|
Tuesday, 25 July 2006 |
|
Microsoft has announced that its Office 2007 suite is entering the final testing phase in the third quarter of 2006, with all versions being released to major hardware manufacturers before Christmas, and the popular software being available to market in January 2007.ESP has seen beta versions of the core Office products and (unless major changes are made in the testing phases) can inform clients that several of the programs have had quite large overhauls in the Graphical User Interface (GUI) – in other words, the part that the user sees. Outlook 2007 remains similar to Outlook 2003 (aside from an integrated RSS reader) but both Word and Excel have a new look and some added functionality. Excel in particular has been given a new lease of life and is being touted as the key method for business information, with integration behind the scenes with server products now much sharpened. One of the more irritating things with Office 2007 is that there are going to be no less than 8 different versions: Enterprise, Professional Plus, Professional, Small Business, Standard, Basic and Home & Student. We feel that this is sure to lead to pricing and licensing confusion, and with most users still of the opinion that Office is ‘part of’ the overall PC package. How will people react when faced with this baffling choice? ESP will of course take all steps to clarify the situation and will publish the ‘grid’ of software one is entitled to under each of the packages on our websites nearer the time.
|
