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MS Unveils Office 2007, Multiple Versions

Posted by Zonk on Thu Feb 16, 2006 12:06 PM
from the new-clippy-friends dept.
Microsoft Software
rfunches writes "MSNBC reports that Microsoft's next version of Office, now known as Office 2007 (previously code-named Office 12), will continue targeting the corporate audience through multiple versions of Office 2007. Versions announced include 'Office Professional Plus 2007' and 'Office Enterprise 2007.' From the article: '[Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007] will integrate capabilities of SharePoint, a collaboration program and Web portal that is designed to run over corporate networks and the Internet...and also incorporate Microsoft Office Communicator, a corporate instant messaging service.'"
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  • Do I forsee... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ackthpt (218170) * on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:07PM (#14734146) Homepage Journal

    Hi, Joe, Here's the presentation on Wizzo Chocolate Corp. I'll be out of the office until the meeting with Wizzo, have a look at it and make any changes you see fit.

    To open attachedment click here [*click*]

     This project was created in Office Enterprise, some features may not be present in your version of Office Professional Plus - You will not be able to make any modifications to this project.
    So.. how many people are really likely to get the lightweight version, hmm?
    • That would indeed be hilarious.

      Now if they could just get OpenOffice to be an easier transition from MSO, it could pick up some market share.

    • Re:Do I forsee... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by b0r1s (170449) on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:15PM (#14734227) Homepage
      How many people in small offices really need:

      Access

      Visio

      Sharepoint

      Project

      InfoPath

      Publisher

      A lot of offices don't need most of the tools (think: your typical 2-10 person small business), and not having to pay for them is very helpful.

      • Re:Do I forsee... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Martin Foster (4949) on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:23PM (#14734311) Homepage
        A lot of small companies, organizations and people in general could do miracles in Access if they would quit treating MS Excel as one...

        • Re:Do I forsee... (Score:5, Informative)

          by DarkSarin (651985) on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:39PM (#14734476) Homepage Journal
          one what? A database?

          Surely you jest. Access is not the best solution out there--it is horrible to use, the interface just blows, and it doesn't do a lot of what it should do. For the record OOBase Sucks as well.

          Now that I have used MSSQL more, I am realizing the power of such a database. At work we are also getting ready to implement Crystal Reports, which makes the reporting components in Access look anemic and pathetic.

          I am not a big MS fan, but I do think that they make a fine SQL server.

          Folks, don't use Excel as a db, but access shouldn't be used either!

          • Re:Do I forsee... (Score:5, Informative)

            by Thundersnatch (671481) on Thursday February 16 2006, @01:08PM (#14734777) Journal
            All recent versions of Microsoft Access are able to actually use the desktop version of SQL server instead of the old JET-based engine.

            Look up "access data project" in the Access help file. You can make it the default DB type, and most features of the "real" SQL Server are available (except the GUI management tools).

          • Re:Do I forsee... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by PitaBred (632671) <slashdot@@@pitabred...dyndns...org> on Thursday February 16 2006, @01:21PM (#14734909) Homepage
            Access makes a nice front-end to a database. Connect it's data stores to MSSQL or another SQL server, and it's actually quite good for just a quick DB interface maker.

            • Re:Do I forsee... (Score:5, Interesting)

              by xtracto (837672) on Thursday February 16 2006, @01:56PM (#14735240) Journal
              I do not know why people bash Access like that. I have worked with access before as well as as with MS SQL Server and mySQL, I have used Postgre and Oracle only on non productive environments.

              From all of those database engines, Access was the only one in which I could transport the data in a flash drive without any hassle (just copy de MDB file). I did not needed to install any program to show the database to other people using snapshot viewer.

              Granted, it may not be good for databases that need to be accessed by more than one user each time but it is great to get orgainze a lot of data.

              BTW, one of the things I did with access was to migrate some "!#$!"!@ Excel list database (they got a bunch of records and where managing them with excel data lists). It was very easy to create some tables on excel and import the data from excel.

              Believe me, some buisness do not need anything more fancy than Access and it does the work, I think it is (as eeeeeevery other OS/app/language) just a tool and if used when it is needed it will do a great job.

          • Re:Do I forsee... (Score:5, Informative)

            by just_another_sean (919159) on Thursday February 16 2006, @02:15PM (#14735488) Homepage Journal
            I am probably one of the biggest Linux Fanboys out there, I am not afraid to admit it. And I love to bash on MS.

            But when I get serious and talk "right tool for the right job" I would heartily disagree with your feelings about Access.

            I began my career in IT on Access (V. 1.1, Win 3). I've loved it ever since. I write all sorts of automation solutions for our company in Access. We use Great Plains and I've saved the company thousands of dollars by creating little, even somewhat crappy, automation routines in Access instead of buying some bloated module for GP that does way more then we need it to. It's quick, easy and gets the job done.

            Access and ODBC let me connect to any database I want. I have our web site scp a snapshot of our MySQL databases to a local test copy of the web site. And I use Access to connect to it and run quick & dirty reports and queries. You like SQL Server but Access is not a substitute for MSSQL, it's a compliment to it. You can connect to SQL using Access. I tend to start my projects first in Access so I can carry it around with me while I develop it. When I feel the project is ready for a first release it is very easy to upload all my tables, data and queries to SQL Server and simply link in the new tables. No need to change my forms, reports or code because the linked tables are named the same, they just reside in a more robust and scalable database now that they are deployed.

            Access's interface does take some getting used to and VBA is not a Real(TM) programming language but the beauty of VBA is, if you don't like the Access interface, change it using VBA. When I finish an automation solution that keeps some poor SOB in my company from typing the same data into our systems day in and day out the interface he/she uses is far different then that of standard Access.

            Bottom line is, it's all about using the right tool for the job and for the small company I work for Access is the right tool in some very key situations.

            P.S. I realize there are 100's, if not 1000's of other solutions that do similar things to what I describe above. My company owned Access and MSSQL so that and my familiarity with Access led to my choice.
            • No, it's not.

              The GUI is terrible. It doesn't handle even basic things that access does (can't remember specifics, since I haven't tried to muck with it for about 3 months), and it is incapable of properly handling certain imports.

              Yes it does have the advantages you mention, but overall I am not impressed with it.

              Impress has a similar complaint--it handles almost everything that you throw at it from excel, and can easily import excel docs, but the one thing it NEEDS to have in order to do well is more templ
      • A lot of offices don't need most of the tools (think: your typical 2-10 person small business), and not having to pay for them is very helpful.

        Then OpenOffice (or KOffice or whatever) should suffice in most cases, no need to pay anything! If VBA macros, or other niche tools only offered by existing installs of MS Office, are essential, then stick with Office 2k, 2003, or whatever else you have installed (being such a small business, preferential/time limited licences are unlikely, unless you were unluc
        • Yeah, but I use OO.Org Draw, and that works fine for my uses. Word is a pain because it's a word processing app, not a desktop publishing app. OO.Org Draw isn't the best but it's around CorelDraw 5, which is good enough for me.

    • Re:Do I forsee... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by linuxmop (37039) on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:55PM (#14734633)
      Your unjustified speculation is cute and everything, but Microsoft has offered multiple versions of Office for as long as I can remember. Some packages include programs such as Access that not everyone needs. They have even offered Word + Works Suite for low-end PCs. In none of these cases have they prevented you from reading or writing data files created with the more expensive suite (given that your suite the program in question, e.g. Access).

      But hey, why have a reasonable discussion when you can just bash Microsoft for something it hasn't done?
      • Everyone that is not working for a cash rich corporation probably.

        I think it is Fear Of Not Having Every Feature which drives a lot of purchasing. Coming up with a tiered product line just ensures there will be more purchases of the top end product. They may as well name the Professional edition something degrading like 'Student' or 'Home'

        • Re:Do I forsee... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by toddbu (748790) on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:29PM (#14734379)
          I think it is Fear Of Not Having Every Feature which drives a lot of purchasing

          But it could also work against you. If you start pushing documents out the door and your customers complain that they can't read then then you have to turn off the advanced features, at which time people start to ask "why am I paying for this?". Any time there's a lot of sharing going on then you need a lowest common denominator, or you need to take Acrobat's approach and provide read-only and read-write versions.

  • Mmm... versions (Score:4, Funny)

    by keyne9 (567528) on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:11PM (#14734172)
    Are we getting some hot 'MS OFfice EX plus alpha' action soon? Maybe 'Super MS Office XII: Third Strike Champion Hyper Edition'?

  • Sweeeet!!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Professor_UNIX (867045) on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:11PM (#14734175)
    Remember folks, try to reduce the stress on the main distribution site by using mirrors when possible, or even better, let's get a BitTorrent tracker going to distribute the load.
    • Since Office 2000 Professional does all we want I see little need for changing - all the extra bloat is pointless for us. If I was going to make a jump it would be to a more trimmed, more polished copy of OpenOffice - maybe Q3/4 2006??

  • Uh oh (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:12PM (#14734190)
    ..and also incorporate Microsoft Office Communicator, a corporate instant messaging service.

    That can never be a good thing...

    Employer 1: I seem to have lost the TSP report: Could you it to me ?
    Employer 2: ASL?!?!

      • Two Words... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Phil John (576633) <phil.webstarsltd@com> on Thursday February 16 2006, @01:04PM (#14734737)

        ...Sarbanes Oxley

        Companies need to keep logs of pretty much everything these days. Plus with having a system running in-house you can firewall off other IM services and not worry about employees using IM for non-work uses.

        Finally (as mentioned elsewhere in this thread) it integrates perfectly into you existing outlook/exchange server directory.

  • Office communicator (Score:5, Interesting)

    by iMaple (769378) on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:16PM (#14734237)
    The office communicator is one of the few products that I really like. I used a beta for ~3 months and (provided you have the infrastructure in place) it kicks ass. It integrates email, IM and phone in an amazing way (by email I mean Outlook , no you cant use pine :( ). Eg. If the outlook calendar shows that I have a meeting in my office , it will set the IM status to ('Busy, in a meeting') and switch off the phone ringer (and email me any voice messages). Then when I see a missed call, I just click on that person and select call, which switches on the phone speaker and dials out the number. Impressive , eh ?
    • I can see it now : "youre downsized lol"

    • If I may correct that a bit. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by khasim (1285) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:30PM (#14734394)
      It integrates email, IM and phone in an amazing way (by email I mean Outlook , no you cant use pine :( ).
      What you meant to say was ...

      "It integrates MS Exchange/Outlook, MS Messenger and MS Phone in an amazing way."

      And no, I don't want voice mail in my email. People store too much crap in it already.

    • Integration for the WIN! (Score:5, Funny)

      by (arg!)Styopa (232550) on Thursday February 16 2006, @01:40PM (#14735103) Journal
      "Why aren't I getting any phone calls for the past 4 hours"
      "Because you show as busy in your calendar. You should get the voicemails as emails."
      "What?! And where are the voicemails of which you speak?"
      "You should be getting them."
      "Do you see any in my email?"
      "No....I see, you've forwarded your phone to your cellphone, so the voicemails will be forwarded to your PDA."
      "But I don't have them in there? It says that the emails were truncated because the PDA omits attachemnts over 128kb."
      "Oh then it would have dropped them off."
      "So where are they?"
      "Deleted. The PDA dropped them, and the voicemail server doesn't save them once sent."
      "So they're gone? 4 hours of voicemails - gone?"
      "Sorry, it looks like it"
      "But I'm not busy in the first place?"
      "Hmm...look, you got this email from your wife saying that it's Bill's birthday today."
      "So?"
      "She marked it as an all day event, when you accepted to add it to your calendar, it marked you as 'out all day'. Also, you're not going to get paid for today, we have our payroll integrated too."
      "So let me see if I understand this, according to my accepting a birthday reminder, I've lost 4 hours of vital voicemails, automatically rejected any meeting requests since the system thought I was already in one, and in fact I'm not even going to get paid for today?"
      "Yeah, sorry about that."
      "So since I'm definitely 'not here', then I guess the police won't suspect me of killing you?"
      "?"

  • MS Carnage (Score:5, Funny)

    by AnalystX (633807) on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:17PM (#14734245) Journal
    "designed to run over corporate networks and the Internet"
    Why not? Microsoft tries to run over everything else. I just hope there isn't too much damage.

  • Offices are getting sick of this (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    My office is all but fed-up with the MS Word updates-every-few-years. We wont pay for it again, even the pres of the co said to forget about it. We need the cash in the bank to make it through the next few years, which are going to be stupidly tough.

    As such, all files are to be in Word 2000 .doc format, .pdf, .txt, or html. Thats it. When we get unworking things from clients we reply that we were unable to process their doc, the reason why, and instructions on how to do it. Occasionally we get bitchy client

    • Re:Offices are getting sick of this (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DaHat (247651) on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:36PM (#14734452) Homepage
      Lucky for your office, one of Office 12's most under sold benefits (new XML based documents) will not just be limited to Office 12, in addition they will be releasing patches for XP and 2003 for sure (I am not sure about 2k currently) so that far more people can enjoy the benefits.

  • Scaled cost as well as features (Score:4, Funny)

    by Macblaster (94623) on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:19PM (#14734263) Homepage
    See, while Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 will only cost arm, Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 will cost arm + leg.

    Oh, and the premium edition, Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007...

    you don't want to know.

  • Clippy is back in Microsoft Office Communicator (Score:5, Funny)

    by sikandril (924466) on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:21PM (#14734275)
    I see you have received some bad corporate news..

    Would you like to throw a piece of furniture?

    1. Chair
    2. Sofa
    3. 18th Century French Armoir

  • Office 2007 (previously code-named Office 12)...

    Wow, the guys in MS's code-naming division must've been putting in nights and weekends to come up with that.

    From True Romance, re: the sequel to "Coming Home in a Bodybag":
    Clarence: What's this one called anyway?
    Producer: We don't have a title yet. What does Joe like?
    PA: Uh, Bodybags II.
    Producer: Ooh, that's imaginative. I've got more taste in my penis.

  • FrontPage is dead, long live FrontPage! (Score:3, Informative)

    by swid27 (869237) on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:22PM (#14734298) Homepage
    The article fails to mention that FrontPage will become SharePoint Designer in Office 2007.

  • What about Office 2007 Grab Bag Edition? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:57PM (#14734661)
    With Microsoft Grab Bag Edition you get one exciting office application, you just don't know which one. By distributing the ``Bag'' edition of office, indecisive HR departments can assign jobs based on dumb luck:

    Employee A -- "Cool! I got Excel, I'm gonna be a budget analyst!"

    Employee B -- "I got Word! Awesome! I'm gonna write memos and be a manager."

    Employee C -- "Shit, I got PowerPoint. But I don't want to be a consultant. They suck."

    Employee D -- "You think you got it bad? I got Access, I'm never gonna get anything done."

  • Multiple versions? Mmm...must be a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jivha (842251) on Thursday February 16 2006, @01:06PM (#14734755)
    I wonder why people are falling for this talk about "multiple versions" in Office 2007. The available retail versions of MS Office 2003, as listed on Microsoft.com [microsoft.com]

    - MS 2003 Professional Ed.
    - MS 2003 Standard Ed.
    - MS 2003 Small Business Ed.
    - MS 2003 Student & Teacher Ed.

    And the versions of the upcoming Office 2007 as listed in the article

    - Professional
    - Standard
    - Enterprise
    - Small Business
    - Home & Student

    Guess what - all of one extra edition - "Enterprise" (Student & Teacher appears to have been rebranded as Home & Student). The way the article and the submission is written it would appear that multiple versions were the next best thing to sliced bread since, um, Office 2003?

  • Also Announced (Score:4, Funny)

    by carrier lost (222597) on Thursday February 16 2006, @01:06PM (#14734758) Homepage
    • Office Borg - Will assimilate all copies of non-Microsoft productivity software
    • Office Clipinator - A random collection of cute, animated icons which will attempt to provide the same clerical output as your average gum-chewing office assistant.
    • Office Extravaganza - Every piece of eye-candy imaginable - scrolling menus, transparent windows, aqua-theme derivatives
    • Office SUV - Sucks up all available computer resources with no discernable increase in useable output.
    • Office Enron - Provides plausible deniability by randomly losing sensitive documents, transferring incriminating information to unsuspecting coworker's hard drives and routinely wiping inbox.

  • I will stick with Office 97, thank you very much! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rubberbando (784342) on Thursday February 16 2006, @01:11PM (#14734813) Homepage
    Why rebuy something that already works just fine? In fact, I find that Office 97 runs faster/better than any of the newer versions I've used at work.

    Each time I upgrade to a faster machine, I move my installation over to it. I noticed with Windows XP, the Office 97 installer crashes. After reading some boards online, I noticed that most people concluded that it wouldn't run/install on XP but after experimenting with the 'custom' install, I discovered that all you need to do uncheck the web import/export for Word and everything else will install just fine. Besides, who the heck uses Word to edit/create webpages anyway. :P

  • Box cover (Score:3, Funny)

    by saboola (655522) on Thursday February 16 2006, @01:16PM (#14734859)
    Much like the EA sports games, each released with a year appended to the title (Madden 2006, MLB 2006, Lawn Darts 2006) Microsoft should also follow the trend of stick a famous player of the game on the front in a menacing pose. I nominate Ballmer throwing a chair.

  • He he .... (Score:3, Funny)

    by gstoddart (321705) on Thursday February 16 2006, @01:19PM (#14734883) Homepage
    a collaboration program and Web portal that is designed to run over corporate networks and the Internet...

    Oh, I'm sure it'll pretty effectively level them.

    *rimshot*

    Thanks folks, I'm here all week.

  • Perfect (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 955301 (209856) on Thursday February 16 2006, @01:57PM (#14735259) Journal
    Because that's what I need my malicious script friendly word processing software to be - network aware and readily capable of "sharing" with the rest of the corporate environment.

  • Who here still uses old Office versions? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by antdude (79039) on Thursday February 16 2006, @03:24PM (#14736244) Homepage Journal
    Does anyone here still prefer and use older versions like Office 2000? At home, I use 2000 version and it still does fine for my needs. I don't do fancy editings in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. Sometimes I use OpenOffice [openoffice.org] especially in Linux and Mac OS X v10.2.8 (NeoOffice [neooffice.org]), but that's rare. At work, I have to use Office 2003 since it is required by IT. I don't like these newer versions (2002/XP, 2003, etc.).
    • What the heck is the difference between "Office Plus" and "Enterprise Edition" vis-a-vis "Office"?

      if it's anything like their other products....

      The difference is about 50% to 300% more expensive with 5% more functionality that only 2% will use.
    • "By contrast, the OSS community knew that names were better if they bore no linguistic connection to the actual function of the product. (grep, cat, and vi, I'm talking to you.)"

      [I can't work out if you are being ironic - just in case you are not...I've put my marketing consultant hat on...]

      Nah - they were handy for quick typing on a TTY - no more.

      With most potential desktop Linux users likely to use a GUI, the name of the underlying executable is irrelevant and we have now moved on to a 'marketing' track w

    • Re:Corporate IM service (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Scyber (539694) on Thursday February 16 2006, @12:49PM (#14734577)
      Corporate IM is actually becoming pretty popular. It replaces the need to quickly call or run over to someone to ask a quick question that email is overkill for (or that you need an immediate answer for). Lotus Notes has had an IM client (SameTime) in it for a little while now.

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