[Gremmie]

While giving presentations, the projector will display the slide while the computer will display the current slide, the next slide, and the current time. Very helpful for professional presentations. Also has nice 3D slide transitions.

[Gremmie]

While giving presentations, the projector will display the slide while the computer will display the current slide, the next slide, and the current time. Very helpful for professional presentations. Also has nice 3D slide transitions.

[JonnoB]

Originally Posted by Gremmie

While giving presentations, the projector will display the slide while the computer will display the current slide, the next slide, and the current time. Very helpful for professional presentations. Also has nice 3D slide transitions.

With a notebook and multiple view, Powerpoint does that for me now (2003) with speakernotes, etc.

[tthiel]

Taking risks? Hardly. Microsoft is copying Apple...again. Shameless.

[biglouis]

The implications for a change of this sort is huge. How far have Microsoft consulted their user base?

For 'geeks' this may a 'kewl' way of justifying their jobs and creating something fun. For the rest of us in the real world as users, educators or support staff it imposes changes that we haven't asked for, don't need and don't want.

What exactly was so wrong with an interface which has 20+ years of market acceptance?

Imho, this will only drive more customers to question the need for MS versus open source products.

LouisB

[aerin44]

I am reasonably certain they will include an option to use it in "legacy" format. There are too many people that would not want to learn to use the new one.

[andykemp]

PressPass: Can I upgrade to Office “12” but keep the old UI’s look and feel?

Larson-Green: No, we don’t have a “classic mode.” We surveyed customers to find out what would help people transition, and they told us they really wanted us to help them move forward, rather than doing any kind of classic mode. In addition to redesigning the UI, we’ve added a lot more functionality in Office “12.” Faced with the same challenge of making all this new functionality available in the old UI, we couldn’t keep the old command-oriented model and make it easier for users to find new features, so we decided to make a bolder move.

It would seem there will not be a legacy mode... :cry:

Which will just mean that my school wait ages before updating, because non of us want to have to reteach students how to use Word!?!

[mr_Ray]

Originally Posted by biglouis

The implications for a change of this sort is huge. How far have Microsoft consulted their user base?

For 'geeks' this may a 'kewl' way of justifying their jobs and creating something fun. For the rest of us in the real world as users, educators or support staff it imposes changes that we haven't asked for, don't need and don't want.

What exactly was so wrong with an interface which has 20+ years of market acceptance?

Imho, this will only drive more customers to question the need for MS versus open source products.

LouisB

For you and me? There was nothing too wrong with that old interface - because we've been used to it for many many years. However, the very significant majority of computer users - and people who aren't yet users because they just don't understand them - just don't get it. They don't and never will adjust to how computers currently work. If we want to really bring technology to the masses in a meaningful way, we have to do it in a way that is much more logical and discoverable. The current paradigm (oh how I hate that word, but it fits here) just isn't that.

A tasks based interface will hopefully help bring the power of Office, and everything else, to people who need it. With a relatively clean slate design the PocketPC OS, MS put things like "contacts", "tasks", "mail" in there instead of "Pocket Outlook". Why? Well.. "what's an outlook thingamybob and what do I want one for? I wish this thing could manage my contacts list...". That's just one aspect, and the new interfaces coming along seem to be another. Show people what they can do in a logical and coordinated manner instead of hidden in toolbars and menus with funny names.

I for one am looking forward to it.

[Jonathan1]

I foresee this bombing in a big way. There is NO way in hell most larger or even medium sized companies are going to want to retrain their user base. Training = Time = Money. Unless there is some massive benefit, which IMHO there isn’t, most companies will upgrade to Office 2003 and stay there.

Now if there was a classic mode. Maybe. Our company is finally moving to XP and downgrading the UI to 2000 mode so users have the same experience they had before. No training = drop it in place and away you go. I think this was a VERY bad decision on MS’s part. This is going to bite them in the butt big time.

[PetiteFlower]

Large companies are always slow to upgrade anyway, just because of the number of machines and the need to test with their company-specific software and the need to retrain and possibly the cost of licenses too. Most of the big companies I've worked for have been at least 2 years behind the current versions of stuff like Windows and Office. When the time comes to do the upgrade though, they'll schedule a training class and it won't be a big deal. Eventually everyone will upgrade because of support reasons and by the time they do, enough employees will have upgraded their home computers and gotten the newer versions that it won't be such a shock for them.

[martin_ayton]

I really don't get this sort of reaction. Change is not always good, but no change is almost always bad. If any software manufacturer limits itself to changes that are, at most, mildly evolutionary it is dead. Period.

And anyway, Word in it's current form sucks. It sucks mostly because the current UI is un-intuitive and makes it very difficult to do stuff. It is this way because it has evolved slowly into an unwieldy beast with nobody taking a fundamental look at what it is supposed to do. Any changes to the UI are likely to be for the better.

And the training thing is also spurious: Most companies have a turnover of employees and they have to train the new ones anyway. Why train new employees to do things the old way if there is a better way out there. Heck, support two systems if you have to in the short term, but if there is a new system which is more efficient then failing to implement it because of the training load is a sure-fire way to let the competition walk all over you.

Just my £0.02 worth 8)