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Microsoft Office 2010, Dissected
CWmike notes a review by Preston Gralla of the soon-to-be-released Microsoft Office 2010. "I review plenty of software packages throughout the course of a year, and it's rare that I come across one that I believe will truly make a difference in the way that I work or use my computer. With Office 2010, which recently hit RTM status, it is one of those times. The main attraction, as far as I'm concerned, is the Outlook makeover that makes it far easier to cut through e-mail overload and keep up with your ever-expanding group of contacts on social networking sites. There's also an improved Ribbon that now works across all Office applications, and some very useful new PowerPoint tools for giving Internet-based presentations and handling video. Question is: Is Office 2010 good enough to stop the defection to Google Apps? Some large enterprises are seriously considering jumping from Exchange to Gmail, or already have, reports Robert Mitchell. The final version of Microsoft Office Web Apps, the Web-based version of Office, isn't yet available but is expected before summer."
It's not merely a matter of dislike. The ribbon eats up valuable horizontal estate while monitors provide less each year. From 4:3 we went to 16:10 and now most laptops are using the 16:9 resolution. Resolutions such as 1366x768 which provide the same horizontal size we've been using in the nineties...
The ribbon is something that made sense a few years ago. It is now outdated. Perhaps a vertical ribbon / menu / toolbar would make sense, but currently OpenOffice and its standard menu is simply more usable.
"There's also an improved Ribbon..." - contradiction in terms.