As a Microsoft Office trainer, I loathed the ribbon at first. After 20 years of menus, it felt wrong. But it seemed that it was only the older users complaining about it. Really, there was something of a learning curve in getting used to it, but after a fairly reasonably short time, people were getting used to it, and they stopped complaining. A couple of years on, and many people comment that they prefer it to the old menus.

Besides, if you understand the reasoning why the ribbon came about and the menus scrapped (they considered the structure of the menus overbloated with commands with no logical grouping, and something like 70% of requests for new features in the programs being features already there), you can see that it wasn't simply a case of them doing it for sh*ts and giggles. In programs that have so many features, the ribbon works far more intuitively, if somewhat differently to what people might be familiar with.

Users who have learned Microsoft Office for the first time since the ribbon have said it's easy, and when confronted with a menu find it difficult. This OO implementation does look klunky, and they should be looking to make their spreadsheet more robust. I was desperate to get away from Office, but OO doesn't offer anywhere near the same level of stability for those of us who think a 300 page document, or a spreadsheet with thousands of links, and macros are the norm.

I don't disagree with you. There are several things that were moved in the redesign, and the number of mouse clicks can be annoying. Then again, starting a slide show was not one of the features that people couldn't find. You've always had 3 ways to start a slide show, and some of their changes don't necessarily make for clever logic.

From what I glean from those at Microsoft, most people will always press F5 to start a slide show anyway. MS are keen on people using keyboard shortcuts, and as a user of over 25 years computer experience, I am more keyboard savvy than mouse shortcut whizz. Remember that nearly every single command can be added to the quick access toolbar. Anyone can right click on anything and its there, no code skill required. As for add-ins, I agree. Some things had to be sacrificed for other features to be given front and centre attention.

I'm not saying the new system is perfect, but if it means people have a better chance to discover features that they didn't know existed, then good. Although that might put me out of a job.

Why was it a mistake? Why was it a mistake to leave behind something that was no longer working as intended? 73% of all new features that the public requested were command that already existed in the programs. The menu structure clearly wasn't letting people find these features.

All you need to do is put your common commands on the quick access toolbar, hide the ribbon and you have something that looks a lot like the old menu/toolbar scenario. Don't get me wrong, I loathed the change at first. But after 2 years of teaching 2007, and seeing the feedback of users who were as equally entrenched in the old system, there is barely anyone I know who yearns or pines for the old menu.

I did try open office at home. The word processor was ok, but not robust, and the spreadsheet module would crash whenever I tried opening anything beyond a basic invoice with only sum functions. They need to work on that if they want it to be taken as a serious competitor to Excel. It is barely robust enough for a home budget file.

I teach Microsoft Office to end users, and have done so for 17 years. The backlash at the removal of the menu and toolbars was huge with those who had up to 20 years experience with the menu. I know because I really was one of those. I didn't see why they needed to move things around. When I found out why they changed the interface (73% of all requests for new features in Office were for features the program already could do), I could understand the need to change. But now, even though I still teach both 2003 and 2007, the response from new users is so much better. Once menu savvy users get over that initial learning hump (and realise the keyboard shortcuts are all the same), they are fine with it. Some of the features of Word 2007 are a bit buggy and glitchy when opening older documents (comments are a nightmare), and the macro/no macro format unnecessarily complicated for novices, but hopefully we'll see people moving up soon. So many are avoiding the 2003 update that lets them read the new xml file format, and that just is frustrating (you try convincing government departments that they need it). Then again, I was still teaching Office 97 only 2 years ago (we teach public courses based on demand), so I'm not holding my breath expecting 2003 to suddenly disappear overnight.

... and the problem with that is what, exactly? Worked for Apollo on BSG. There hasn't been enough buff dude action in Trek since the days of Kirk and Sulu in TOS.

I was involved heavily in end-user training when Office 97 came out, and we were all flown to Sydney to listen to some dude from MS to 'train' us in all the 'important' features of the 'groundbreaking' release of Office 97. The features they focussed on were none of the important ones that end-users truly asked questions about, but I recall them very heavily pushing these clippy assistants.

Back at that time the idea of net meeting, video conferencing and remote connection were the 'in' thing. We were all basically told that we would become totally redundant as trainers, because we were going to be replaced by these 'just in time' training tools. All training would be delivered by computer, and nobody would ever need a full time trainer again. (Roll ahead 12 years and I'm still working in face-to-face training, but that's not the point of this reply). I believe Microsoft thought that people wanted this 'just in time' (JIT - seriously, that's what they called it) interface to work - they wanted us to spend hours teaching people how to use it.

Seriously, the first question any of us asked was 'how do you turn it off'. We got lectured by the MS person as to why turning it off was akin to trying to bring about the end of the world. I recall that in every basic user class we had (and some more advanced levels) the question 'how do you turn it off' was asked an inordinate number of times, at least until Office 2007.

As a former Notes Sys Administrator, it had its benefits, and its problems. The fact of the matter was that the email and scheduling part of it were never its strengths. The databases, and the applications that it built were by far superior groupware than anything I have seen. Oh to be able to replicate something like Access databases at the click of a button for users who do need to work on data offline. As an earlier commenter said, they got the database right. Everyone just assumed they 'tacked on' the email and calendar as an afterthought to facilitate workflow solutions. Notes Replication was simply the best (when it was configured properly). But having previously installed Notes clients and managed it, I can tell you that setup of the client was a breeze compared to setting up and configuring Exchange/Outlook. From an end user perspective, there were some things they got very right, and still as many they got wrong. But comparing it to Outlook (apart from the few scheduler limitations), it was far cleaner and quicker in so many ways.