Still not sure what M$ will decide to call the final version - 12 or 2007. Either way here is my initial thoughts after using it now for a few days.
The basic Office apps come in a 450Mb install file. Install is fairly quick and as things go fairly straight forward --- esp. since I installed everything.
I've played around with Word/Excel and Powerpoint mainly. I belive there is something deeply wrong with an email app. that needs 100Mb, so Outlook never got a serious look.
All of the apps. have been given a bit of a makeup, with a new UI. To start off, my first 20min. with the UI has not been very enjoyable. After using it for a few days, I must say that the Usability people working at M$ have been doing a great job. The UI is very very responsive (even for a Beta), and the ribbon thing actually does work.
The downside is the first few hours of getting used to the changes are not very plesant (to put it mildly), but once you get over that short term pain -- things start to look up. I like the work esp. in Powerpoint. Working with Tables and Pictures is now very easy - esp. giving the images nice effects that just make it look it that much nicer.
Word-2007 is unfortunately a bit of a memory hog now [beta?], still after persisting with the new interface - I'm starting to see the whole point behind the changes. There are a lot of tasks that are now a bit more accessible (actually you now know they are available).
Excel has a number of minor tweaks to its Usability. Charts and scrolling are much much better now. The Excel charts can be given that 'pro' look without too much effort :)
Bottom line: If you plan on moving to Office 2007, invest a few hours into the new UI and it will slowly start to grow on you.
Business case: This is a much harder .... I just cannot see enough new features in the product that will make businesses move to the new product line. The UI will most certainly require users to undertake some level of training, the hardest bit to get over is the complete lack of a menu-bar. Habits are hard to change, my feeling is that the final version will most likely have the menu-bar put back in just to make users feel a bit more at home. A lot of companies are still using Office-10, some have moved to Office-11 fewer still will move to Office 12.
-- Rajesh
2 comments:
I also found the initial transition mildly painful. In fact, when it came down to the finer things (changing page layout of just one page without affecting the rest of the document, playing around with headers, footers, margins etc.) I spent hours just working out where these features were. Having said that, I do agree that once you start to learn where everything is located it does become easier...
I can't remember where it is, but I'm sure there was a way to also enable the traditional style file menu. I *think* it is still there and can be enabled with a button. I'm sure i've done it before. It's just really well hidden. I'll have to look into this when I have time :p
Ok, I must have imagined it. It would seem that office 12 does not provide support for what will become a legacy interface.
Upon Vista and Office 12? release the Ribbon will replace the tired old File menu. It's a nice step as the logical grouping does provide quicker access to more features. I'm interested to see how future programs (that are not Microsoft) make use of this Ribbon in place of the old file menu.
I guess time will tell eh.
Post a Comment