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

[Laura Eaves]

unbelievable. Oh well, what I mean is, what next?
--le

----- 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.


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