Office 2007 UI License

MikeWeller writes, "Microsoft has recently announced a new licensing program for the Office 2007 user interface. This page links to the license and an MSDN Channel9 interview about the program (featuring a lawyer). The program 'allows virtually anyone to obtain a royalty-free license to use the new Office UI in a software product. There's only one limitation: if you are building a program which directly competes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, or Access (the Microsoft applications with the new UI), you can't obtain the royalty-free license.' What does this mean for OpenOffice? Will traditional menus/toolbars hold up to an ever-increasing number of features, or will OO be forced to take on a new UI paradigm? With the gap between OO and MS Office widening, how is this going to affect users trying to move between the two platforms?" You need to sign the license before you can get the 120-page UI implementation guidelines, which are confidential.

Comments

Re:so, what this seems to say

[geobeck]

...the UI hasn't changed this drastically since the move to windows in MS Word 6(?).

I remember using Word and Excel 4 in Windows, and no, the UI was not that different at all. This seems like a case of "We've got this flashy new OS, but we have no functional changes for Office... how can we justify releasing a new version?"

Kind of like when they released a tremendous overhaul of Windows NT (Windows 2000) for business, but had nothing new for home users. The result: Windows Me. If that's a valid parallel, stay as far away from Office 2007 as possible.