When Microsoft releases Office 2010 later this year, will it be an upgrade worth pursuing, or will it, like Office 2007, be one that you can easily let pass? That’s a question that’s no doubt on the minds of many existing Office users — as well as more than a few executives at Microsoft.
Office 2010 can easily be seen as analogous to Windows 7 in that it represents Microsoft’s latest chance to convince people that they’ve really been listening to their concerns.
Like Windows Vista, Office 2007 was an upgrade that relatively few bothered to adopt. The interface changes in Office 2007 seemed both radical and gratuitous. And for many, the additional features underlying the release were simply not compelling enough to warrant the move away from Office 2003, its predecessor.
Office 2010, like Windows 7, is a do-over. Microsoft, in fact, took a page from the lengthy Windows 7 beta program when, last year, it made the beta of Office 2010 widely available to the public.
To date, over 2 million people have downloaded Office 2010, according to Microsoft. The feedback has been encouraging. Office 2010 is stable, fast, and packed with productivity-enhancing innovations. The only question that remains is whether those innovations are enough to make you want to upgrade.
Ribbon Bar Everywhere
The “ribbon bar” was Office 2007’s most controversial feature — and one that dissuaded many from upgrading to Office 2007. The ribbon bar did away with conventional menus in favor of a tabbed, context- specific top row that grouped functions likely to be needed or wanted. The idea was to unearth the many features of Office applications that many never found because those features were buried deep within menus or dialog boxes.
Menu addicts will be disappointed to hear that not only has the ribbon bar not disappeared in Office 2010,…