Office 2010 – does it really do any more than WordStar or WordPerfect

The latest release of the ever-present Microsoft Office suite was released this week, bigger, apparently better and with a new 64bit sibling. But let’s be honest, are there really any features left to add that we might actually use? Well I’ve found a few I like and I’ve not even looked at Visio or Outlook yet. (Oh and Sharepoint 2010 was released as well)

If we were to travel back in time just a few short years, we wouldn't have found many Microsoft applications on our CPM or MS-DOS based machines. WordStar, Lotus 123 and dBase were the order of the day - even though we couldn't copy data between them.   Imagine routinely started a document with .OP to omit page numbers and Control Q+L to do a spell check.  Oh happy dextrous fingered days.

Tell me why I need Office 2010

The truth is, right now you probably don't, initially for the majority of people, there is no compelling big ticket reason to upgrade. I was working with a client, a household name, who is still happily using Office 95 on Windows NT4, both products still do what the client needs them to.   But the world of work is apparently changing, the way we communicate and present the ever increasing quantity of data we produce is evolving.  As long ago as 2009, the BBC reported that social networking is the new eMail. 

A year ago, I wanted to use the "iPod in a food blender" video in a client presentation, I had to acquire some software that allowed me to capture the action from YouTube. In PowerPoint 2010, you can stream video straight into your slide. In fact there are tools that allow you to do the sort of image, video or audio editing that used to require products like Audacity.

Business Intelligence for the masses

There is a 64bit version of Office. This will speed up Excel when its busy number crunching. Capabilities such as PowerPivot make original spread sheet trailblazers SuperCalc and Lotus 123 look like toys. PowerPivot generated a lot of interest during my recent round of business value seminars. There is an Excel and a SharePoint version of this useful tool. Turning data into Business Intelligence for the masses. Have a look at the air incident demo - it doesn't mention ash (topical as the skys of the UK are today closed). 

Microsoft realise that the success of Office 2010 will not be down to embedding YouTube videos in PowerPoint or the ability to manipulate an unfathomable number of rows in Excel.  There is a bigger picture here, and it's partly fluffy and cloud shaped. I'm going on record here as predicting that in a few years we'll be remembering the H:> drive with the same nostalgia as floppy disks and RS232 ports.  You did read my recent cloud blog didn't you? The new Office suite for example can save documents to your Skydrive, no not something from Captain Scarlet, but your online home directory in the cloud. Plus Office finally goes online with some Office editing capabilities available via SharePoint 2010 or hosted.

So imagine this:

Just before driving off on holiday, you save your client proposal to your shared area. You ask your colleague to send it to the client first thing Monday and to call them at lunch time to see if you have a deal. 

Scenario 1: Hitting the M6 and pointing the car at Blackpool.  You get to Sandbach Services (J18) and realise you've got the costs wrong in the document, you simply will not win the deal. You call your colleagues, you email your manager (exposing your mistake), you leave a message for the client... The deal is lost.

Scenario 2: Hitting the M6 and pointing the car at Blackpool.  You get to Sandbach Services (J18) and realise you've got the costs wrong in the document, you simply will not win the deal.  Finding a machine in the Intenet Cafe, it doesn't have Word installed, you go online, using the hosted Word, you change the prices and wander off dreaming of candy floss and the Walzers. When you get to Doris's Guest House in Blackpool, you'll connect through DirectAccess back to work and send the eMail yourself! Donkey ride anyone?

For me, Office will move to the centre of our collaborative, date rich, social media enabled world. It's this loosely coupled collaboration that will be the driver for Office, where multiple people can work on the same bid, where we can contact them from within that document using the telephone, VoIP or instant messaging. Of course to achieve this state of blissful connectivity, we need a bit of Office, a splash of SharePoint, a healthly measure of Communications Server topped with a slice of cloud. Microsoft will win all the way if this takes off. It gets to sell client access licenses and subscriptions. I'll claim to have spotted this coming back in 2008 in Houston. Microsoft get two sales for the price of one, we get workflow enabled, collaborative solutions, but I'll bet we still carry a copy of our sales presentation around on a USB stick, you know, just in case there isn't a cloud in sight.

Get the PowerPoint

Years of sales presentations and business seminars that started with Harvard Graphics has left me with a pretty good command of PowerPoint. So here are my top reasons for Office 2010 in general and PowerPoint in particular. (I've been using it for near 12 months without a hic-cup)

• Office 2010 is a bigger number than Office 2003 so it has to be better
• Ability to add and manipulate media that used to require several other products and a lot of time
• Transitions that you will want to use (no really I'm serious)
• Improved animations (including clever things you can do with charts), but...
• ...still no layers as far as I can see in my build
• You can broadcast your slides without paying for WebEx or Live Meeting
• You can group slides by say, module or section title
• You can save as video for YouTube (I did this with a deck that had an embedded Silverlight demo video which was included, along with the snazzy transition, into the final video)
• You can capture screen shots
• ...and get this. QA is content company, how useful will the ability to co-author the same presentation with multiple individuals simultaneously from different locations be?  
• SharePoint Workspace (formerly Groove) lets you work with SharePoint content when out and about. So company images, data, templates can be where you need them to be.

Its a long way from my first ever presentation, NetWare 3.x, 40 slides all crafted in Harvard Graphics and converted into 35mm photo slides.

 

The cloud, SharePoint, Communications Server and Office 2010 will fundamentally change the way we *CAN* work. I'm ready and waiting.

I'm off to watch more transitions. Take care.

 

PS I'd love your comments, thoughts or suggestions on Office 2010.
PPS I've been playing with the very free Office Live web content managment system, its ideal for smaller companies and clubs. So much better than Frontpage. You can see what you can do in 20 minutes here.