase licenses for MS office: a button that makes automatically coffee? Maybe a luscious office assistant trying to read your wishes? A menu option that writes your next presentation automatically?
Lets face it word processors and office applications have become commodities. This is not the early nineties, where where people where hanging on MS's mouth, figuring out what they would do next to trump out Word Perfect. At a time where money is so short that you have to let go some your best employees, because there is not enough work, you don't want to be burdened by the thought how much 'you will be allowed' to pay for yet another regurgitation of their Microsoft's office.
The Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is just doing the only thing he is reasonably good at. (Some may argue 'notorious' is the appropriate adjective.) So what is he good at: Market-Square-Screamer.
He is trying to keep MS in the news, hoping against the reality of a falling MS share price, that staying in the news will somehow turn the trend of waning interest in their products. Trying to keep the gravy-train rolling!
Keep screaming bozo. I think your days are numbered.
Arthur
Just because you wish something were true doesn't make it true.
You are an idiot. jtkt145 wrote the truth. You're the type of person who must still watch the CFR-controlled news and think it's true. If that's the case, you must also own a Blu-Ray player and a PS3, and wonder why everybody else owns a Wii.
Currently controlling Excel from C#, going through VSTO is kind of a kludge. It would be a whole lot better if they released a real native .NET version.
- by BtmnHatesRbn February 28, 2009 10:17 AM PST
- Why bother? With openoffice.org out there, just download it and use it.There's also a bunch of other free Office-like programs and applications all over the place. Visit CNET's own VersionTracker.com and take a look. Why pay for something that should be free?
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