Office 14 crawls toward beta
Just because Office 14 won't be fully released until next year doesn't mean consumers will have to wait that long to try out the products.
In an interview this week Senior Vice President Chris Capossela said that Microsoft will offer more details on the beta "relatively soon," noting that Office has traditionally made its products available to millions of testers well before the final version ships.
"That's been true of the suite," he said. "That will certainly be true of the suite this time and of the Web apps."
Capossela
(Credit: Microsoft)With Office 14, Microsoft has said it will offer desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote as well as versions that can run online in a browser, be it Internet Explorer, Safari, or Firefox. As previously noted, that means that for the first time Office will also work on both Linux and Apple's iPhone. CEO Steve Ballmer told financial analysts last week that Office 14 would not come out this year.
Microsoft has already started testing some of the components that make up the Office 14 wave of products. Capossela wouldn't go into too many specifics about when Office 14 would ship, but said Microsoft hoped not to be too far beyond its typical cycle which sees new versions roughly every three years.
"I don't think Office 14 is going to be wildly different," Capossela said. "Office has had a pretty predictable ship rate and I think we will continue with that."
The last version of Office, Office 2007 was finalized and made available to large businesses in late 2006 and had its consumer launch with Windows Vista in January 2007.
As for the new Web-based products, Capossela reiterated that they are already being tested "with a small set of people."
"We will look to expand that number relatively soon," he said. The final version, though he said, won't come until the desktop version of Office 14 is also done. "In terms of when things will be completely done we'll take the beta name off when the wave is completely done," he said.
For businesses, though, Capossela said Microsoft is competing plenty well with its current suite, Office 2007. Although the company had some high-profile customers consider a move to Google Apps, Capossela said that the pressure has actually waned some.
"The bloom is off the rose I would say when it comes to Google in the enterprise," he said. "Last year there was a nice halo effect for their brand for their business offerings."
But he said, the actual business adoption of Google's productivity software has been low. "I think the reality is Google isn't an enterprise company. Microsoft wasn't an enterprise company a long time ago and it took us years to earn the credibility."
Capossela pointed to the fact that many of Google's products, even the ones it sells to businesses are still in beta form.
"Businesses don't bet on beta," he said. "Google has been in beta for their stuff for I don't know how long...Companies have a very hard time paying for software that says it's in beta."
But customers, he said, do see Web-based productivity software as a way to expand the number of workers who get access to software. That's particularly true in industries like manufacturing and hospitality, where many employees don't have their own PC.
"Certain industries lend themselves much more to a lightweight, deskless (approach)," he said. "There's no PC (that) they have there as part of their daily job but there is an opportunity to provide them with more technology."
No word on Web apps pricing
Microsoft already has a cheaper "deskless" option for companies that want to provide such workers access to both Exchange e-mail and to a SharePoint portal server. The company hasn't said exactly how it will price access to the new Office Web Apps, but it has said that customers that want to provide certain workers only with Web-based Office access will be able to do so.
"This will become a lot clearer when we finalize our packaging," Capossela said.
In the time that Microsoft has been building Office 14, cost-sensitivity has increased as the economy has deteriorated. Although Capossela said Microsoft is still building the same product it set out to, he acknowledged that the company has changed its messaging somewhat.
"We change the way we talk to customers to be much more focused on how we can take costs out," he said. But, at the same time, Capossela said that businesses want to hear about more than just ways to save.
"I do think that beyond the cost savings there is a thirst for the new styles of productivity that take into account collaboration," he said. Many businesses see the amount of time and energy workers put into social networking and personal blogs.
"A lot of IT people see that energy going outside of the business space," Capossela said. "How do you actually put that into more of a business context?"
Office, particularly SharePoint, already has tools for turning a portal into more of a companywide social-networking site. The company has said it wants to extend that with the new version, although Capossela declined to offer any new details on what shape that might take.
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. 
Ina, the graphic on the front page for this article makes the Microsoft Office logo look like road kill at night.
Obviously you're not the type of person Office is intended for.
Congratulations, sir/madam. We need more people like you in today's society.
Customer knows best!!! Not you Microsoft.
It is quite silly to let a new product sit and collect dust for two years! Your company has had enought time to teach its employees and update all of its Office automation to the new version. Those who want the classic look of Office 2003 should just use Office 2003 period.
The whole purpose of the new ribbon style is to give the user access to all of the functionalities of Office in a maximum of two levels as opposed to Office 2003 which has standard menus that have N-levels to access the functionalities. For me standard menus are a pain to use after having gotten used to the ribbon.
If you are not able to decide for your company, see the new features of Office 2007; they are great (not just eye-candy): http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA101656411033.aspx
If you really want the standard menus in Office 2007, check these links out:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/EM102220681033.aspx?pid=CE102412891033
http://www.addintools.com/english/menuword/
Really, you should upgrade to Office 2007 -- makes life much simpler in the long run. Otherwise, have fun with Open Office. (I don't think you will like it as much as what MS Office offers).
You're full of it dude.
The ribbon *enhances* productivity -- this is proven with hard data. You deciding in one single glance that you don't like it is your own silliness -- any new interface has a learning curve and you can't judge its effectiveness until you've gone through that curve, so with your admitted level of experience with Office 2007, your opinion is null and void.
In terms of Customer knows best -- your Fortune 500 company purchasing Office makes them the customer, not you. If they see the benefit (productivity boost) they will buy Office 2007 or Office 14. btw -- customer doesn't necessarily know best -- they will do what they think is right for them. MS can only do it's best to anticipate your needs, and to meet them (same as any other company). In this case, guess what -- they hit the nail on the head -- you just don't happen to have realized it yet.
And finally -- are you trying to tell us that a migration from MS Office (any version) to Open Office is actually easier and less disruptive than a migration from MS Office 2003 or older to MS Office 2007 or newer? Have you taken leave of your senses, dude?
If your Fortune 500 firm can afford the switch from MS Office to Open Office, all the best to you. However, I don't think you will find Open Office to be as feature-rich as MS Office.
If the only thing that is holding you back from upgrading from Office 2003 to Office 2007 is the ribbon-style feature access, then you can search on Microsoft's site: "Classic Menu for Word 2007: Show classic menus and toolbars on the ribbon".
The whole point of the ribbon-style feature access is to make it easier for the user to access all of the features of Office in a maximum of two levels as opposed to Office 2003 that use standard N-level menus. After having used Office 2007, it is very annoying to use applications (e.g., Office 2003) that have standard menus.
Give MS Office 2007 an honest try before dissing it.
The time it will take your company to adjust to Open Office is much longer than upgrading your Office automation to Office 2007 and teaching your employees the new behaviour of Office 2007. (You know there is a great Help and How-to section on Microsoft's Office web page that each of your employees can self-train themselves).
- by mcswell2001 March 20, 2009 3:31 PM PDT
- The statement that "The whole point of the ribbon-style feature access is to make it easier for the user to access all of the features of Office in a maximum of two levels" is simply wrong. You canNOT access all the features, because Microsoft in its wisdom has only offered a small subset of the features in the ribbon. Even worse, for what I do, the subset is the *wrong* subset. I NEVER want to center or right justify or otherwise format a paragraph or change the font manually; I only want to do those things through the styles, because otherwise the document becomes a complete mess. And likewise for most of the other items on the ribbon--they are actions I don't normally want to do.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(21 Comments)As for the things I do want to do (like put the styles menu on the right-hand side of the window, or update all the fields in the document, or etc.)--they're not on the ribbon. The only way I can get at them is to put them in the "quick access" ribbon (or whatever that tiny little space in the upper left-hand corner is). When I do that, all I get is someone's meaningless icon, and to find the icon I want the next time I need it, I have to mouse over all the icons up there. Why can't I have words that say "Update fields" instead of an icon? For that matter, I would like to get rid of all the icons in the ribbon (if I have to have the ribbon) and have just the words in their place.
So in sum, the ribbon has the wrong choices (for me), and it is unchangeable. What's wrong with meaningful customization?
And I have given it an honest try (as cnet_user_0 suggests); I'm forced to use it because our IT department got rid of Office 2003, and I hate Office 2007 more every day. (If I could purchase one of the after-market apps that restores the classic look, I would, but IT won't allow that.)