Microsoft Office 2010, Dissected 291
CWmike notes a review by Preston Gralla of the soon-to-be-released Microsoft Office 2010. "I review plenty of software packages throughout the course of a year, and it's rare that I come across one that I believe will truly make a difference in the way that I work or use my computer. With Office 2010, which recently hit RTM status, it is one of those times. The main attraction, as far as I'm concerned, is the Outlook makeover that makes it far easier to cut through e-mail overload and keep up with your ever-expanding group of contacts on social networking sites. There's also an improved Ribbon that now works across all Office applications, and some very useful new PowerPoint tools for giving Internet-based presentations and handling video. Question is: Is Office 2010 good enough to stop the defection to Google Apps? Some large enterprises are seriously considering jumping from Exchange to Gmail, or already have, reports Robert Mitchell. The final version of Microsoft Office Web Apps, the Web-based version of Office, isn't yet available but is expected before summer."
Is there a classic mode? (Score:5, Insightful)
"There's also an improved Ribbon that now works across all Office applications"
I don't care, unless there's a "classic" menu mode I'll stay with OpenOffice or older MS Office versions. I know some people like the ribbon, but I really, really hate it.
I'm neither for or against Microsoft, but as a CTO (Score:5, Insightful)
...I can simply relate what things I believe and the things I hear from other CTO/CIOs regarding Google Apps and using Google Mail in a corporate environment. Everyone I know is adamantly against the idea. It isn't because there are technical shortcomings, it's simply because of liability and privacy. That's it, plain and simple.
The idea that our company would place our mail and documents, and the mail and documents of people communicating with us into the hands of another company who are not tightly bound by laws regarding retention and usage? Makes my skin crawl.
I wonder who the first company to be bought by Google will be using Google mail and apps while negotiations are ongoing? ;)
Thanks, but I'd rather only have to worry about the ISP, not the ISP and the Cloud. It's unfortunate because I have no interest in running mail servers, exchange servers, file servers, I just want to make software.
Outlook Web (Score:1, Insightful)
That's all well and good, but they should be focusing on Outlook Web. Until Outlook Web works equally well on Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Internet Explorer (on Windows, Linux, or Mac) I'm not really interested in their "upgrades."
Window management (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft Office 2010, Dissected (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't worry.
Any "dissection" of Microsoft products by Preston Gralla will be so gentle it'll seem like a product endorsement.
Strange that...
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is there a classic mode? (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly, the only thing that would make me even consider a new microsoft application is if they provided a way to show normal menu's and hide that obnoxious ribbon. I can not even stand the new paintbrush, it is horrible.
Re:I'm neither for or against Microsoft, but as a (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Massive innovation; return of 'file' menu optio (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's hoping they've also fixed some of the inconsistencies in the ribbon as well - it's incredibly frustrating that you can adjust some formatting in one application but not in another - you'd think they share the same codebase. Are they just trying to protect us from having too much control over our documents?!
Re:I'm neither for or against Microsoft, but as a (Score:3, Insightful)
Until we can use Google Apps on an Airplane, we'll be sticking with Office for Mac for the foreseeable future. There are things I like about Google Apps, especially when you need to share a document for editing during a conference call. But the privacy problem renders that to anything you don't mind your competitors seeing. And with the advent of better screen sharing tools, it renders those needs fulfilled for us.
Re:Massive innovation; return of 'file' menu optio (Score:2, Insightful)
FTA: "The File button, by the way, replaces the Office orb button from Office 2007, which Microsoft says thoroughly confused people -- many thought it was a piece of branding eye candy rather than a functional button."
Indeed. Now how much do their UI people get paid?
I hope they get paid well as Office 2007 was an overwhelmingly positive change. There's always the fact that many of Office's users are the kind of users that get confused by everything. There's a remedy for the button: "Guys and gals, that candy button is the File menu". There, damage done. There's no harm to make it more obvious in ver. 2010 either. Means they listen to feedback.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, while I usually leave it in the default html mode, there are times when I switch it to RTF mode so I can control things like where attachments show up in the email (like you can do on internal network emails in lotus notes). Sure, I know not to send formatted stuff like that to unknown email clients outside the company, but 95% of my emails never leave our exchange server so I know for a fact that every feature is supported.
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Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft Office 2010, Dissected (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one left that hasn't been eaten by the "If we force it and make them look at it often enough they'll eventually like it, no matter how bad" syndrome that seems to be affecting everyone with regards to that stupid ribbon?
Re:Microsoft Office 2010, Dissected (Score:3, Insightful)
It's true, but you've mis-named it. It is the "If people actually use it instead of simply whining about something they don't know anything about, they actually *like* it" syndrome.
Ya know, it's the same one that affects fanboy's of all products... Those folks who complain about drivers in Linux? About how "hard" it is to use a Mac... or complain that the ribbon is unusable. ;)
Re:No different than other third parties (Score:3, Insightful)
Your mail may go through a third-party server (which every single mail does that does not get sent to a local recipient - when I send out an e-mail it first goes to my ISP's server for starters), they are not responsible for storage/retention of your mails. I assume in your case Symantec basically acts as a relay for your network, storing mails only long enough to check for viruses/spam/other filtering and delivering it to your own mail server (from your mail I understand that you are still running your own local mail server).
If you think that this is comparable with using Gmail, you don't know what you are talking about.
Gmail stores your mails for you: no need to run your own mail server and store/retain your own mails. Granted you can (using POP/IMAP or so), the whole idea behind using Gmail is that you don't have to. If Gmail were to suddenly crash and burn, most of the people using it would lose all their mails. This includes many (mostly small) companies that do not wish to run their own servers - I do but that's mainly because it's my hobby.
Secondly, Gmail stores your e-mails and can be subpoenaed by the US government (to me a foreign government) to reveal those mails, and as I understand under laws like the patriot act do not even have to inform you that your mails have been disclosed. There you have a major privacy issue. The government may be able to wiretap Symantec or your ISP to listen in to your mails, they can never get your old mails from Symantec simply because they are not stored there but only filtered.
And thirdly, like all webmail providers (think Sarah Palin) there is the risk of other people hacking into your account. Either by brute force, bugs in the system allowing one logged in user to see mails of other users (something like that has been reported on this site before) or by guessing the correct answers to your "security" questions to get to your password. Having to log in to your own server is harder.
For me Gmail is a no-go for anything sensitive - actually even for personal mail - simply because it's storing your mails on servers in a country which government has a total lack of respect for privacy, especially privacy of non-nationals. Not that I think the government under which I live is that great, at least when it comes to privacy they still do have the upper hand.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
as long as Outlook continues to encourage top-posting and HTML formatted content, and discourage quoted reply trimming, it will still suck.
Jesus Christ. 10 years later, and we're still having this argument?
Give it up, dude. Usenet is dead, top-posting is the norm, and everything supports HTML. Only a select few chose to trim their bottom-posts, which usually just meant lots of scrolling.
(In any event, threaded conversations a la GMail are clearly the way forward)
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
I know scrolling to the end of an email is hardly difficult or arduous, but it's one less thing for the Computer Users, None Technical to think about.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
To posting is beneficial when someone new to the chain (or someone without perfect memory) wants to catch up with the history.
You can read every email in the chain without it being chopped into pieces with bits removed.
Sure you mightn't find that useful, and whether the cost of *all* the messages being top posted is worth it for the few that ever need it. But it's a real benefit for lots of people.
Re:Microsoft Office 2010, Dissected (Score:5, Insightful)
You're appear to be stuck in a logical fallacy where you're unable to comprehend the idea that people might actually like the ribbon based on their use and experiences with it, and the clear benefits it provides, rather than for any other reason.
In other words, you think no-one can like the ribbon, so if people do, there must be a negative reason. For goodness sakes, Microsoft are making good products these days; open your mind a tiny bit.
Re:Microsoft Office 2010, Dissected (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to agree with you. I'll admit that it took some getting used to, but after an adjustment period, there really is nothing wrong with the ribbon. It works pretty well.
I've never understood the people who praise KDE for doing absolutely batty things with their UI because they're "innovating", but when Microsoft does something a bit different they proceed to excrete a brick because they're "messing with established ui standards".
IMHO, the ribbon is only a bad thing to someone intimately familiar with the products already. If you're a new or basic user, it does a VERY good job of getting useful functions in a more accessible location rather than buried 7 levels deep in a menu structure.
Re:Massive innovation; return of 'file' menu optio (Score:3, Insightful)
have you tried working with tables, for example
Yup, daily. Drives me mad...for extra insanity points of course, you can always try pasting a table from Excel/Access, (for most 'Office' users the logical place to store tabular data, especially numeric), into Word or PPT.
it's incredibly frustrating that you can adjust some formatting in one application
Indeed. Want to highlight some text in PPT, like you can do very easily in Word? SOL...
Of course, you can do it in 'presentation' mode, (F5) using the pen : (Ctrl+P then select highlighter). But that's not persistent, unless you save your annotations...which is 'all or nothing')
Re:Is there a classic mode? (Score:3, Insightful)