MS Unveils Office 2007, Multiple Versions

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MS Unveils Office 2007, Multiple Versions

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Thursday February 16, 2006 @05:06AM from the new-clippy-friends dept.

rfunches writes "MSNBC reports that Microsoft's next version of Office, now known as Office 2007 (previously code-named Office 12), will continue targeting the corporate audience through multiple versions of Office 2007. Versions announced include 'Office Professional Plus 2007' and 'Office Enterprise 2007.' From the article: '[Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007] will integrate capabilities of SharePoint, a collaboration program and Web portal that is designed to run over corporate networks and the Internet...and also incorporate Microsoft Office Communicator, a corporate instant messaging service.'"

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Do I forsee... by ackthpt · 2006-02-16 05:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

Hi, Joe, Here's the presentation on Wizzo Chocolate Corp. I'll be out of the office until the meeting with Wizzo, have a look at it and make any changes you see fit. To open attachedment click here [*click*] This project was created in Office Enterprise, some features may not be present in your version of Office Professional Plus - You will not be able to make any modifications to this project.
So.. how many people are really likely to get the lightweight version, hmm?

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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
1. Re:Do I forsee... by b0r1s · 2006-02-16 05:15 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  How many people in small offices really need:
  Access
  Visio
  Sharepoint
  Project
  InfoPath
  Publisher
  
  A lot of offices don't need most of the tools (think: your typical 2-10 person small business), and not having to pay for them is very helpful.
  
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2. Re:Do I forsee... by Martin+Foster · 2006-02-16 05:23 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  A lot of small companies, organizations and people in general could do miracles in Access if they would quit treating MS Excel as one...
3. Re:Do I forsee... by toddbu · 2006-02-16 05:29 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I think it is Fear Of Not Having Every Feature which drives a lot of purchasing
  But it could also work against you. If you start pushing documents out the door and your customers complain that they can't read then then you have to turn off the advanced features, at which time people start to ask "why am I paying for this?". Any time there's a lot of sharing going on then you need a lowest common denominator, or you need to take Acrobat's approach and provide read-only and read-write versions.
  
  --
  If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
4. Re:Do I forsee... by Uber+Banker · 2006-02-16 05:29 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  A lot of offices don't need most of the tools (think: your typical 2-10 person small business), and not having to pay for them is very helpful.
  
  Then OpenOffice (or KOffice or whatever) should suffice in most cases, no need to pay anything! If VBA macros, or other niche tools only offered by existing installs of MS Office, are essential, then stick with Office 2k, 2003, or whatever else you have installed (being such a small business, preferential/time limited licences are unlikely, unless you were unlucky in your initial agreement).
5. Re:Do I forsee... by linuxmop · 2006-02-16 05:55 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Your unjustified speculation is cute and everything, but Microsoft has offered multiple versions of Office for as long as I can remember. Some packages include programs such as Access that not everyone needs. They have even offered Word + Works Suite for low-end PCs. In none of these cases have they prevented you from reading or writing data files created with the more expensive suite (given that your suite the program in question, e.g. Access).
  
  But hey, why have a reasonable discussion when you can just bash Microsoft for something it hasn't done?
6. Re:Do I forsee... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-16 06:00 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  For a small office, having someone with the expertise necessary to install and administer a database (even an easy one such as MySQL) can be formiddable. Then you have to build a client on top of that. What are you going to use, then, the web? Again, another set of skills. These can be one person, and here on Slashdot a disproportionate number (when compared to just about any other sampling) of us could have just such an application working by the end of a day.
  
  However, many many offices could use a small one-person DB. While an Intern during my undergrad I put half a dozen of these together for various people. A half-day's work and they would have a nice litle application. They had forms and validation and the ability to run reports. It sure beat the hell out of the Excel spreadsheet they were using before.
  
  If you had multiple users, you could even split the backend off the DB and put it on the network.
  
  No, it doesn't scale well. And apart from VBA and some SQL, none of the skills are transferrable. But for a quick and dirty app in a small office, Access works quite well.
7. Re:Do I forsee... by ackthpt · 2006-02-16 06:00 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Folks, don't use Excel as a db, but access shouldn't be used either!
  Ha!
  I love that bit about Excel as a db. I don't think I've worked a place where people haven't done just that. Our HR vendor's product is so weak that one of the people in HR has a separate 'database' in Excel and other records are in a binder!
  Often these are the results of people not using a $y$tem to it's fullest capacity, but more often than not it's because the $y$tem doesn't have the capacity or it's highly difficult to use (go to this screen, do this, go to that screen do another thing, go to the third screen, etc.)
  
  --
  
  A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
8. Re:Do I forsee... by PitaBred · 2006-02-16 06:21 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Access makes a nice front-end to a database. Connect it's data stores to MSSQL or another SQL server, and it's actually quite good for just a quick DB interface maker.
  
  --
  My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
9. Re:Do I forsee... by CastrTroy · 2006-02-16 06:28 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Yeah, but I use OO.Org Draw, and that works fine for my uses. Word is a pain because it's a word processing app, not a desktop publishing app. OO.Org Draw isn't the best but it's around CorelDraw 5, which is good enough for me.
  
  --
  
  Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
10. Re:Do I forsee... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-16 06:44 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  "You mean MS should make free viewers that work on more than just Microsoft Windows."
  
  Or better yet, let its customers' create documents that they can share with anyone of their choice. This concept of only letting paying members a private club exchange and edit files is rude, old-school and not in the best interest of the consumer, Microsoft's customers.
  1. Shareholders 2. Microsoft 3. Customer
  
  This list is what I see as Microsoft's priorities. But IMHO, the customer should be #1 and MS can decided who is #2 and #3.
11. Re:Do I forsee... by OMRebel · 2006-02-16 07:04 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  What exactly is so horrible about Access? For setting up a simple relational DB in a small office, it works really well. There's nothing complicated about creating the database, nor anything complicated about interfacing it. There's plenty of functionality in it that serve small business very well. Not to mention, small businesses won't have to shell out extra cash for things such as Crystal Reports. Also, if it's how you're interfacing the DB that you particular don't like, you can write a few simple ASP pages (or whatever you'd like) to work with the database, and you can do pretty much anything you want. I will agree with you that OOBase has a LONG ways to go. But, it is a very young product, and hopefully it's next release will have more features to it.
12. Re:Do I forsee... by Keith+Russell · 2006-02-16 07:05 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  That's right. Different Visio versions come with different stencil sets. Thanks.
  
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  This sig intentionally left blank.
13. Re:Do I forsee... by thunderlizard · 2006-02-16 07:10 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  There's a lot more collaboration between users of the same company than there is between a company and its customers. Interally, documents are sent around to be updated by multiple individuals (i.e. collaboration).
  
  Documents sent out to external customers usually aren't for collaboration - they're for information distribution, and for various (legal, logistical, technical) reasons, it generally isn't in a company's best interests to have its customers modify documents that are sent out.
  
  It seems the norm these days is to send out Word documents internally, and PDF externally...
  
  So I really don't see how the multiple tiers will interfere with communications between a company and an external customer...
14. Re:Do I forsee... by DarkSarin · 2006-02-16 07:27 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  No, it's not.
  
  The GUI is terrible. It doesn't handle even basic things that access does (can't remember specifics, since I haven't tried to muck with it for about 3 months), and it is incapable of properly handling certain imports.
  
  Yes it does have the advantages you mention, but overall I am not impressed with it.
  
  Impress has a similar complaint--it handles almost everything that you throw at it from excel, and can easily import excel docs, but the one thing it NEEDS to have in order to do well is more templates. The template handling in Impress stinks. If it could handle templates like firefox handles extensions, I would be very happy. There needs to be a way to automatically download and install templates.
  
  --
  "We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
15. Re:Do I forsee... by Reapman · 2006-02-16 08:49 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Explain that to someone that needs a database built in a day or two, and plan to use it on a standalone Laptop. Access is much better then a "real" database when it comes to Rapid Application Development. Sometimes all you want is something quick and dirty, and not to mention "pretty" I'd rather go that route then a full blown SQL database. Yes you may not follow all the database rules with an Access database, but sometimes it doesn't really matter for very small instances.
Re:Sweeeet!!!! by Linker3000 · 2006-02-16 05:16 · Score: 1, Insightful

Since Office 2000 Professional does all we want I see little need for changing - all the extra bloat is pointless for us. If I was going to make a jump it would be to a more trimmed, more polished copy of OpenOffice - maybe Q3/4 2006??

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AT&ROFLMAO
Re:OSS office... by CastrTroy · 2006-02-16 05:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yes, for some reason, office suites feel that they have to inculde everything. Most people don't need 90% of the features in there, or could get by without them if they weren't there. Also, putting tools where they shouldn't be makes things harder. You can draw a picture in Word, Powerpoint, Excel and every other app. Why not have 1 app for drawing, and then the ability to place that drawing in each of the other apps.

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Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Re:Office communicator by Rudisaurus · 2006-02-16 05:26 · Score: 2, Insightful

If the outlook calendar shows that I have a meeting in my office , it will set the IM status to ('Busy, in a meeting') and switch off the phone ringer (and email me any voice messages). Then when I see a missed call, I just click on that person and select call, which switches on the phone speaker and dials out the number. Impressive , eh ?
Yep, right up to the time where I skip a meeting because I'm waiting for an important phone call -- and my phone just never rings because I forgot to cancel the appointment in Outlook ...

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licet differant, aequabitur
If I may correct that a bit. by khasim · 2006-02-16 05:30 · Score: 4, Insightful

It integrates email, IM and phone in an amazing way (by email I mean Outlook , no you cant use pine :( ).
What you meant to say was ...

"It integrates MS Exchange/Outlook, MS Messenger and MS Phone in an amazing way."

And no, I don't want voice mail in my email. People store too much crap in it already.
Re:Offices are getting sick of this by DaHat · 2006-02-16 05:36 · Score: 3, Insightful

Lucky for your office, one of Office 12's most under sold benefits (new XML based documents) will not just be limited to Office 12, in addition they will be releasing patches for XP and 2003 for sure (I am not sure about 2k currently) so that far more people can enjoy the benefits.

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Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Re:The OSS impact by Linker3000 · 2006-02-16 05:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

"By contrast, the OSS community knew that names were better if they bore no linguistic connection to the actual function of the product. (grep, cat, and vi, I'm talking to you.)"

[I can't work out if you are being ironic - just in case you are not...I've put my marketing consultant hat on...]

Nah - they were handy for quick typing on a TTY - no more.

With most potential desktop Linux users likely to use a GUI, the name of the underlying executable is irrelevant and we have now moved on to a 'marketing' track where the name bears some relevance to the acceptability of the program - trust me, calling a graphics application 'The GIMP' does not make managers warm to it. Similarly, mentioning at meetings that we are using the 'Joomla' CMS always makes me slighly uneasy as I look round the room.

If OpenOffice was called ONMO (OpenOffice is Not Microsoft Office), for example, I bet its adoption would be slower - trust me, it *IS* an issue; why do you think companies spend thousands just getting the name, shape and theme of a new product 'just right'.

Trouble is that too many developers live in the world of Monty Python, Tolkein and Terry Pratchett and think it l33t to name their poducts with a nod to their favourite characters etc. - as a simple exercise, ask a Manager whether they think it would be easer to recommend to the Board of Directors that the organization should migrate to the 'BilboScript' Word Processor or 'MavenWord'. If you think it all comes down to the features comparison matrix you are sadly deluded - names matter, even if it's more of a knee-jerk reaction.

Oh, and PLEASE will someone rename Ogg Vorbis!!

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AT&ROFLMAO
Re:Corporate IM service by Scyber · 2006-02-16 05:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

Corporate IM is actually becoming pretty popular. It replaces the need to quickly call or run over to someone to ask a quick question that email is overkill for (or that you need an immediate answer for). Lotus Notes has had an IM client (SameTime) in it for a little while now.
Multiple versions? Mmm...must be a good thing by Jivha · 2006-02-16 06:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

I wonder why people are falling for this talk about "multiple versions" in Office 2007. The available retail versions of MS Office 2003, as listed on Microsoft.com

- MS 2003 Professional Ed.
- MS 2003 Standard Ed.
- MS 2003 Small Business Ed.
- MS 2003 Student & Teacher Ed.

And the versions of the upcoming Office 2007 as listed in the article

- Professional
- Standard
- Enterprise
- Small Business
- Home & Student

Guess what - all of one extra edition - "Enterprise" (Student & Teacher appears to have been rebranded as Home & Student). The way the article and the submission is written it would appear that multiple versions were the next best thing to sliced bread since, um, Office 2003?
Perfect by 955301 · 2006-02-16 06:57 · Score: 2, Insightful

Because that's what I need my malicious script friendly word processing software to be - network aware and readily capable of "sharing" with the rest of the corporate environment.

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You are checking your backups, aren't you?
Who here still uses old Office versions? by antdude · 2006-02-16 08:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

Does anyone here still prefer and use older versions like Office 2000? At home, I use 2000 version and it still does fine for my needs. I don't do fancy editings in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. Sometimes I use OpenOffice especially in Linux and Mac OS X v10.2.8 (NeoOffice), but that's rare. At work, I have to use Office 2003 since it is required by IT. I don't like these newer versions (2002/XP, 2003, etc.).

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Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Re:Do I forsee... (tool alert) by infochuck · 2006-02-16 10:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here - though every bone in my body assumes YOU did something screwy, because I have NEVER had this problem - and not imply you're doing something screwy.

Instead I will point this out: the program screwed you over, yes; but not 'the interface'. The interface did what it was supposed to: helped you create a query to get at your data. If the other tiers screwed up, fine. After all Access is mostly crap. Yeah, I said it. It is; but it HAS ITS PLACE, and it's not crap beacuse of the interface; the interface is rather refined, and that was my original/main point.