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Software Microsoft Delays Office 2007
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - March 24, 2006 2:10 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 23 comment(s) - last by mindless1.. on Mar 26 at 11:04 AM

The Office 2007 Beta 1 release includes a huge overhaul on the interface
Along with Windows Vista, Office 2007 will be released in January, 2007

Microsoft announced today that along with Windows Vista, the next version of Office -- Office 2007 -- will also be delayed. Originally slated for release during the holiday season of this year, both Office and Vista are being pushed back to early 2007. According to Microsoft, Office was pushed back to co-launch with Windows Vista. The date currently set for release is sometime in January but no official day has been set.

Office 2007 is herald to be a true next-generation of the Office suite. Previously, releases of Office have only come with minor upgrades and in most cases many customers have complained that the price of every new version of Office does not warrant what's delivered. Office 2007 however, is expected to bring an entirely new working environment. New user interface, new file formats and new a core design -- Office 2007 will be integrating with Vista as well as support Microsoft's suite of Live products.

Those who were hoping to hop onto an entire new platform of Microsoft software will have to wait just a bit longer.

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Shy upgrade?
By plinden on 3/24/2006 10:12:38 AM , Rating: 2
I'm still using Office 2000 (bought in 1999) on my PC and Office:Mac 2004 on my Mac. They are both "good" enough. So what does Office 2007 have that would make me upgrade? Apart from the rinkydink new GUI?




RE: Shy upgrade?
By TomZ on 3/24/2006 10:14:26 AM , Rating: 2
Better usability. Read the reviews on the 'net.


RE: Shy upgrade?
By plinden on 3/24/2006 10:21:33 AM , Rating: 2
Meh ... still not compelling enough. The upgrade cost for 2007 is $329 for Office Professional. Still half the price I paid for it in 1999, but I'll wait I think.


RE: Shy upgrade?
By MrSmurf on 3/25/2006 9:31:42 AM , Rating: 2
It's not meant for you then. It's meant for the saps who are willing to spend $300 for some new features they probably won't use. I still use Office XP... with the exception of Outlook which adds spam filter it isn't worth going to 2003... which I can get for $7.


RE: Why upgrade?
By plinden on 3/24/2006 10:17:45 AM , Rating: 2
Sorry to respond to my own post. Doh, I should have realised that changing the file formats so that new documents won't load in earlier versions would help "encourage" users to change (and I want to fix the typo)


RE: Why upgrade?
By TomZ on 3/24/2006 1:10:36 PM , Rating: 2
Microsoft is going to make the new file formats available for users of Office 2000 and Office 2003 with a simple update.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/pr eview/developers...


RE: Why upgrade?
By MrSmurf on 3/25/2006 9:32:31 AM , Rating: 2
RE: Why upgrade?
By MrSmurf on 3/25/2006 9:33:02 AM , Rating: 2
meh, just take the space out


RE: Why upgrade?
By TomZ on 3/25/2006 12:03:06 PM , Rating: 2
That's a DailyTech website bug. I've seen it happen a couple of times.


RE: Why upgrade?
By mindless1 on 3/25/2006 11:19:15 AM , Rating: 2
I see it the opposite, since it's using the new formats there is encouragement NOT to start using it. Who wants to add features to a document only to find that when you want to save, "that feature isn't retained".

In fantasy land, people think "tell that other Office user to download this or that update". In reality, that's unprofessional, a sloppy document. Standard office documents have been around and support all necessary features. If a document isn't fully supported even as far back as Office97, the creator of that document doesn't know much about document exchange. If the document isn't supported by Office 2000 without updates, there's a good chance the receiver will simply require you to resubmit it in a compatible format.

Don't ever think you can shift the burden of supporting a format onto the recipient. It's not a good policy to even try it regardless of whether you get away with it in limited scenarios.


RE: Why upgrade?
By TomZ on 3/25/2006 12:08:54 PM , Rating: 2
You're views completely ignore the benefits of the new file formats and the importance of them to many corporate and government customers. Please use google to educate yourself about why Microsoft decided to make this change.


RE: Why upgrade?
By mindless1 on 3/26/2006 11:04:54 AM , Rating: 2
Nope, I'm just not calling a feature a "benefit" when it isn't needed by most people. You are also projecting when you attempt to claim you can declare THEIR feelings on importance.


Fisher Price interface!
By igloo15 on 3/24/2006 2:24:31 AM , Rating: 4
I hope there is an option to do classic like windows xp because the interface looks like one of my little brother's fisher price toys where he pushing the buttons and... well you get the point.




RE: Fisher Price interface!
By Bonrock on 3/24/2006 2:34:38 AM , Rating: 2
There is no "classic" interface option for Office 2007 as far as I know.

I too was skeptical of the new interface, until I tried it out in the beta. Within a few hours, I was loving it. So I guess my advice would be "don't knock it till you try it."


RE: Fisher Price interface!
By kelmon on 3/24/2006 2:49:34 AM , Rating: 2
Just purely as a matter of interest, were you running the beta under VIsta and, if so, do you have an idea of what the hardware requirements will be for this? Beta status accepted, I have noted a few sites stating that Vista requires bucket loads of RAM (approx. 1GB) so I am wondering if Office 2007 is the same and whether I'm going to be able to run both on my laptop (RAM tops out at 1GB).

It's a shame that it's been delayed. I don't much care about the interface but I was looking forwards to being able to have more than 65,000 rows in an Excel spreadsheet.


RE: Fisher Price interface!
By Bonrock on 3/24/2006 3:24:22 AM , Rating: 2
I was running the beta under Windows XP, not Vista, so I don't know how Office 2007 will perform under Vista. I ran the beta on a computer that wasn't particularly fast and only had 512MB of RAM and performance was fine. I can't imagine that you'd have any trouble running it on a laptop with 1GB of RAM (especially since the final version of Office 2007 will likely be performance tuned more than the beta currently is).

Incidentally, I think 1GB is just the recommended amount of RAM for Vista; I believe the minimum requirement is 512MB or maybe even less than that, I'm not sure.


RE: Fisher Price interface!
By kitchme on 3/24/2006 2:13:11 PM , Rating: 2
I had some old computer sitting around with 256 megs of RAM, but with onboard video, and it wouldn't let me continue installation without 256 megs min (onboard was set for 32Mb). So I put 512 in there and no problems with Vista beta. Office cannot be much more as a requirement to run it. But as always is the case, the more RAM the better, so even 512, I believe, will be plenty for normal Internet/Office work for Vista+Office 07. 1 gig will be plenty for those tasks, laptop or desktop. Don't you think?


RE: Fisher Price interface!
By Ringold on 3/24/2006 8:25:45 PM , Rating: 2
I think a thousand Anti-"M$" and possible Linux fanatics either just died a little inside, or read your post, had a subconscious nuclear war between the facts you presented (running Vista and likely Office 07 on what we'd call an old crapper computer just fine) and their beliefs with the end result being that they forget your post within 15 minutes and continue living in harmony with their anti-MS *opinions*.

Or maybe one, out of those thousand, had the sense to think, wow, bleeding-edge OS that runs great on a barebones system I threw together for my girlfriend on a $500 budget two years ago...


RE: Fisher Price interface!
By mindless1 on 3/25/2006 11:12:54 AM , Rating: 2
Or maybe you are been so in denial about reality that a pre-emptive post is always on your mind?

Don't be silly, any newer OS and office suite can run on a couple year old system with a minimal memory amount. Then those who know WTF they're doing, instead of just people whining about anti-MS fanatics, realize that just as always, doing something with bare minimums is stupid. Yes, someone would have to be an idiot to take an aging minimally configured system, then buy Vista and buy the next version of MS Office for it rather than a less bloated set of software and OS. If you want the new software, do yourself and/or the end user a favor and buy a suitable system for it.


RE: Fisher Price interface!
By AbelIAN on 3/24/2006 3:22:29 AM , Rating: 2
Yeah, I liked the style in beta 1.

Don't knock the ribbon until you've tried it. It looks ginormous in the screenshots, but it's nearly the same height as the old 2003 taskbar.


um
By GhandiInstinct on 3/24/06, Rating: -1
VISTA & OFFICE- delayed 2007
By crystal clear on 3/24/06, Rating: -1
RE: VISTA & OFFICE- delayed 2007
By TomZ on 3/24/2006 8:23:21 AM , Rating: 2
What in the heck are you talking about?


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