Office 2007 Delayed Again 211
Tyler Too writes "Ars Technica reports that Microsoft Office 2007 has been delayed again, this time into early 2007. 'Based on internal testing and the beta 2 feedback around product performance, we are revising our development schedule to deliver the 2007 system release by the end of year 2006, with broad general availability in early 2007.' Tough bit of timing after this week's online preview of Office 2007."
In other news... (Score:5, Informative)
Open Office 2.0.3 was released today for the low low cost of NOTHING :)
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Probably... (Score:2, Informative)
Office 97 was a piece of junk, and 2000 didn't offer much more. 2002 was where they started getting things right, and 2003 had some nice features. I've personally been using the 2007 beta where there's some nifty stuff that I could see some business use for (though they're pushing Sharepoint like a crack dealer).
So, IMO, if you don't have documents that are very heavily formatted (which judging by the fact that you're still using 97, I don't think so), and money is an issue, move yourself out of MS 97 and go with OO.O 2.
Re:cue the obligatory joke: (Score:4, Informative)
As Samuel Johnson said: "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
Re:Gone are the days? (Score:5, Informative)
Windows 98 release date [windowsitpro.com] - June 25, 1998
Windows 2000 release date [com.com] - Feb 17, 2000
Office 2003 release date [techtarget.com] - Oct. 21, 2003
Re:cue the obligatory joke: (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm glad - its a VERY nice upgrade, but needs m (Score:1, Informative)
If you know what you are doing under Office 95+, you can throw all your acquired knowledge out the window (not quite but close). Really what happens is that you know what you want to do, but are no longer able to actually do it. Now you have to figure out how to do what you want under some new system.
Now this isn't as bad as being an Office power user and moving to OpenOffice, where you know what you want it just isn't how OpenOffice works. Office 2007 stills works the way you think, under the hood. However, you can't open the hood and do what you want. It is like trying to drive your car using an RC car remote control. You know what you want, you just aren't allowed to touch the steering wheel or the pedals.
The other problem with the ribbon is the mouse-only nature of it. Forget mouse-centric computing, this is mouse only computing. It was bad enough that Office would change the Alt-mnemonics every release, but now they are bye-bye.
Really this is a UI change on a mature product with no real purpose but change for change sake, and assuming all users are morons. If you hit the space bar 20 times for each line to move something to the right (as opposed to setting a tab stop for those lines) this UI change is for you.
If we are lucky this will be like the MDI/SDI UI change in Office 2000 (?). Users complained
Typical, marketing attitude of computer users are idiots, there are no power users. When actually users tend to know more then the condescending marketing people think.
BTW, I know someone who worked marketing at my company and left for MSFT. She used to fake user surveys to reach the outcome she wanted. I have never trusted marketing surveys since then.
Re:Say what? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Blah (Score:3, Informative)
Re:OpenOffice FTW! (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously, if you need spreadsheets that big, you don't need spreadsheets--you need a database.
Re:I'm glad - its a VERY nice upgrade, but needs m (Score:2, Informative)