Microsoft Office 2016 Public Preview Released

jones_supa writes: Back in March, Microsoft made Office 2016, the next release of the company's leading office suite, available to IT professionals to test and submit feedback on. At Microsoft's Ignite conference, CEO Satya Nadella announced that the public preview of Office 2016 has now been released as well. Office 2016 comes with a range of new features that build upon Office 2013. There is far more integration with cloud, allowing a user to access documents anywhere, and Outlook now syncs with OneDrive when sending large files. So called Smart Applications extend the functionality of Office, including Tell Me, a new search tool, and Clutter, which unclutters your inbox based on machine learning. Anyone can start testing the free Office 2016 Preview right now. Just as they have done with Windows 10, Microsoft is receiving open feedback on the product.

Comments

Moar Cloud

[JMJimmy]

Whenever I read "more cloud integration" or some other marketing crap like that my immediate thought is "How many people am I going to have to downgrade or switch to an Open alternative?"

Office 2003 is the last Microsoft Office suite I used and I could not be happier with my choice. The writing was on the wall when they went "ribbon" crazy.

Re:Moar Cloud

[LinuxIsGarbage]

I like Office 2010. I actually like Ribbon, once getting over the learning curve. I've used some third party companies that implement Ribbon (eg: AutoCAD) that I found terrible.

In addition, I love how Excel 2007+ handles filters. Much easier to import data, and easily filter columns.

For me I haven't upgraded past Office 2010 for two reasons:
1) We use 2010 at work, so home-work consistency is a consideration
2) Microsoft is pushing subscription based 365 so hard, they limit some features in 2013, but not 365.

I'd just be happy with...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

I'd just be happy with an announcement that the online Office 365 apps would finally get the features they need to quit making them toys (and forcing everyone to download docs to local Office apps anyway).

Second to that would be an option in Office 365 to default to "yes, when I opened the document, put me in f***ing editing mode by default." Hell, call it the "Google Docs" mode if you want.

Clutter tool

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Microsoft spokesperson T. Ruth Teller said, "We moved menu items around using the ribbon in Vista. The drudgery of regular work was replaced by the adventure of searching 'where is the font menu hiding today'. Not to rest on our laurels, we scrambled the start menu items when we introduced Windows 7, then took the start menu away in Windows 8. Brought it back in windows 9, but not exactly. Now not to stop with stuff we put in the interface, we have decided to play hide and seek with the stuff you put in the document. What happened to the intern's acceptance email, why the CEO's form email prominently displayed and my boss's email thread about my vacation plan gone? You will get lots and lots opportunity ponder such things in the new release".

She continued further, "Using Microsoft product means you save so much on retraining you employees on the office products they use daily. All the years of experience will continue to pay off".