Microsoft to debut next Office at PDC

This isn’t exactly news, but what the heck:

Windows 7 and Windows Cloud may be the main attractions at Microsoft's upcoming Professional Developers Conference, but the next version of Office will also be on show.

'Office 14', as the product is code-named, will be discussed at next week's event, with attendees likely to get a glimpse of some of its features, according to sources. Unlike Windows 7, however, attendees should not expect to leave Los Angeles with a copy of their own.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has talked recently about the idea that the next version of Office will be able to run in various modes, including over the internet.

Microsoft employees also got a glimpse of Office 14's versatility during the company's recent annual employee meeting.

A job opening for the 'Office Web Companions team' offers some more information on what was shown.

"Featured at the 2008 company meeting, the Web Companions organization is at the centre of Office's software-plus-services transformation, coordinating this key vision area for Office '14'," Microsoft said in a job listing for a lead software-development engineer.

"Working together with partners across Office and beyond, we are tasked with delivering best-in-class Office web applications that expand the reach of the traditional client apps in a wide variety of innovative ways, delivering server, service and browser client features," states the listing.

It's not clear how detailed the Office 14 discussion will be at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC).

PDC is going to be quite the ride this year. I can’t wait.

Discuss this Article 12

Nickelgreen
on Oct 22, 2008
PDC is going to be quite the ride this year.
I agree. I think some people will be surprise about... well, we'll see in a few days. :-)
mikegalos@msn.com
on Oct 22, 2008
Yep. PDC and WinHEC are going to make for a stunning couple of weeks.
johnbaxter
on Oct 22, 2008
PDC and (to a lesser extent I expect) will even be quite interesting to this non-attendee. I'll have to rely on what appears here and elsewhere to learn the public part of what happens. "Office 14" note: If MS were to skip version numbers for cultural reasons in all cultures into which they sell, it wouldn't be possible to number versions in anything like a progression. (And I would prefer they not adopt the Tokyo addressing system.) Sticking to just the "home" culture will work, though. I suppose it's time to speculate on Office 14's name. (I rather like Office 14, but the year-based names have been around for a long time now (short-lived XP excepted).) As with Windows 7, what it does is more important than what it is called. --John (Windows 6.1. 6 + 1 = 7, so of course it is "Windows 7")
au071
on Oct 22, 2008
Honestly, I am still trying to get used to the ribbon interface. Hopefully, office 14 will have some good UI designs and functionalities. I have been trying Open Office 3 for the past few days; it may not be as polished as Office, but certainly usable and at least for home users, it's good enough.
deepfry
on Oct 22, 2008
I know a number of people who don't like the ribbon. I like it but I'm not using office 2007 too much (other than outlook). We are staying with 2003 at work for the forseeable future though, our users wouldn't be able to handle the ribbon and 2007 breaks too much of the customizations we have for 2003.
robertsjoe
on Oct 22, 2008
Office is dead. A bloated pig. A-la Vista.
gorath
on Oct 22, 2008
Robertsjoe is barking mad, and quite possibly a bloated pig.
robertsjoe
on Oct 22, 2008
@gorath: No need to get personal and nasty @gorath. Moderator, please delete his comment. Thank you.
Andre Da Costa
on Oct 22, 2008
Its interesting for a Developer conference they are not giving developers early bits. Especially with Office becoming such a huge Developer platform. As for Office being dead, I guess that would go for all the other productivity suites out there, OO.org, WordPerfect Office, iWork and even Google Docs. Have you read the OO.org Base review on eWeek? It lacks so many important features available in Microsoft Access that many Company's use that it cannot be considered a replacement. It doesn't even support connecting up to well known technologies like ODBC.
tayme
on Oct 22, 2008
@robertsjoe - What in the world would make you state something like "Office is dead. A bloated pig. A-la Vista."? That is simply stupid to think. Are you one of the blind Apple/Open Source fans that have been saying htat Microsoft is failing for the last 10-12 years? Oh, and FYI...I am pretty sure that Paul won't delete gorath's post...so get over it. --tayme
gorath
on Oct 22, 2008
It wasn;t a personal attack , man, all I said is that you QUITE POSSIBLY may be a bloated pig. you may, also, quite possibly, be a talking and typing dog. I don;t know. The only thing I do know is that you have some very strange opinions about office and vista.
whiplash55
on Oct 23, 2008
I've noticed that many programs considered bloated run quite fast and have many great features people want. A 1.5 TB drive can be had for under $200. 4GBs of ram for the Thinkpad I just bought my son costs 67 dollars from crucial. I'm rethinking bloated and unresponsive.

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