I only bring this up because
1. I wouldn’t want you, dear reader, to think this blog must always be flaming Microsoft. I got nothing against them I swear. In my experience, I swear, the microsofties themselves are really nice and highly professional people. (Hi Farhan!)
2. I really think I may be the last blogger left alive still using a PC. So I feel I have some strange obligation to cover this stuff for good or bad, or else how would you ever know?
The User Interface in the new Office is just plain fantastic. It’s a radical break from the old menu driven interface, and the biggest MSOffice upgrade in the better part of 10 years. The new ribbon-based UI is an amazingly *clear* way to expose each applications features. And the new default typeface + anti-aliasing in Microsoft word makes me actually happy to anything write in it. Vista may already be falling short of expectations for MS, but watch for Office2007 to be a big success for the company – even in the face of many, and ever more compelling, online competitors.
(They do they say html rendering is badly broken in the new Outlook, but then *cough*, who cares about email, or desktop calendar apps any more?)
My advice: if you have only so much money to spend on MS products, by all means, do not go past the Windows isle, go directly to Office 2007 before you spring for the Vista upgrade.
Tom, not to worry, you’re not the only blogger left using Windows. While I have absolutely no intention of “upgrading” (ha) to Vista and will stick with XP, Office 2007 is tempting. I upgraded to Office 2003 when I needed it to work on a new freelance contract, so now I just need another contract that will “require” the latest.
I don’t use Outlook either, but I do still use a desktop calendar app: Palm Desktop, which is a good choice for those of us who use a Treo.
Strange, I’ve just said nice things about two desktop apps, which is very unusual for someone who’d like to do almost everything in the browser. Those web apps need more work.
Tom, not to worry, you’re not the only blogger left using Windows. While I have absolutely no intention of “upgrading” (ha) to Vista and will stick with XP, Office 2007 is tempting. I upgraded to Office 2003 when I needed it to work on a new freelance contract, so now I just need another contract that will “require” the latest.
I don’t use Outlook either, but I do still use a desktop calendar app: Palm Desktop, which is a good choice for those of us who use a Treo.
Strange, I’ve just said nice things about two desktop apps, which is very unusual for someone who’d like to do almost everything in the browser. Those web apps need more work.