Microsoft Office 10 Beta

[Clippy]

Office 10 Beta has been released.

Worth a look.

[DimPrawn]

Lots of interest in that pile of bloatware. Where's the tumbleweed smiley?

[RichardCranium]

Where's the tumbleweed smiley?

Still downloading TumbleWeed.gif ... 3% ...

[Not So Wise]

*will not even look it unless someone can confirm they got rid of/allow you to disable the bloody ribbon*

Without that is not really a need for a new office version, only things they can really upgrade at the moment is the collaborative working abilities, something that really only benefits enterprise users and most company's I know have refused to upgrade to 2007 because of the cost of user training required due to the bloody ribbon, so doubt they will be in a rush to get 2010 either if it is still forcing users to use it

[Spacecadet]

*will not even look it unless someone can confirm they got rid of/allow you to disable the bloody ribbon*

Thats a shame. It took me a few months (maybe almost a year) but the ribbon is now my favourite thing about office 2007.
Once you know how it's organised and how the context sensitive areas work then it does help you concentrate more on your work and less on the toolbars

[Clippy]

Lots of interest in that pile of bloatware. Where's the tumbleweed smiley?

Can be found here.

Thats a shame. It took me a few months (maybe almost a year) but the ribbon is now my favourite thing about office 2007.
Once you know how it's organised and how the context sensitive areas work then it does help you concentrate more on your work and less on the toolbars

WHS.

[Not So Wise]

Thats a shame. It took me a few months (maybe almost a year) but the ribbon is now my favourite thing about office 2007.

And you (I presume) work in IT and it took you almost a year to get used to it, now think about your average user and how much help/support they would need

That is number one barrier to Office 2007 uptake, initial user training and then ongoing support raises TCO though the roof. Been in more than one company over the last few years that had the budget for the software but none with the large budget required for the massive user retaining, nor the desire to put up with the headaches and screaming that would follow.

MS should have phased the ribbon in over time, preferably over at least 2 versions, first one with it turned off by default and old bars in place, next one with it turned on by default and old menus still useable if you wanted, the old menus should not have been taken out until people had years to get used to them.

Unless there is something really great in 2010 version (and not heard of anything) foresee just as low uptake on that as there was for 2007 version.

Actually foresee lot of places upgrading to Win7 and reinstalling Office 2003

[d000hg]

*will not even look it unless someone can confirm they got rid of/allow you to disable the bloody ribbon*...

most company's I know have refused to upgrade to 2007 because of the cost of user training required due to the bloody ribbon, so doubt they will be in a rush to get 2010 either if it is still forcing users to use it

Are those companies also still using Windows 3.11 because the start-bar is too difficult to understand? I can see why MS don't make it optional - most people would try it for 30s, give up and turn it off forever. If MS truly believe it is a better solution then it's sensible to force users into it.

I think it's less hard to transition as an average user actually. The things I find hard are features most users don't use much.

[d000hg]

Office 10 BetaWorth a look.

Anything in particular? I know they're chasing Google to try and catch some of the online market, but what cool things does 2010 add to the desktop experience that I'd actually notice?

[Clippy]

Anything in particular? I know they're chasing Google to try and catch some of the online market, but what cool things does 2010 add to the desktop experience that I'd actually notice?

Details here.