RSSA wish list for Office 2010
By Carmi Levy | Published June 25, 2009, 1:16 PM
Attn. Steve Ballmer (the real one, not the fake one):
Hi, Steve. I know you don't know me from Adam, but I've never been one to let a little thing like complete strangerhood stop me from sharing a thought or six. So here goes.
I've used Microsoft Office products for almost as long as I've been using computers. I spend more time with Word -- the central tool of my writer's existence -- than I do my own wife. And as you work diligently on Office 2010, I wanted to ask you, as a humble, long time customer, for a few favors. Thanks in advance for hearing me out.
1. I want my interface back
Remember Office 2003? Remember its interface? I know you spent months leading up to the Office 2007 release saying the old menu-and-icon paradigm had outlived its usefulness, that it needlessly buried some features so deeply in menu structures that most users never found them. You gave us something called "Ribbons" and said this new approach would revolutionize how we worked.
Well, if "revolutionize" means "kill my productivity for months on end," then I suppose you're right. Even now, over 18 months after switching over, I still find myself pining for the old, comfortable interface. I've customized it as best I can, but it's still too radical a shift. And given the fact that no other Windows applications outside the Office universe support this silly Ribbon thing, I think it's time you admit defeat and move on.
2. I want it to love the Web
I'll fess up: I use Google Apps. There's something cool about having all my stuff in the cloud. I often take notes in Google Docs applications, and then access them from any machine in the home office, including, gasp, our Macs. I always forget what you call your online apps (are they "Windows Live" this week?) but every time I log into my Microsoft account on the Web, I'm reminded why Google still eats your lunch in the Web apps world.
But here's the thing: Web apps may be great for everyday, informal kinds of work. But the world still works in Office. When I research an article, I may use Google Apps to take notes and pull research material together. But when I deliver the final article, it's in Word.
It's this disconnect where your opportunity lies. All this moving stuff back and forth between my Web apps and my Office world is a real productivity killer. The formatting doesn't always survive the trip, and I always have to remember whether my data's currently in the cloud or on my drive. Either way, I hate having to manage two separate and distinct environments.
If you somehow managed to link the full-blown capability of the Office that sits on my laptop with the Web-i-fied flexibility of cloud-based applications, I'd be a happy camper. I know you know Google Gears is already moving Google Apps in a more desktop-centric direction, but it's nowhere near turnkey enough for my computer-phobic mother-in-law and my overworked business colleagues.
Microsoft still retains a massive amount of trust on the desktop, and for all the talk of the Web killing Microsoft Office's future, I just don't see folks abandoning Office en masse for the current generation of skeletally featured Web offerings. Yes, they're getting better all the time, but it'll be a while before we toss out our Office install discs.
Figure out a way to seamlessly connect a rich desktop client into your existing and expanded Web properties and you'll have me hooked. Add a really functional mobile client on top of that -- also reaching into the same Web-based file repository -- and I promise I'll never use Google Apps again.
3. I want it small, fast and portable
You know how some flash drives allow you to install open source software on them? How come Microsoft Office isn't small or squishable enough to do that? I'd love to carry my Office files and applications with me wherever I go, and I'd like to leave my laptop at home when I travel. I suspect drive vendors would line up at your door for the right to market Microsoft Office preloaded on their devices.
With that in mind, I've got to believe that flash- and mobile device-based Office clients (real ones, not the half-baked solutions in Windows Mobile) would influence the conventional client team to develop smaller, faster code. Did you ever use WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS? I know it's an unfair comparison, but that ancient piece of software on an even more ancient 386 was a snappier writer's tool than Word 2007 on my all singing, all dancing Core 2 Duo laptop. Why is that? Usability should include tools that don't take agonizing seconds to catch up to a fast typist.
4. I want it reliable
“Add a really functional mobile client...reaching into the same Web-based file repository, and I promise I'll never use Google Apps again.” |
This may come as news to you, but Office apps don't always behave as they should. They freeze or otherwise crash. They generate weird error messages. Their template files suddenly go corrupt. I often have to hunt down my install disks to reinstall something that was working just fine last week. It's beyond annoying because it takes time away from my day that I simply can't afford to lose.
Could you redirect some of that usability testing to reliability improvements? I know this isn't the sexy stuff that shows up in keynote speeches and demos. But it's the kind of thing that can make or break whether I stick with Office next time out.
I apologize for sounding like a whining kid on a shopping mall Santa's knee. I'm usually not so up-front about asking for stuff. But Office is the one piece of Microsoft-branded software that literally sits under my nose all day, every day. I can't possibly overstate how important it is for you to get the next version right. I'll even be so bold as to say Office matters more to Microsoft's future brand value than Windows does. Please don't ship a warmed over Office 2007 and think it's enough. It won't be.
Can't wait to see what you come up with. Thanks for listening.
Sincerely,
Carmi
Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.
I also hate the new ribbon. Suddenly my whole screen just got a lot smaller. There is no more screen room for my documents. Everything seems cramped. MS should never have created this abomination!
This is why I started to search for an alternative office suite, and so found one that met all my needs. You should try SSuite Office for a free office suite with the classic menu structure.
They have a whole range of office suites that are free for download that will meet all your demands. Their software also don't need to run on Java or .NET, so it makes the software very small and efficient.
You can try these links:
http://www.ssuitesoft.com/index.htm
or
http://ssuite5element.webs.com/thefifthelement.htm
Score: 1
|2010 already has a fully customizable ribbon, you can add and remove any command to any ribbon tab. And there's integration between Office web apps and Office Live workspace..there are several third party addons offering free sync with online services. 2010 is also very fast and responsive. So your wish list is satisfied already.
Score: -1
|How about losing the proprietary, patent encumbered MS-OOXML format and using the real industry standard, non-bribed, non single vendor controlled format ODF as default? And actually working to insure interoperability with other ODF implemenations?
Also, how about pricing Office reasonably rather than the outrageously, absurd, sky high prices people have to pay to get the same old Office product with different skins?
Score: 0
|They'll only do such things if the Euros bend their arm to do so... The Euros actually don't need to force MS to lower the prices... Simply by forcing them to play nice with OpenOffice, immediately the value of "MS Office" drops, so MS by themselves will lower the price. One begets the other.
While I disagree a lot with the EU's decisions against MS, in general I do believe that a monopoly in ANY field should be FORCED to use stardards and desert as many proprietary mechanisms as feasibly possible to the point they only have approx 50% market share... Yet not totally kill them and feed their body to the competitors.
Same thing for google. We pay an insane amount of money for google ads. I don't think the google results are/will be significantly better than competitors in the next few years. Hence, they're not a monopoly because of CURRENT innovation, but rather because of OLD LUCK (and old innovation). They, too, need to be forcefully trimmed down to 50% of search market if it doesn't "naturally" occur in the next 5 years or so...
And the easiest way to break a monopoly is by simply TAXING the hell out of them to the point their competitors have a chance to breath and grab some marketshare. No biz should have an incentive to grow bigger than 50% marketshare - and worry not about innovation -- there will always be competitors fighting for even the 3rd spot of any insanely lucrative business...
Yes, I am a proud socialist and a non-greedy capitalist.
Score: 0
|There will always be some old school critics, who will never even want to adapt to change and new logical and research-proven advancements in interface design like the ribbon clearly is. It is of course very sad that these people are also the "loudest". Thats a shame. The good thing is, that almost all the professional CAD-world is on ribbon already with other markets following. Thanks Microsoft! Keep up despite the "oldies".
Score: 2
|It is apparent that there are many who like the ribbon and many who don't.
Why not add the choice of the ribbon or old GUI!
It shouldn't be too difficult.
Score: 0
|toolbar add-in already exists...
Score: -1
|moved.
Score: 0
|"Well, if "revolutionize" means "kill my productivity for months on end," then I suppose you're right. Even now, over 18 months after switching over, I still find myself pining for the old, comfortable interface. I've customized it as best I can, but it's still too radical a s***. And given the fact that no other Windows applications outside the Office universe support this silly Ribbon thing, I think it's time you admit defeat and move on."
Thats pretty sad. Ive found the new interface alot easier to use and get around. Ive had alot less trouble figuring stuff out in Office 2007 compared to previous versions.
Score: -3
|#1 I agree with dvferret. They do say bad habits die hard... I seriously doubt a new person in the computer world (say a 10yr-old child or a 70yr-old grandma) would prefer the old method after using the new ribbon style for a month or two... The excellent logical arrangement and fast access to the ACTION YOU SEEK is obviously superior. If less than 5% prefer the old GUI - f' 'em. ;)
#2 MS has two conflicting interests -- one to compete with google on the web app front, however they also have an interest to NEVER give you MUCH more than the competition, or else they will be cannibalizing on their own cash cow (desktop Office) too much. It's a fine moving line which I'm sure they'll struggle keeping straight in the future... Unless, of course, they figure out a way to make more money thru online Office -- which, if you think creatively enough, and far enough in future (internet speed - even mobile, popularity of cpu-strong smart phones, highly intelligent browsers) it makes sense that eventually less than 20% of the ppl will use classic desktop apps... Though that'll take at least 15 years I'd say (the same time it took from "proof of concept" sexy-for-the-home-OS Win95 to "the best most users can dream of; from here we'll only get minor improvements" Windows7 in the Desktop world)...
#3 MS has no incentive to give you portable Office until they can make sure you're not raping their cash cow (pirating). It'll mean that if you WANTED to use it portably, you'd have to agree to go thru some authentication method every time you use it (in other words - be online with constant open connection to MS servers), so every 15-mins they can enforce the "no two users of same license using Office at same time".
#4 Office 2007 SP2 is rock solid for me. Maybe you're suffering because you import "unclean" data from Google Apps too much...
Seriously..the only thing I'd wanna see with future Office versions, seeing that soon it'll be impossible to pirate hehehe, is multi-license-packs for small businesses, at no more than $75 per copy for 10 to 20 licenses. They can enforce that all machines are on same subnet (you're not reselling) or some other techie-license-enforcing methods. Otherwise, well, I'd stick the latest piratable Office on my machines all day long hehehehe... or possibly buy old copies even though "technically" you're not supposed to transfer ownership (f' 'em -- this time MS).
hehehe I just realized I'm probably not gonna get read by anyone due to length. 'Ts okay, I really enjoy the mental exercise (and hearing myself hehehehehe)
Score: -2
|I want "Send to One Note" to work in x64 OS.
Score: 0
|I want them to stop changing the darn GUI or allow people to just use the old one.
If you're not using all the highend functions of WORD why should you've to relearn all these new keystrokes?
And if Microsoft office is so great, why doesn't it just remove the things you NEVER use and focus on what you do use...but leave all the options in the file menu.
Stupid Microsoft GUI developers.
Thanks for reading!
www.lehsys.com
Score: 0
|Because some of us actually use the features that you don't! =P
Score: 1
|My challenge is this: If a cloud vendor can show me 2 years of perfect uptime, (none can) zero security breaches(none can), guaranteed control over interface and feature lock-in, (a few can) lower costs,(TBD) then I will take a look at migrating over.
But Google Apps for business rarely has ONE WEEK without a significant outage, and that is according to their dashboard. I've heard of individual outages for some companies that are not reflected in their dashboard stats--period. Some things are not the fault of the cloud vendor, such as third party DNS (like opendns.) Still, that gravely concerns me.
Score: 0
|To be fair, your "perfect uptime" on a PC, especially a Windows based one, is not doable.
Score: 0
|To be fair, it isn't doable on a Mac, either.
If you've actually ever *used* one (which I am beginning to doubt) rather than just parroting the lame commercials as "fact", you'd likely know that. Hell, just check out the support forums. They crash....just like Windows...just like Linux.
Score: 0
|" I want my interface back"
QED. Hell yes. I'm done paying MSFT if they are done pleasing long-time users. Whoever is responsible for this Ribbon without a choice (I don't care about Ribbon if its a choice) gets horrible painful slow death cancer.
Score: 1
|have ideas to make programs better?
keep them to yourself, unless they ask you for them and there is a written agreement citing you will be compensated "fairly" for fair use of "your ideas".
otherwise you can provide them with all the ideas or ingenuity that they have failed to find, though paid big bucks to others to brain storm them.
unfortunately for the "genius at large / you" software makers will capitalize on "your" ideas and not give you any "credit" or even a free copy of their program incorporating "your" enhancements.
Score: 0
|I want to be able to print addresses from Outlook on an envelope without having to open Word. Seriously Microsoft, the data is stored in Outlook. Why do I have to open a second application just to print it?
Score: 0
|LOL @#1
Dude you should be living in the 90s and using using Windows 95
Score: -3
|You're actually recommending a Microsoft product and not an Apple one? There's a town in Pennsylvania that has frozen over and the Big Evil One is putting on long johns.
Score: 0
|That ribbon is annoying, especially to me. Like someone else said, i could see it being beneficial if more apps used it.
In the mean time, a better solution might not be to remove the ribbon completely, but just stick an option in there somewhere that lets you turn off the ribbon if you don't want it, and use the classic interface instead. That way, there's no reason for complaints - ribbon lovers can use the ribbons, and people who like classic menus don't have to.
Score: 0
|I disagree, the ribbon really changes things in usability as in the way we work, and it’s not MS Team fault that some users can't adapt to new things even if they are useful and easier to use. And if you didn’t like it, why you change it in the first place. BTW, I would like if more apps begin to use ribbons, which could save a lot of time that going through dropdown menus.
About the #2, I agree in what MS Team could design some way to manage that workflow easier…but of course that will goes in detrimental of SharePoint.
#3 is a no way, if they allow people to take Office in a pen drive, that will generate more piracy than what currently are.
About #4 I don’t know what are you talking about ‘cause I never have a serious problem, only one when it was on beta. Of course there are some bugs, but nothing that other apps don’t.
Score: 0
|Maybe he didn't have a choice? Users don't usually get the option to switch or not, management/IT decide that we're going to 2007, and everybody in the company does.
Score: 0
|About the ribbon: I love it, and i think it's quite ridiculous to say that the ribbon interface is bad just because you cannot get used to it. And that argument sounds a bit like this one
"I hate Mac/Windows because the normal Windows/Mac function is not there"
The point about on-the-cloud files: Just send your files to yourself using Gmail's attachment. I myself prefer to be able to work with my stuffs even when there is no internet connection.
Score: 0
|Sure, so for you it is ridiculous to say something does not let you work correctly, or at least worse than its previous version? I do not think so.
I want to know where a function is, not ONLY related to what MS guess I should do. The ribbon "dynamically" changes on what MS believe you should do! Even if you can personalize it, I do not want it, at all! And I can adapt to it, but there are tons of people who must do an extra effort to discover "how to work". All because of MS whims? No way... I am recommending Open office, and most people is happy with it, for free!
Score: 0
|"Sure, so for you it is ridiculous to say something does not let you work correctly, or at least worse than its previous version?"
Uh...
It works correctly.
"Worse" is purely subjective.
He was making a point about subjectivity and you just gave him another example. Nice job!
Score: 0
|LOL at reason #1, i stopped reading after that...
Score: 0
|Whatever they do in Office 2010, they must bring back Visual Basic for Applications as they've promised. MathType users want their equation numbering back, among other things. And Excel users really miss it.
Score: 0
|"There's something cool about having all my stuff in the cloud."
There's something cool about not being able to access your stuff every once in a while?
As for the ribbon, I've found it a great improvement over 2003. I've actually used features I didn't before. It's made stuff quicker to find for me.
Score: 1
|Hmmm, is this reporter trying to turn this site into a MS bashing one?
If you like Google Apps, use it.
If you want to use Open Office on your USB key, do it.
If we had as much trouble as you do with any Office app, I'd be fired.
Score: 1
|The only thing I really want back is my tear-away menus. I like the ribbon. keep it, but make it customizable, dragable and resizeable (firefox hates -able words, doesn't it?) Allow 3rd parties to integrate with it. Make it task-oriented instead of results-oriented (or allow us to choose).
Do that, and you're golden.
Score: -1
|I agree.
However, I have seen 3rd parties integrate their applications in to the ribbon, so it can be done. Was recently evaluating a control chart program (add-in) for Excel that completely integrated itself in to the ribbon... Complete with it's own tab and icons that fit well with the overall look of the MS product.
If only their code wasn't all locked down so that I could see how they did it... I have a few add-ins that I have created over the years that I would love to consolidate in to a single ribbon tab.
Score: 0
|1. He wants he's old interface back. He also still call's it wordstar on occasion and blathers on about how much better it is than wordperfect...
Seriously though, I hardly ever use any office products, so I almost never remember where what I'm looking for is. Everything's been a lot easier to find with the ribbon though, so I like it.
Holy frikken pss, I just scrolled up to read #2+ (as I started typing my comments before I finished reading) and he is going on and on about word perfect. I swear I didn't even really know when I made my above comment.
Otherwise I can agree with a few other things that's been said. Maybe re-allocate some of the bloat into more plugin's/add-ons/extentions/whatever you want to call it today, have a shortcut to start with minimal features for slower machines, maybe dymanically only enable plugins as they're discovered used for your current doc.
As for corruption, I haven't really seen any issues with this unless your using access. For the love of g*d, why does Access files become 10x or 100x+ bigger then shrink back to the original size when you click compact and repair? Query-catching? I guess that could explain a little, but I'd rather feel better without any type of caching - to much risk that you coded something poorly and the users will receive outdated data. I'd turn it off. There's still no explanation, especially if the tables are up-scaled. With a little bit of the obvious I think access could be reliable, heck I have a couple completely reliable ones that are read-only and obdc to sql. The trick is to make the access file read-only. To bad half of everything doesn't work in read-only mode, and I have to spend tons of time researching ways to write code that does the same thing, only read-only friendly. Grr.
Score: -1
|Access is a dead end, and has been since 1997. No company should be using it versus SQL/SQL express.
Score: 1
|Didn't really read what I wrote did you, I have half a dozen Access applications that use SQL. Access doesn't have to do the database-ing, it can be an easy to use interface without having to code your own software program or make a web interface, and is easy enough to use for end users to create their own reports query's and filters.
Score: 0
|1-I have found the ribbon very usuful, and it has saved me and my customers a lot of time. To say that no other apps use this, that would be wrong. Windows Live Movie Maker, (Wordpad in 7, and Paint in 7 have the ribbon)
2-Why not use Live Mesh
Score: 1
|http://www.addintools.co.../menuoffice/default.htm
As usual, you have to go third party for features you really want with Microsoft products.
Score: 0
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