Office 12 learning curve worth it, says pundit

Well-known Microsoft pundit, Paul Thurrott, believes the new user interface in Office 12 is the most innovative feature to come out of Microsoft “perhaps ever”. Reports that the new version of the productivity suite will be hard to learn are only partly true due to the new intuitive ribbon-based navigation system. But it will be worth making the effort. “This is big stuff for a company that has generally taken others’ ideas and sold them as its own.”

Justin Harris, a program manager on the Office team told Thurrott that the new Office 12 UI, which replaces the toolbars and menu systems of all earlier Office versions, is the result of the company finally realizing that it didn’t have enough faith in its users. PC users, said Harris, were smart enough to handle different UIs for different Office applications. The company is now working to ensure that all Office applications have interfaces that make the most sense in the context.

Microsoft is also introducing a set of Office-oriented online services called Office Live. These services are less well understood today and, unlike the Windows Live services, aren’t available in public beta form yet. Here’s what we know so far: Office Live is aimed at small businesses and will include both free and subscription-based offerings. The free version, Office Live Basics, will give small businesses a domain name, a Web site with 30MB of online storage, and five Web email accounts. It will be supported with advertising. The paid versions of Office Live won’t include advertising.

[Source: WindowsItPro]