MS Unveils Office 2007, Multiple Versions 298
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.'"
Do I forsee... (Score:4, Insightful)
So.. how many people are really likely to get the lightweight version, hmm?
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:2)
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)
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)
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:5, Informative)
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:2, Insightful)
However, many many offices could use a sma
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ha!
I love that bit about Excel as a db. I don't think I've worked a place where people haven't done just that. Our HR vendor's product is so weak that one of the people in HR has a separate 'database' in Excel and other records are in a binder!
Often these are the results of people not using a $y$tem to it's fullest capacity, but more often than not it's because the $y$tem doesn't have the capacity or it's highly difficult to use (go t
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:2, Informative)
2nd course is Excel
3rd...
Well, most people from the older generation don't get to go on course #3. They struggle with the first two applications; learning a 3rd isn't going to happen any time soon. It would be a complete waste of resources.
Even if they needed a proper database (with GUI) for their day to day work, the database is unlikely to be written by them anyway. That's a job for the *cough* experts.
I know SQL, I know Access, I know a little more than average. I
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:5, Informative)
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)
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
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.
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:2)
these days, it isnt on the basis of "your" needs, but your needs are 'created' on the basis if what they deem fit for you.. in other words they bundle other s/w for which you pay thru your nose and then you feel like using it (coz you paid for it)
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:2)
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:2)
I would have agreed with the statement a few years back, but not any more. Unless you have just a few really large clients, you can usually push back on your customers and let them know that you can't open their document and to "please send this in a standarized format". Or you can offer buy the tools you need and bill them for the copies. For as price sensitive as many compa
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:2)
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:2)
Publisher viewer (Score:2)
select all (ctrl+a)
right click any object,
save as image
I do this often.. sending the entire page as a jpg works easily...
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:2)
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:5, Insightful)
But hey, why have a reasonable discussion when you can just bash Microsoft for something it hasn't done?
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:2)
Well, let's see what the ratios were between Office 95 Standard and Professional 11 years ago.
Microsoft has been producing tiered packages of Office for at least that long. And I don't recall Microsoft ever disabling features in individual applications based on those tiers. You either get the app, or you don't.
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:2)
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's right. Different Visio versions come with different stencil sets. Thanks.
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
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.
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:2)
Re:Do I forsee... (Score:2)
While I agree with the logic is that not how Microsoft Office became so pervasive and constantly being upgraded to begin with, people lacking that common sense?
I am unaware of any person that I know personally who uses over 50% of Microsoft Word's functionality as a very simple example. Excel, even less. Access? Lesser still.
Usually it's that one person who upgraded, management or a spoiled MSCE admin*, that caused e
Mmm... versions (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Mmm... versions (Score:2)
Re:Mmm... versions (Score:2)
Re:Mmm... versions (Score:2)
Street Fighter
Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight
Street Fighter 2 - The World Warrior
Street Fighter II - Champion Edition
Street Fighter II Turbo - Hyper Fighting
Street Fighter II - Special Champion Edition
Super Street Fighter II - The New Challengers
Street Fighter Alpha - Warriors' Dreams
Street Fighter Zero
Street Fighter Alpha 2
Street Fighter Zero 2
Street Fighter Alpha 3
Street Fighter Zero 3
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Double Upper
Street Fighter Zero Double Upper
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max
Street Fi
Re:Mmm... versions (Score:2, Troll)
No, you got it all wrong. It's about tailoring the product to meet the customer's needs, silly. Future releases will include;
This is true software innovation.
Re:Mmm... versions (Score:2)
http://networkboy.net/clippynuke.bmp [networkboy.net]
-nB
Sweeeet!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sweeeet!!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sweeeet!!!! (Score:2)
Now that I'm an independent consultant I use OpenOffice.org and find it works great in the same highly collaborative environment. I use word, spreadsheet, and presentation applications and share them extensively.
I'm sure the corporate IT drones are wetting their pants over all of th
Re:Sweeeet!!!! (Score:2)
Uh oh (Score:3, Funny)
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?!?!
Re:Uh oh (Score:2)
I now need to maintain not only my exchange address book, but also my communicator address book, which will doubtlessly use different lists, and not talk to MSN at all?
What's wrong with MSN? The Sharing Folders in MSN 8 are quite slick and ideal for corporate users.
Two Words... (Score:4, Informative)
...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)
Re:Office communicator (Score:2)
communicator? (Score:2)
Such innovation [google.com]!
What's next, "MicrosoftOffice.org"? "Microsoftazureus"? "MicrosoftPhotoshop"?
Re:Office communicator (Score:2, Insightful)
Yep, right up to the time where I skip a meeting because I'm waiting for an important phone call -- and my phone just never rings because I forgot to cancel the appoi
Re:Office communicator (Score:2)
Well, if you dont like it switch off the feature, or let it set your phone to a visual ring or low ring. Or forward the call to the IM client. My point was, its much more than an IM client, it does a lot of things seamlessly (and almost always
If I may correct that a bit. (Score:5, Insightful)
"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.
Re:If I may correct that a bit. (Score:2)
Thats sadly true, I dont think it interoperates with any other products. (maybe it does, with Lotus notes or smthng else, but I dont know)
And no, I don't want voice mail in my email. People store too much crap in it already.
Neither do I, so I set it to just email me just the missed call reminders, which turned out to be quite useful.
Re:Office communicator (Score:2)
How did you think that all worked... by MS deciding to start selling phones? That's been around for years now.
Integration for the WIN! (Score:5, Funny)
"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)
Offices are getting sick of this (Score:2, Interesting)
As such, all files are to be in Word 2000
Re:Offices are getting sick of this (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Offices are getting sick of this (Score:2)
No, it's so that far more people upgrade [msversus.org].
Re:Offices are getting sick of this (Score:2, Funny)
Hmmmm, I wonder why :-k
Oh yes, I see the reason now... \\:D/
Scaled cost as well as features (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, and the premium edition, Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007...
you don't want to know.
Re:Scaled cost as well as features (Score:2, Funny)
Yes I do.
Re:Scaled cost as well as features (Score:2)
Clippy is back in Microsoft Office Communicator (Score:5, Funny)
Would you like to throw a piece of furniture?
1. Chair
2. Sofa
3. 18th Century French Armoir
"Bodybags 2" (Score:2)
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)
Previously known as Office 12.... (Score:2)
related links (Score:2)
(*)High-tech bathroom relaxation
(*)Bank (safely) on the Web
(*)Tech gear you need for hitting the slopes
Re:related links (Score:2)
Office monopoly is a thing of past (Score:2, Interesting)
Reason I still have MS office is comatibility, mostily with powerpoint files. I doenload lot's of these from local newsg
What about Office 2007 Grab Bag Edition? (Score:5, Funny)
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."
OSS Sharepoint Client? (Score:2)
Anyone know more about Sharepoint and knows of a free client?
B
Multiple versions? Mmm...must be a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
- 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)
I will stick with Office 97, thank you very much! (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:I will stick with Office 97, thank you very muc (Score:4, Funny)
People with really bad web sites?
File Formats? (Score:2)
Box cover (Score:3, Funny)
He he .... (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, I'm sure it'll pretty effectively level them.
*rimshot*
Thanks folks, I'm here all week.
Better iCalendar support (Score:2)
Wow (Score:2)
That's great!
Where can I download it? Ooops?
Still running Office '97... (Score:2)
Works good enough - in fact can't really see much improvement more recent versions of Word and Excel for the kind of things most people use the application for in my organization.
Sadly, Office 2007: Lexington never gets a break. (Score:2)
Sharepoint (Score:2)
Perfect (Score:3, Insightful)
Who here still uses old Office versions? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OSS office... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:OSS office... (Score:2)
Re:OSS office... (Score:4, Informative)
Google Search for Open Source word Processor [google.com]
Abiword [abisource.com] for the lazy that does not want to look further.
Other options (Score:2)
Re:OSS office... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a reason for all those features. (Score:2)
Basically, in order to grab market share, different pieces of the market need/want different sets of features. The aggregate total of ALL those features becomes the bloated MS Office suite.
Re:OSS office... (Score:2)
Re:OSS office... (Score:2)
Re:OSS office... (Score:2)
Right click in the document. Choose "Page...". Go to "Page" tab in the window that pops up. Select "Landscape". Done.
(looking, I see you got moderated as a Troll, as you should have. I have one mod point left but felt this reply would do a better service than wasting it on a coward.)
Re:OSS office... (Score:2)
Wow.
Re:The OSS impact (Score:2, Funny)
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.
Re:The OSS impact (Score:2, Informative)
grep = general regular expresssion parser
cat = concatenate
vi = (the odd one our here) The name comes from the shortest unambiguous abbreviation for the command visual in ex
Office Plus & Office Enterprise really do not offer any clue to the differences by reading the name. Microsoft is missing the naming plot, wtf is "Windows Defender" I prefer "Microsoft Anti-Spyware" atleast now I know what it is defending against.
It's obvious really (Score:2)
The Enterprise edition is to boldly go where no Office program has gone before.
Re:The OSS impact (Score:3, Insightful)
[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)
Re:Corporate IM service (Score:2)
Re:Express Editions? (Score:2)
$$$$$
Why put out a very cheap version when everyone's already paying for the bigger package? Supply and demand.