. . . cont'd from Hot News MS Office 2007 represents a sea change both in appearance and access to functionality. That means it's going to take some getting used to. Yates says that beta testers required only a week to get used to the new version. Only a week? For experienced beta testers and Microsoft employees who are all power users, relatively speaking? What does that mean for you and me? A month of effort, mistakes and frustrations? Ultimately, the decision to upgrade to MS Office 2007 will depend on two considerable factors: price and ease of use. If the reviews of the release version are poor, Microsoft can enjoy a slow uptake of its expensive , flagship product. Yates' biggest pronouncement recently was that OpenOffice.org 2.0 currently deals with needs that Microsoft was addressing 10 years ago. Yates is correct. It's just too bad that Microsoft didn't solve all the problems 10 years ago (or since, for that matter). What Microsoft has learned to do well is sell software better than any other company on the planet. But it hasn't solved the productivity aggravations of its Office product users; not by a long shot. MS Office 2007 looks like it's going to be a terrific and powerful product. But it has grown from being merely a big gorilla into full-size King Kong.

. . . Yates suggests, price can never be the only consideration or even the primary consideration. Oh no? I say that once a product meets the compatibility, stability, feature and function needs of SOHO, home-office and small business users, there's nothing more to consider.

In your quest for the best office productivity software for your particular applications, Yates suggests, price can never be the only consideration or even the primary consideration. Oh no? I say that once a product meets the compatibility, stability, feature and function needs of a SOHO, home-office or small business user, there's nothing more to consider. And if the product which fits the bill happens to be free, well, Hallelujah! It sure doesn't happen every day.

As usual, Microsoft Office 2007 is going to cost hundreds of dollars, whether you're upgrading or, unfortunately for you, buying a full version. Don't kid yourself either about the so-called Student & Teacher version. It's inexpensive enough, no doubt, but it's also not a business package because crucial components are missing.

Office 2007 has a new user interface which is going to require a learning period. The reason for the new interface? Microsoft had to find rational ways to introduce its deeply powerful collaboration, document sharing and integration functions. The software makes cumulatively educated guesses about your needs too, which also requires an interface in which those needs can be effectively presented. That's nice, but in the past, such artifical intelligence implementations have often acted as more of a hindrance than a help to productivity. The current word from beta testers is that Office 2007 is a tremendous improvement however, especially for small to medium businesses with workgroup deployments of MS Office. Individual home-office and SOHO users may not be so happy on the other hand.

Did I mention that Office 2007 uses a brand new document format? XML is alive and well and evolving at Microsoft just as it is on every other platform. That's probably a good thing, but the change brings with it the specter of a whole host of problems. Does everybody cringe when I say Section Break? There are dozens of other Word and Excel aggravations I can name—books have been written about this stuff for Pete's sake—and now a new document format will most likely require that we scale the same hills all over again.

In its quest for supremacy, Microsoft has clearly won the battle. The problem, as always, is simply that supremacy often guarantees arrogance and a superior attitude which attempts to dictate what is good for us. I'm looking forward to testing and reviewing Office 2007 and you'll read the review in Kickstartnews. Will I find a version of Office 2007 that suits my needs without having to scale a big learning curve? I doubt it.

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