[gui-talk] Five reasons not to upgrade to Office 2007

Tue Dec 5 18:25:37 CST 2006

Window Eyes isn't invasive enough.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Henrichsen" <paulh52 at pacbell.net>
To: "'NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List'" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 7:01 PM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Five reasons not to upgrade to Office 2007

| At least with Window-eyes, screenreader access for office 2007, looks 
great.
|
|
|
| Paul Henrichsen
| Paulh52 at pacbell.net
|
| -----Original Message-----
| From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
| Behalf Of albert griffith
| Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 2:13 PM
| To: NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
| Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Five reasons not to upgrade to Office 2007
|
| I've been reading all the information I can find about this program and it
| seems that around two out of three people think the, ribbon approach, is
| better.  The rest really dislike it, however.  Every time Microsoft 
releases
| an upgrade, the same old tired argument about it being barely out of beta 
is
| trotted out to discourage all but the most adventurous.  Also, converters
| will be readily available and it's not difficult to save documents in the
| format preferred by the intended recipient.  My concerns have to do with
| screen reader accessibility and I haven't heard anything about that yet. 
As
| always, those les adventurous, will be posting their orders for the new
| products as soon as possible while those with their feet planted more 
firmly
| on the ground will do the wisest thing and wait for six months to a year
| before upgrading.  I'll probably be in that line outside of a Best Buy at
| around midnight on January, 29th.
| ----- Original Message -----
| From: "David Andrews" <dandrews at visi.com>
| To: <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>; <promotion-technology at nfbnet.org>;
| <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>; <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>; <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>;
| <nabop at nfbnet.org>
| Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 4:34 PM
| Subject: [gui-talk] Five reasons not to upgrade to Office 2007
|
|
||
|| >
|| >Five reasons not to upgrade to Office 2007 By Angus Kidman Monday, 04
|| >December 2006 IT Wire
|| >
|| >There's been coverage galore of the benefits of the new interface
|| >sported by Office 2007, but there are plenty of good reasons not to
|| >make the switch to the latest version of Microsoft's best-selling
|| >product suite. Here's five of the most compelling. If you fit any of
|| >these scenarios, then there's precious little point in making an
|| >immediate switch to what the company refers to as the "2007 Office
|| >System", either now (when it's available for corporate licence
|| >holders) or in January, when it goes on sale at retailers.
|| >
|| >Reason 1: You already know how to use your favourite Office
|| >applications. The centrepiece of the latest release of Office is the
|| >new ribbon interface, which Microsoft has endlessly touted as making
|| >it easier to discover many of the features which are already included
|| >in Word, Excel and PowerPoint, but which users have somehow failed to
|| >discover buried under a wealth of menus and toolbars.
|| >
|| >This is a perfectly valid argument as far as new users are concerned,
|| >but Office itself is hardly a new product, with some elements of it
|| >now dating back more than 20 years. That means that there's several
|| >million people who actually know what they're doing with the product
|| >-- or rather, who did until Microsoft decided that menus were
|| >entirely unnecessary.
|| >
|| >The sole concession to these users is a series of interactive guides
|| >on the Microsoft Web site which map . I've asked Microsoft several
|| >times why there couldn't be an option to overlay the old menu
|| >interface for existing users -- switched off by default, but
|| >available if you want it
|| >-- and never received a satisfactory reply. The bottom line
|| >remains: if
|| >you know what you're doing, why would you want to waste time having
|| >to learn a whole new product just because Microsoft thinks it's a
|| >good idea?
|| >
|| >Reason 2: You like a consistent interface in all of your apps.
|| >Despite
|| >the endless pro-ribbon propaganda, it's not actually found in every
|| >element of Office. In particular, it hasn't been introduced to
|| >Outlook.
|| >Microsoft officials say this is simply a question of resources, and
|| >that the ribbon will probably appear there eventually. A cynic might
|| >argue that Outlook has fewer buried features, and thus demonstrates
|| >that the ribbon isn't needed anyway.
|| >
|| >Whatever the reason, though, the end result is that one of the major
|| >selling points for previous versions of Office -- a consistent
|| >interface across every application -- has disappeared. If this is in
|| >fact important to you, Office 2007 is a poor choice.
|| >
|| >Reason 3: You frequently exchange files with users outside your
|| >organisation. Office 2007 boasts a new, XML-based file format. This
|| >does in fact have several benefits -- files are smaller, less likely
|| >to get corrupted and the file format is more easily exploited by
|| >other applications. If everyone in your company is using it -- or if
|| >you're a one-person band and don't share files at all -- then it's a
|| >useful choice.
|| >
|| >However, if you are feeling "collaborative" (to use an MS buzzword)
|| >and want to actually mail those files to other people, then it's a
|| >right pain. Assuming your correspondents don't have Office 2007 (and
|| >most of them won't), you'll either have to do a 'Save As' into the
|| >old format every time you send a file, or convince them to install a
|| >converter (and pray they're running a version where that's an
|| >option). Frankly, who needs the hassle?
|| >
|| >Reason 4: You use macros and other customisation features
|| >extensively.
|| >Microsoft has always boasted about the fact that there's an entire
|| >community of Office developers out there building custom applications
|| >on top of Word, Excel and the like. It generally makes less noise
|| >about the fact that every new version of Office renders these
|| >inoperable until they're recoded to fit the new interface and file
|| >formats. With ribbons sprinkled everywhere and a totally new approach
|| >to files, there's no point even contemplating shifting unless your
|| >developer has already made the migration, or you have a lot of time
|| >on your hands.
|| >
|| >Reason 5: It's still essentially a version 0 application. While
|| >Microsoft boasts that the number of beta testers for Office 2007 far
|| >exceeds any previous versions, it still remains a product that's only
|| >just come out of beta. Yes, it's selfish to let other people discover
|| >all the flaws, but why risk your business (or even just your home
|| >PC)
|| >until there's been a patch or two?
|| >_____________________________________________________________
||
|| David Andrews and white cane Harry.
||
||
|| _______________________________________________
|| gui-talk mailing list
|| gui-talk at nfbnet.org
|| http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk
||
|
| _______________________________________________
| gui-talk mailing list
| gui-talk at nfbnet.org
| http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk
|
| __________ NOD32 1902 (20061205) Information __________
|
| This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system.
| http://www.eset.com
|
|
| _______________________________________________
| gui-talk mailing list
| gui-talk at nfbnet.org
| http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk
| 