Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker » Microsoft upgrades Office (And well done, too)

January 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Microsoft upgrades Office (And well done, too)

TAGS: Microsoft

Walt Mossberg covers the new Office 2007 in today's WSJ, and comes out very bullish on it. That's saying something as he's not a big Microsoft fan on most things.

I saw Office 2007 on a recent trip to the UK, and it's beautiful. Microsoft has done a great job with the UI upgrade, though (as Mossberg notes) it will likely cause some problems to users as they shift to the new interface. The Mac version won't be out for at least a year, but I'll be intrigued to see how it improves on the Windows version. (Little known fact: Office is better on the Mac than on Windows.)

The biggest headache with the upgrade will be the new document formats. Office 2007 automatically saves (you can change this, of course) into a new XML-based format. Older versions of Office won't be able to open them, which will undoubtedly cause consternation (and upgrades, which Microsoft will be happy about :-) as organizations try to share documents and find it difficult. (Yes, there's a free converter but no, most people won't know about it.) It's an opportunity for OpenOffice, yes, but keep in mind that one reason for the new file formats is to allow Microsoft to add/streamline functionality. It's not just about lock-in. There are real benefits to using the new format. (No, I don't know any, but I'm not an Office expert.)

The real opportunity for OpenOffice, I think, is to find ways to embrace and extend the new XML-based formats. Give its users more functionality than Microsoft Office, and enable it through the file formats. Open source is about more than commodified parity - it's about innovation. Microsoft has innovated with Office 2007 - what's the response?

Posted by Matt Asay on January 4, 2007 11:28 AM

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