J-Walk & Associates, Inc.

Office 2010 News

I guess it's official. The upcoming Office 14 will named Office 2010.

How will you pronounce it?

• Office Two-Thousand-Ten, or
• Office Twenty-Ten

The second pronunciation has one less syllable.

Also: Microsoft promises public beta of Office 2010.

Microsoft has denied rumours that it will not run a public beta programme for its forthcoming Office 2010 suite. A company spokesperson said that Microsoft will follow its regular development pattern, and allow the public to get their hands on working beta copies of the office applications package.

"Although we are not disclosing a date for the public beta, there definitely will be one. This development cycle for Office is no different than in years past, " the spokesperson said.

"In the third quarter of this year, Office 2010 will enter technical preview, which is an invite-only programme, and this will be followed by a public beta where millions can try out Office."

I wish they'd hurry up so I can get started on my book revisions.

- Reader Comments -

Following are comments in response to this item.
The most recent comment is at the bottom.

1. By Toad. Comment posted 20 April, 2009 9:20am

   I thought I read somewhere that the Office 2010 applications will run in a browser, and only in a browser. Is that true? If it is, I'm wondering how it's going to affect the "user experience", especially if a browser other than Internet Explorer is used.
   
   Any info, por favor?
2. By John Walkenbach. Comment posted 20 April, 2009 10:02am

   I haven't head that and I'm about 99.9999% certain that it's not true. Requiring users to run Office apps in a browser would be the dumbest Microsoft idea ever -- and there's some strong competition for that contest.
3. By Toad. Comment posted 20 April, 2009 1:42pm

   Well, I'm glad I could do my part to spread misinformation. Please disregard my comment, Mr. Ballmer.
4. By Danny. Comment posted 23 April, 2009 11:53am

   John, any news on if there will be a backwards-compatibility bone thrown to us old school classic-menu users .. like a classic mode, customizable shortcuts or a customizable ribbon? The main reason I've eschewed 2007 was that all of my keyboard shortcuts were rendered obsolete. Another reason was that the Ribbon was not customizable.
   
   Unfortunately, I see that Larson-Green is heading up the usability effort for 2010. I read somewhere that she was the person responsible for 2007's UI departure. This doesn't seem to bode well for my usability preferences.
5. By John Walkenbach. Comment posted 23 April, 2009 12:08pm

   Personally, I hope they don't include a backwards-compatible UI. Excel is complicated enough with only one UI. The ribbon is the current UI, and it takes a while to get used to it. But once that happens, it's not bad at all.
   
   Microsoft would be smart to make the UI more easily customizable -- but I don't if they will or not.
   
   I'm curious about the keyboard shortcuts that don't work. I can't think of any that I use that don't also work in Excel 2007.