J-Walk & Associates, Inc.

No Excel 13?

From Wikipedia's entry for Microsoft Office 14.

Microsoft Office 14 ("Office 14" for short) is the working title for the next version of the Microsoft Office System productivity suite for Microsoft Windows. It entered development during 2006 while Microsoft was finishing work on Microsoft Office 12, which was released as the 2007 Microsoft Office System.

The major version number 13 has been skipped presumably due to aversion to the number 13.

It was previously thought that Office 14 would ship in the first half of 2009, but more recent information suggests a late 2009/early 2010 release timeframe. According to an article published in InfoWorld in April 2006, Office 14 will be more "role-based" than previous versions. The article cites Simon Witts, corporate vice president for Microsoft's Enterprise and Partner Group, as claiming that there would be features tailored to employees in "roles such as research and development professionals, sales persons, and human resources." Borrowing from ideas termed "Web 2.0" when implemented on the Internet, it is likely that Microsoft will incorporate features of SharePoint Server in Office 14.

Office 14 will implement the ISO compliant version of Open XML which was standardized as IS29500 in March 2008.

The next versions of Microsoft Office Visio and Microsoft Office Project will both be featuring the Fluent user interface ("ribbon") used in other Office 2007 applications.

To me, the most interesting part is the superstition around the number 13 -- officially known as Triskaidekaphobia. Maybe Microsoft should remove Row 13 from Excel worksheets.