Microsoft Changes Office 2007 Interface Again

daria42 writes "Microsoft has modified its interface for Office 2007 yet again, after complaints from beta testers that the 'ribbon' system took up too much space on screen. The article discusses the resistance the new interface is likely to prompt in old users of the software, both at a personal and corporate level. From a format perspective, there are other changes to expect as well." From the article: "Hodgson also confirmed that Microsoft is working on tools to help enterprises automatically translate existing documents into new file formats being introduced in Office 2007. 'We've been asked by a lot of customers to provide tools to do mass migrations,' he said. 'There will be tools that will take a million documents and migrate those to the new formats.' One likely incentive for that migration will be reduced storage costs. Microsoft claims that file sizes for the new Office 2007 XML-based formats are up to 75 percent less than existing Office formats."

Comments

Hmm...

[tttonyyy]

"Microsoft claims that file sizes for the new Office 2007 XML-based formats are up to 75 percent less than existing Office formats."

Presumably to make up for the >33% increase in the size of their new software? :)

XML FTW (WTF)

[dsandler]

Microsoft claims that file sizes for the new Office 2007 XML-based formats are up to 75 percent less than existing Office formats.

...thus marking the first time that using XML ever made any data representation more compact.