The REAL reason of the ribbon and Aero Glass....

[John Jay Smith]

Office was getting nowhere...

After office 2000 the improvements in 2002 and especially 2003 were very
small...

so what would they have to do to sell more copies of office? (and windows
for that matter)

MAKE IT LOOK DIFFERENT!

Do we care about innovation? New Ideas? Real improvements? Noooooooo

We just want something that will look different so we can sell, even if it
is WORSE and horrible.

Its all about marketing... Remember MAC OSX is so good looking and MS always
follows
after people that do things right.. scrambling to copy the idea and to cash
in....
But they did it in a ridiculous way in the 2007 product line...

That is how Office 2007 got the RIBBON and the Perl...
And thats how Vista got Glass, the new Perl start button and the start
menu.......

Looks different therefore you are tricked into thinking it IS different..
but in reality its the same ol same ol...... but WORSE in my opinion.

People will pay their cash for NEW SKINS and very little new innovation....

where are the GENIUSES? Answer: not working at Microsoft or getting ignored!

Sorry MS... I praised you when you were on track... now you are blundering..
and I am not
a blind follower....

 

[Local]

I love excel and word 2007, I love the new UI and the new SDK and internal
improvements, not the same about Vista the UI there is not much there, but I
can't say anything wrong about office, the new Word and Excel have tons of
improvements for developers.

 

[Patrick Schmid]

I didn't know that these newsgroups are now gathering places for
conspiracy theorists. What's next? The real reason why the government
keeps Area 51 secret or the real killers of JFK?
Office 2007 has a huge amount of new and improved features. You are just
too focused and blinded by the ribbon to see them.

Patrick Schmid

 

[John Jay Smith]

You have never heard of the Roswell incident?

ok ok .. I will try to swallow the ribbon....

what is the latest beta I can get of office?
Is there a new one comming out soon?

 

[Beth Melton]

Do you have any of the Office 2007 betas installed?

The latest beta available is Office 2007 B2 and you can download it
from:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/getthebeta.mspx?showIntro=n

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Office 2007 Preview Site:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/default.mspx
Office 2007 Community Articles/Tutorials:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/community/article_archive.mspx

TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Beth Melton]

btw, I believe you mean "Pearl". Perl is a programming language.

And right now it's called the Microsoft Office Button in Office 2007.
Granted, everything is subject to change but that's not what they are
currently calling it.

~Beth Melton

 

[Jimmy Brush]

Have you actually USED the ribbon? To say it is eye candy is rediculous.

Windows Vista is also much more than eye candy. Granted, it's not what was
originally envisioned ... but that doesn't make it insignifigant.

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Of course I have.

Btw, my personal guess is that the number of new and improved features
in 2007 is equivalent to all new & improved ones in Office XP and Office
2003 together.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Val]

New =/= Improved

Office XP/03 made some bad "improvements", IMO (like the file finder)

 

[Patrick Schmid]

New =/= Improved
That's why I said new and improved. There are completely new features in
2007 (e.g. a citation feature for Word, pdf output, blogging from Word &
OneNote) and there are improved ones (e.g. the file save as dialog).
2007 btw doesn't have any file search capability anymore. That is left
to Windows.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Beth Melton]

I don't really see an improvement to the Save As dialog. What am I
missing??

Also, Office 2007 is on Vista then you do get the new Instant Search
in the dialog boxes - just not on Windows XP.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Office 2007 Preview Site:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/default.mspx
Office 2007 Community Articles/Tutorials:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/community/article_archive.mspx

TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Patrick Schmid]

I don't really see an improvement to the Save As dialog. What am I

missing??

Minor optical changes.

Patrick Schmid
--------------
http://pschmid.net

Also, Office 2007 is on Vista then you do get the new Instant Search
in the dialog boxes - just not on Windows XP.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Office 2007 Preview Site:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/default.mspx
Office 2007 Community Articles/Tutorials:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/community/article_archive.mspx

TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Beth Melton]

Minor optical changes.

Ah. The minor changes in the Save As dialog wouldn't be the first
thing that comes to my mind if asked about improvements. ;-)

There's SmartArt, themes, new graphic effects, an InfoPath and Outlook
connection, new SharePoint features, just to name a few.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Office 2007 Preview Site:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/default.mspx
Office 2007 Community Articles/Tutorials:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/community/article_archive.mspx

TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Patrick Schmid]

I don't really see an improvement to the Save As dialog. What am I

Ah. The minor changes in the Save As dialog wouldn't be the first
thing that comes to my mind if asked about improvements. ;-)

I tried to come up with something that wasn't radically new. SmartArt is
completely new, so are Office Themes, a brand-new OfficeArt engine that
makes the new effects possible, a brand-new charting engine, etc
Oh, I just thought of a better one: hugely improved IMAP support for
Outlook.

There's SmartArt, themes, new graphic effects, an InfoPath and Outlook
connection, new SharePoint features, just to name a few.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Beth Melton]

I tried to come up with something that wasn't radically new.
SmartArt is completely new, so are Office Themes, a brand-new
OfficeArt engine that makes the new effects possible, a brand-new
charting engine, etc
Oh, I just thought of a better one: hugely improved IMAP support for
Outlook.

That's right, the Save As dialog box was your list of improved
features wasn't it. Oh well, there's part of a list of new features
for Val anyway. <grin>

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Office 2007 Preview Site:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/default.mspx
Office 2007 Community Articles/Tutorials:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/community/article_archive.mspx

TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/