PivotTable this video

Last year I used a Pivot Table. Looking forward to next year when I do it again.

Last year I used a Pivot Table. Looking forward to next year when I do it again.

Jake: next year it’ll be a LOT easier!

Yea. And like those videos are unbiased.

Jake: next year it’ll be a LOT easier!

Yea. And like those videos are unbiased.

Robert

PivotTables are in Excel 2003.

Cheers, Julian

Robert

PivotTables are in Excel 2003.

Cheers, Julian

Julian: yes, I know, but they are MUCH easier in Excel 2007.

Mark: the videos are simple conversations about a single product. Nothing is misrepresented. You can replicate exactly what we talked about on your own system.

Julian: yes, I know, but they are MUCH easier in Excel 2007.

Mark: the videos are simple conversations about a single product. Nothing is misrepresented. You can replicate exactly what we talked about on your own system.

For the people who need to do that it might look like a reason to upgrade. For 99% of the computer public, though, I think Office 97 will do just fine.

I sure hope the majority of people choose word, spreadsheet and presentation software based on open standards like Open Office instead of the proprietary, closed format of Office.

Is there anything in Microsoft’s secret licensing deals with OEMs which would forbid bundling OpenOffice with Windows or offering it as a free alternative to Office 2003/2007?

For the people who need to do that it might look like a reason to upgrade. For 99% of the computer public, though, I think Office 97 will do just fine.

I sure hope the majority of people choose word, spreadsheet and presentation software based on open standards like Open Office instead of the proprietary, closed format of Office.

Is there anything in Microsoft’s secret licensing deals with OEMs which would forbid bundling OpenOffice with Windows or offering it as a free alternative to Office 2003/2007?

Regardless of the version of Office, PivotTable are GREAT! I work in online advertising, so we have reams of data from campaigns that we need to cut every which way. I don’t know how I’d be able to provide the insights to the campaigns I do without them (and a few trusty ol’ vlookups etc).

Anything that makes selling in PivotTables here to my team, and getting them to create their own, easier, I’m definitely up for too.

Regardless of the version of Office, PivotTable are GREAT! I work in online advertising, so we have reams of data from campaigns that we need to cut every which way. I don’t know how I’d be able to provide the insights to the campaigns I do without them (and a few trusty ol’ vlookups etc).

Anything that makes selling in PivotTables here to my team, and getting them to create their own, easier, I’m definitely up for too.

Anon: if you say that then you haven’t watched any of my Office 2007 videos. 99% of the public will get a LOT out of Office 2007. Here’s just one out of hundreds of features: making a table. In Office 97 it takes a long time to make tables look right. In Office 2007 it takes seconds.

Scoble you really need to find some more widely used features that are improved in 2007 then pivot tables to hype. Until its something that more then 1% of office users actually use, it just sounds silly.

IOW, how does an improved Pivot Table help office users kick ass?

Anon: if you say that then you haven’t watched any of my Office 2007 videos. 99% of the public will get a LOT out of Office 2007. Here’s just one out of hundreds of features: making a table. In Office 97 it takes a long time to make tables look right. In Office 2007 it takes seconds.

Scoble you really need to find some more widely used features that are improved in 2007 then pivot tables to hype. Until its something that more then 1% of office users actually use, it just sounds silly.

IOW, how does an improved Pivot Table help office users kick ass?

and you’re dead on Scoble - I personally appreciate them so much because they let me move from analysing my campaigns by impressions and click rates to cost per action etc etc … business applications all round

and you’re dead on Scoble - I personally appreciate them so much because they let me move from analysing my campaigns by impressions and click rates to cost per action etc etc … business applications all round

>Scoble you really need to find some more widely used features that are improved in 2007 then pivot tables to hype.

Rob, I have nine months before Office 2007 is gonna be purchaseable. There will be LOTS more Office 2007 videos with LOTS more features. There are TONS of new features. Did you watch the video? Pivot Tables aren’t the only thing I showed.

>Scoble you really need to find some more widely used features that are improved in 2007 then pivot tables to hype.

Rob, I have nine months before Office 2007 is gonna be purchaseable. There will be LOTS more Office 2007 videos with LOTS more features. There are TONS of new features. Did you watch the video? Pivot Tables aren’t the only thing I showed.

Rob, meet Pascoe. Pascoe understands why Excel is a must-have tool for business.

Rob, meet Pascoe. Pascoe understands why Excel is a must-have tool for business.

Maybe Pascoe should upgrade. Sounds like you’ve improved Pascoe’s hammer.

Maybe Pascoe should upgrade. Sounds like you’ve improved Pascoe’s hammer.

Jake: a lot of people use PivotTables. I sat next to Starbucks accountant recently. He used them all over the place.

The old saw is “why is Office so bloated?” My answer? Which feature should we remove? Everyone uses a different feature. Nearly every part of Office 2007 is a lot better than earlier Offices. Like I said, there’s a ton of videos to come.

Jake: a lot of people use PivotTables. I sat next to Starbucks accountant recently. He used them all over the place.

The old saw is “why is Office so bloated?” My answer? Which feature should we remove? Everyone uses a different feature. Nearly every part of Office 2007 is a lot better than earlier Offices. Like I said, there’s a ton of videos to come.

I know the guy in the video isn’t a professional marketing guy or trainer but he demoed the new stuff like he didn’t know what most people would use it for. Can you post a minute:second mark of that video that would be the highlight of these new features?

I am really not looking for a refresher course on the whackjob marketing term “business intelligence”. And although I’m not a genius, I’m perfectly capable of looking at a printed piece of paper with item names and revenue by quarter to see whether a given item’s sales are rising or falling. Or maybe that does make me a genius by the standard of folks Microsoft is marketing these new features to?

Now I’m convinced it’s not the presenter’s fault because, you see, features can be coherently demonstrated only if they’re actually different enough from a prior version, useful or work properly (any one of those three should be enough). The only thing that video demoed to me is that Excel 2007 does a sort table on a small segment or rows really, really slowly on what is probably kick-ass dev hardware.

Look at any of Steve Jobs’ keynotes. He demos lots of stuff which I might not have thought of or may not need, but he makes it easily accessible and understood.

I know the guy in the video isn’t a professional marketing guy or trainer but he demoed the new stuff like he didn’t know what most people would use it for. Can you post a minute:second mark of that video that would be the highlight of these new features?

I am really not looking for a refresher course on the whackjob marketing term “business intelligence”. And although I’m not a genius, I’m perfectly capable of looking at a printed piece of paper with item names and revenue by quarter to see whether a given item’s sales are rising or falling. Or maybe that does make me a genius by the standard of folks Microsoft is marketing these new features to?

Now I’m convinced it’s not the presenter’s fault because, you see, features can be coherently demonstrated only if they’re actually different enough from a prior version, useful or work properly (any one of those three should be enough). The only thing that video demoed to me is that Excel 2007 does a sort table on a small segment or rows really, really slowly on what is probably kick-ass dev hardware.

Look at any of Steve Jobs’ keynotes. He demos lots of stuff which I might not have thought of or may not need, but he makes it easily accessible and understood.

Anon: interesting that the other people posting over on Channel 9 seem to be able to get Mike’s main points.

The pivot table stuff is demoed about 40 minutes into the video.

Anon: interesting that the other people posting over on Channel 9 seem to be able to get Mike’s main points.

The pivot table stuff is demoed about 40 minutes into the video.

interesting that the other people posting over on Channel 9 seem to be able to get Mike’s main points.

Robert, there are 7 replies on channel9 and none of them offer any summary of the events in the video that demonstrate understanding of what occurred there.

interesting that the other people posting over on Channel 9 seem to be able to get Mike’s main points.

Robert, there are 7 replies on channel9 and none of them offer any summary of the events in the video that demonstrate understanding of what occurred there.

In Office 97 it takes a long time to make tables look right. In Office 2007 it takes seconds.

Now that would be an interesting demo.

In Office 97 it takes a long time to make tables look right. In Office 2007 it takes seconds.

Now that would be an interesting demo.

A lot of Excel workbooks are shared inside companies, and outside. So what the Excel 2007 new feature set boils down to is to get everyone to upgrade to Excel 2007 in order to properly render and/or interact with the so-called new features. Or, buy expensive server licenses and publish them in sharepoint.

Alternatively, consider free or almost free spreadsheet software (offline and online) available out there.

For the record, it’s not like there are a lot of new features, it’s more around “analysis features” dumbed down and being more targeted, requiring less clicks. This sounds more like an incremental evolution to the product and should certainly be sold with big big rebates, no matter how loud marketing bloggers say it.

A lot of Excel workbooks are shared inside companies, and outside. So what the Excel 2007 new feature set boils down to is to get everyone to upgrade to Excel 2007 in order to properly render and/or interact with the so-called new features. Or, buy expensive server licenses and publish them in sharepoint.

Alternatively, consider free or almost free spreadsheet software (offline and online) available out there.

For the record, it’s not like there are a lot of new features, it’s more around “analysis features” dumbed down and being more targeted, requiring less clicks. This sounds more like an incremental evolution to the product and should certainly be sold with big big rebates, no matter how loud marketing bloggers say it.

Robert, you and Steve Gillmor are talking on two different, albeit connected, playing fields. If I understand him correctly, the idea of Office as a viable desktop application is dead. There are already web apps that collectively accomplish enough of Office’s features to see that its days are numbered.
Showing off merely improved features of the new Office doesn’t refute that argument. As long as no feature of Office can’t be replicated by a (probably free) web app in the foreseeable future, Office is dead.

Robert, you and Steve Gillmor are talking on two different, albeit connected, playing fields. If I understand him correctly, the idea of Office as a viable desktop application is dead. There are already web apps that collectively accomplish enough of Office’s features to see that its days are numbered.
Showing off merely improved features of the new Office doesn’t refute that argument. As long as no feature of Office can’t be replicated by a (probably free) web app in the foreseeable future, Office is dead.

As an Office user and developer since, well, before there was Office, I can say that from a “professional” point-of-view the changes from 2000 to XP to 2003 were hardly earth-shattering. The introduction of a reliable real-time data facility (bye-bye DDE) was incredibly welcome in my real-time price data world, although it was probably missed by 99.8% of users elsewhere (and probably most within the environment: Microsoft didn’t exactly shout about RTD from the rooftops).

I use XP at work, 2000 at home and spent about a year with 2003 at my previous job. Apart from Outlook, which got a facelift in the last version, there really isn’t much to differentiate the three versions.

Office 12/2007/whatever, though, looks like a whole different kettle of, errr, bits. Just the UI overhaul probably makes it the most significant release since Office was first pulled together with VBA for all (95, was it?). Having spent the last 5 or 6 years in “don’t care which version” mode, I’m now actively trying to ensure that we don’t make any technical decisions at work that will delay our adoption of the new version. Well, no more than the Corporate IT stumbling blocks that will probably hold it up until 2010 anyway…

It’s a very long time since I was this excited about a Microsoft release. I probably ought to get out more.

As an Office user and developer since, well, before there was Office, I can say that from a “professional” point-of-view the changes from 2000 to XP to 2003 were hardly earth-shattering. The introduction of a reliable real-time data facility (bye-bye DDE) was incredibly welcome in my real-time price data world, although it was probably missed by 99.8% of users elsewhere (and probably most within the environment: Microsoft didn’t exactly shout about RTD from the rooftops).

I use XP at work, 2000 at home and spent about a year with 2003 at my previous job. Apart from Outlook, which got a facelift in the last version, there really isn’t much to differentiate the three versions.

Office 12/2007/whatever, though, looks like a whole different kettle of, errr, bits. Just the UI overhaul probably makes it the most significant release since Office was first pulled together with VBA for all (95, was it?). Having spent the last 5 or 6 years in “don’t care which version” mode, I’m now actively trying to ensure that we don’t make any technical decisions at work that will delay our adoption of the new version. Well, no more than the Corporate IT stumbling blocks that will probably hold it up until 2010 anyway…

It’s a very long time since I was this excited about a Microsoft release. I probably ought to get out more.

Well I think Steve Gilmore is way of the mark, removing outlook isn’t going to kill office. For people living outside a corporate bubble, collaborative calendaring isn’t a must. They just want to read mail, and you can do that a thousand ways.

Office is the big cash cow, so it has to sell and it has to sell big, that’s why it’s all about pivot tables, and online collaboration (SharePoint), because that’s what big business want and they buy licences by the bucket load.

Equally no business is going to replace office with a bunch of web applications just yet, what web application replaces excel? PowerPoint? Even most of Outlook is still missing from the web, and what web application that replaces any bit of office isn’t in ‘beta’? when the web apps are there, your corporate data is now vulnerable to your internet connection and someone else’s servers. Lose either and where are you?

Where office will lose out is at home, I still don’t see what office 2003/2007 is going to give a home user over the free/cheaper alternatives. What will make it worth forking all the money over?

Well I think Steve Gilmore is way of the mark, removing outlook isn’t going to kill office. For people living outside a corporate bubble, collaborative calendaring isn’t a must. They just want to read mail, and you can do that a thousand ways.

Office is the big cash cow, so it has to sell and it has to sell big, that’s why it’s all about pivot tables, and online collaboration (SharePoint), because that’s what big business want and they buy licences by the bucket load.

Equally no business is going to replace office with a bunch of web applications just yet, what web application replaces excel? PowerPoint? Even most of Outlook is still missing from the web, and what web application that replaces any bit of office isn’t in ‘beta’? when the web apps are there, your corporate data is now vulnerable to your internet connection and someone else’s servers. Lose either and where are you?

Where office will lose out is at home, I still don’t see what office 2003/2007 is going to give a home user over the free/cheaper alternatives. What will make it worth forking all the money over?

Ever heard of Improv? Almost 20 years ago this was introduced to the world on the Next machine (remember them — what Jobs did *after* he left Apple). The state of the art has not advanced *much* apart from the use of fancier graphics. The quick analysis is excellent, for about 1 out of 10000 users at best.

Gillmore’s wrong though. You can and/or wouldn’t want to drive a 10 year old car simply because you can. Nor would most of want to use a 10 year old FM receiver.

Ever heard of Improv? Almost 20 years ago this was introduced to the world on the Next machine (remember them — what Jobs did *after* he left Apple). The state of the art has not advanced *much* apart from the use of fancier graphics. The quick analysis is excellent, for about 1 out of 10000 users at best.

Gillmore’s wrong though. You can and/or wouldn’t want to drive a 10 year old car simply because you can. Nor would most of want to use a 10 year old FM receiver.

I’ve made what I believe is a very generous offer to Steve Gillmor on my blog ( http://www.psynixis.com/blog/?p=128 ). I’d like to extend that offer to anyone here that feels confident that Office 2007 is “dead”. Yes, the rumour *is* true - my generosity knows no bounds

I’ve made what I believe is a very generous offer to Steve Gillmor on my blog ( http://www.psynixis.com/blog/?p=128 ). I’d like to extend that offer to anyone here that feels confident that Office 2007 is “dead”. Yes, the rumour *is* true - my generosity knows no bounds

It’s obvious alot of your readers don’t work in the business side of corporate offices. No company in their right mind is going to trust their data to online applications until security is not an issue and network uptime approaches the reliability of the old POTS phone system. Until then they’ll keep their data on their local network and use desktop apps (like Office 2007) to access it. Microsoft has nothing to worry about here.

But congrats to you for deciphering Gillmor’s rant. I can never make out what the hell the guy’s writing about…

It’s obvious alot of your readers don’t work in the business side of corporate offices. No company in their right mind is going to trust their data to online applications until security is not an issue and network uptime approaches the reliability of the old POTS phone system. Until then they’ll keep their data on their local network and use desktop apps (like Office 2007) to access it. Microsoft has nothing to worry about here.

But congrats to you for deciphering Gillmor’s rant. I can never make out what the hell the guy’s writing about…

And yet we still upgrade. From ’97 to 2000 to 2003. 500+ licenses for my corporate environment. We’ll upgrade to 2007 I’m sure.

My problem isn’t with the features. The end user’s knowledge and capabilities are overshadowed by feature set. I would rather reallocate the money for a 2007 upgrade and dedicate it to user training so they can take advantage of some of the advanced functions 2003/2007 offer.

Its true most users would be satisfied with an Office 97 feature set, only because thats all they are trained to use.

And yet we still upgrade. From ’97 to 2000 to 2003. 500+ licenses for my corporate environment. We’ll upgrade to 2007 I’m sure.

My problem isn’t with the features. The end user’s knowledge and capabilities are overshadowed by feature set. I would rather reallocate the money for a 2007 upgrade and dedicate it to user training so they can take advantage of some of the advanced functions 2003/2007 offer.

Its true most users would be satisfied with an Office 97 feature set, only because thats all they are trained to use.

Brian’s comment nails it, does he have a blog?

Brian’s comment nails it, does he have a blog?

Guys, whoever said that ‘web apps’ means ‘it has to be on the internet’?

This whole ‘no-one will trust their data to anyone else’ commentary is misguided.

When the wave of Office-replacing web apps comes, it will be in the form of intranet applications, as in, install it on your internal web server. That way, you have no need to worry about your data, or your internet connection!

I believe that something like Zimbra shows the power of web apps (in this case, for email / calendaring). The fact that the code lets you to make your own ‘power tweaks’ is a God send. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that Zimbra will take down Office. However, a lot of users see this: when your email client automatically recognises dates and when you mouse over it, it shows you a mini-calendar, users think thats cool. When they realise that they can quickly code up an ‘extension’ so that it automatically recognises a bug number and when you mouse over it, it shows you the summary and key data of that bug from your own internal bug database, users love it.

Guys, whoever said that ‘web apps’ means ‘it has to be on the internet’?

This whole ‘no-one will trust their data to anyone else’ commentary is misguided.

When the wave of Office-replacing web apps comes, it will be in the form of intranet applications, as in, install it on your internal web server. That way, you have no need to worry about your data, or your internet connection!

I believe that something like Zimbra shows the power of web apps (in this case, for email / calendaring). The fact that the code lets you to make your own ‘power tweaks’ is a God send. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that Zimbra will take down Office. However, a lot of users see this: when your email client automatically recognises dates and when you mouse over it, it shows you a mini-calendar, users think thats cool. When they realise that they can quickly code up an ‘extension’ so that it automatically recognises a bug number and when you mouse over it, it shows you the summary and key data of that bug from your own internal bug database, users love it.

thanks for the video robert, glad to get a peek and office 12. In the future though, it would be more convenient if the videos were (at least) half as long and, say, twice the resolution

(it takes 9 min before we get to see screens and then they are almost entirely illegible)

thanks for the video robert, glad to get a peek and office 12. In the future though, it would be more convenient if the videos were (at least) half as long and, say, twice the resolution

(it takes 9 min before we get to see screens and then they are almost entirely illegible)

Lincoln, what you described is Lotus Notes and its various competitors. That is nothing new. Installing intranet applications for your company to use is old hat. Besides, the entire idea of web apps in general is an evolution of an incredibly old concept: the mainframe and the terminal. This time, 2.0 junkies are clamoring for their computers to be turned into useless terminals and have the internet be their mainframe.

re: “There are already web apps that collectively accomplish enough of Office’s features to see that its days are numbered.”

That’s bogus and you know it.

And on pivot tables, I don’t buy the less than 1% statements. Robert isn’t so great at this argument because he’s using the political technique of naming a specific person rather than groups of people, i.e. “an accountant next to me used it.” The fact is that many businesses from small to enterprise use pivot tables. It’s an important feature in the business world, one that many couldn’t do without. And there is no where else to get it currently.

…I don’t use Office at home though

Lincoln, what you described is Lotus Notes and its various competitors. That is nothing new. Installing intranet applications for your company to use is old hat. Besides, the entire idea of web apps in general is an evolution of an incredibly old concept: the mainframe and the terminal. This time, 2.0 junkies are clamoring for their computers to be turned into useless terminals and have the internet be their mainframe.

re: “There are already web apps that collectively accomplish enough of Office’s features to see that its days are numbered.”

That’s bogus and you know it.

And on pivot tables, I don’t buy the less than 1% statements. Robert isn’t so great at this argument because he’s using the political technique of naming a specific person rather than groups of people, i.e. “an accountant next to me used it.” The fact is that many businesses from small to enterprise use pivot tables. It’s an important feature in the business world, one that many couldn’t do without. And there is no where else to get it currently.

…I don’t use Office at home though

Richard,

Re: there’s nowhere else to get Pivot Tables

Have you looked at the DataPilot feature of OpenOffice? I’ve never used this, so can’t vouch for the quality, but OpenOffice 2.0 lets you analyse spreadsheets and databases using pivot tables.

Richard,

Re: there’s nowhere else to get Pivot Tables

Have you looked at the DataPilot feature of OpenOffice? I’ve never used this, so can’t vouch for the quality, but OpenOffice 2.0 lets you analyse spreadsheets and databases using pivot tables.

Hi Richard. I absolutely agree with you: what is old is new again, and that’s a really good point about Lotus Notes (not something I’ve had any exposure to).

I guess my original point was that ‘web apps’ won’t be on the web, so all this discussion about data security and stable internet connections is stupid.

Again, I agree that that quote is silly (in fact, I don’t even think I saw it in the first place ). However, you also have to agree that most of the functionality that Office provides is wasted on a lot of home users. I think that’s where we’ll see movement. No, it won’t be of any use for most companies (and therefore doesn’t worry MS) but slowly and surely I believe the functionality will become available.

Me, I don’t use pivot tables. In fact, I had to ask a guy I worked with only about half a year ago what they were all about. However all around me in the office are people writing specs and so on that really don’t need much more than formatting and image placement: something that is available from things like the FCKEditor etc. No, it’s not the best interface right now, but it’s quite impressive.

Just a quick question re. Lotus Notes. How are things like that programmed? Is it one of those unique programming languages, or a generic one? I like the idea of not having to know the ‘Zimbra Macro Language v2′ to code up an extension…

Anyway, again, I just want to reiterate that my point really was that any ‘killer’ web apps won’t be on the internet so part of the argument is misplaced.

Hi Richard. I absolutely agree with you: what is old is new again, and that’s a really good point about Lotus Notes (not something I’ve had any exposure to).

I guess my original point was that ‘web apps’ won’t be on the web, so all this discussion about data security and stable internet connections is stupid.

Again, I agree that that quote is silly (in fact, I don’t even think I saw it in the first place ). However, you also have to agree that most of the functionality that Office provides is wasted on a lot of home users. I think that’s where we’ll see movement. No, it won’t be of any use for most companies (and therefore doesn’t worry MS) but slowly and surely I believe the functionality will become available.

Me, I don’t use pivot tables. In fact, I had to ask a guy I worked with only about half a year ago what they were all about. However all around me in the office are people writing specs and so on that really don’t need much more than formatting and image placement: something that is available from things like the FCKEditor etc. No, it’s not the best interface right now, but it’s quite impressive.

Just a quick question re. Lotus Notes. How are things like that programmed? Is it one of those unique programming languages, or a generic one? I like the idea of not having to know the ‘Zimbra Macro Language v2′ to code up an extension…

Anyway, again, I just want to reiterate that my point really was that any ‘killer’ web apps won’t be on the internet so part of the argument is misplaced.

Well I know you don’t think I ever say anything good, but I think Office 12 and OneNote 12 are great improvements, more of a real leap, over the incremental jumps from 2000 to XP to 2003. And not just in terms of the new UI. That said, they need better marketers and it will take awhile for some of the BI and OLAP data functionality to ‘impact’ average users. But it’s truly a significant release. Steve can AJAX all he wants, but I’m going Office 2007. And the always neglected, but ungodly great, Microsoft Project. And Erik Rucker’s blog been cool for Access info.

Better workflows, charting improvements, document content tracking, confidential information management (Office XML), SharePoint/InfoPath integration capabilities. Those are the things the marketers should be hitting on. With the UI ‘feature creep killer’ for Home Users. And the ‘Publisher-like’ functionality in Word, cover pages and such.

Well I know you don’t think I ever say anything good, but I think Office 12 and OneNote 12 are great improvements, more of a real leap, over the incremental jumps from 2000 to XP to 2003. And not just in terms of the new UI. That said, they need better marketers and it will take awhile for some of the BI and OLAP data functionality to ‘impact’ average users. But it’s truly a significant release. Steve can AJAX all he wants, but I’m going Office 2007. And the always neglected, but ungodly great, Microsoft Project. And Erik Rucker’s blog been cool for Access info.

Better workflows, charting improvements, document content tracking, confidential information management (Office XML), SharePoint/InfoPath integration capabilities. Those are the things the marketers should be hitting on. With the UI ‘feature creep killer’ for Home Users. And the ‘Publisher-like’ functionality in Word, cover pages and such.

Christopher, if you’re praising Office, maybe it really is dead!

Christopher, if you’re praising Office, maybe it really is dead!

Lincoln: I understand your points about web apps and internet, but I do disagree to a point. You are right in terms of what is technologically possible (secure web apps served within an intranet). But I don’t think what you are suggesting is actually being developed. When you look at the apps like 37 Signals’, Google’s, Yahoo’s, etc. one common thread is keeping the application on their servers. This allows them to keep all users on the current version, keep them paying subscription fees (or viewing ads), maintain stability themselves, and I think most importantly it keeps their source code to themselves. At least in terms of the Office 12 launch timeframe, intranet web apps won’t be replacing Office.

Lotus Notes, since you asked, is not a pretty thing. It’s not EXACTLY what your idea is because a desktop client must be installed on each computer. But it puts all of your email, documents, calendar, address book, databases, etc. in one place and they are all served off of Lotus Notes servers. It’s a hideous application, but it is secure, it connects employees via the web, and gets the job done.

I have seen many say that web apps like 37 Signals’ are the replacement for programs like Lotus Notes, but that isn’t happening. It’s only going to take one company to have a data security problem and mention it publicly for a lot of people to jump ship. Storing your company’s data on somebody else’s servers is just not very secure, SSL or not. What if a hacker got into the database for Basecamp? Thousands of companies’ data is now available to that hacker.

But now imagine a company’s entire dataset is hosted on a web service. If a hacker gets in there, or even just a devient employee (I can’t imagine every single employee of Google/Microsoft/IBM/Yahoo/whatever’s hundreds of thousands is an honest one), they have access to everything: orders, accounts, contact information, social security numbers, credit card numbers, everything. These are hazards that every company faces. But put many thousands of companies all on a central service and you are now talking about a ticking time bomb.

The smart ones wouldn’t do anything malicious with it though. If they were smart, they would get companies’ financial data before earnings reports are announced and invest accordingly.

Lincoln: I understand your points about web apps and internet, but I do disagree to a point. You are right in terms of what is technologically possible (secure web apps served within an intranet). But I don’t think what you are suggesting is actually being developed. When you look at the apps like 37 Signals’, Google’s, Yahoo’s, etc. one common thread is keeping the application on their servers. This allows them to keep all users on the current version, keep them paying subscription fees (or viewing ads), maintain stability themselves, and I think most importantly it keeps their source code to themselves. At least in terms of the Office 12 launch timeframe, intranet web apps won’t be replacing Office.

Lotus Notes, since you asked, is not a pretty thing. It’s not EXACTLY what your idea is because a desktop client must be installed on each computer. But it puts all of your email, documents, calendar, address book, databases, etc. in one place and they are all served off of Lotus Notes servers. It’s a hideous application, but it is secure, it connects employees via the web, and gets the job done.

I have seen many say that web apps like 37 Signals’ are the replacement for programs like Lotus Notes, but that isn’t happening. It’s only going to take one company to have a data security problem and mention it publicly for a lot of people to jump ship. Storing your company’s data on somebody else’s servers is just not very secure, SSL or not. What if a hacker got into the database for Basecamp? Thousands of companies’ data is now available to that hacker.

But now imagine a company’s entire dataset is hosted on a web service. If a hacker gets in there, or even just a devient employee (I can’t imagine every single employee of Google/Microsoft/IBM/Yahoo/whatever’s hundreds of thousands is an honest one), they have access to everything: orders, accounts, contact information, social security numbers, credit card numbers, everything. These are hazards that every company faces. But put many thousands of companies all on a central service and you are now talking about a ticking time bomb.

The smart ones wouldn’t do anything malicious with it though. If they were smart, they would get companies’ financial data before earnings reports are announced and invest accordingly.

True: it’s definitely not workable in the Office 12 timeframe. Damn I hate agreeing with people so much

There’s no reason why this won’t happen though, eventually. Companies will probably licence you the product with a nice way to add your own extensions, without allowing you to change their actual code. There’s no reason why people still wouldn’t upgrade to new versions when they are released, but in the meantime, you don’t have to worry about people using different versions of applications with different versions of data and so on. Yes, it’s the mainframe concept, but it just goes to show how right it can be, even now!

In reality, the product will probably be delivered as a standalone server, not unlike the Google search appliance.

Zimbra (note: I have zero to do with it / them, it’s just my ‘cool thing’ at the moment) is installable on your own servers and I believe it does a pretty good job of dating Outlook (even the client side interface). I don’t doubt that people will disagree with me here, though.

As an aside: I’d like to point out that although the smart ones would find out who to invest in, I’d say the smarter ones would work out how to get a working local copy of the code then delete their own remote data, to make sure that no-one else like them is doing the same

True: it’s definitely not workable in the Office 12 timeframe. Damn I hate agreeing with people so much

There’s no reason why this won’t happen though, eventually. Companies will probably licence you the product with a nice way to add your own extensions, without allowing you to change their actual code. There’s no reason why people still wouldn’t upgrade to new versions when they are released, but in the meantime, you don’t have to worry about people using different versions of applications with different versions of data and so on. Yes, it’s the mainframe concept, but it just goes to show how right it can be, even now!

In reality, the product will probably be delivered as a standalone server, not unlike the Google search appliance.

Zimbra (note: I have zero to do with it / them, it’s just my ‘cool thing’ at the moment) is installable on your own servers and I believe it does a pretty good job of dating Outlook (even the client side interface). I don’t doubt that people will disagree with me here, though.

As an aside: I’d like to point out that although the smart ones would find out who to invest in, I’d say the smarter ones would work out how to get a working local copy of the code then delete their own remote data, to make sure that no-one else like them is doing the same

About 12 years ago I used to do third level tech support on MS products. There was one guy who would call all the time about pivot tables in Excel. I think the documentation on it back then was written in Hex.

Very happy those days are over.

About 12 years ago I used to do third level tech support on MS products. There was one guy who would call all the time about pivot tables in Excel. I think the documentation on it back then was written in Hex.

Very happy those days are over.

Well, my personal opinion is that Office has already missed the point, when it could be useful. I use it little, but it’s all like nice beta version - from very early versions till XP, the Word is uncapable to format paragraph properly on page, sometimes you have to play like stupid inserting lines between paragraph because Word just puts sevenlines long paragraph on other page although half of the page stays empty. Special problem are with pictures+paragraphs. The excel environment isn’t better, my mom gets always some stupid excelsheets from government in which can’t be even copy+paste, in halfway of writing it the form changes in picture and she must quit it (undo doesn’t work) and start all over.. That’s combo XP version+bad excel sheet.
Also there are numerous errors in version compatibility, especially for nonenglish users, you can’t simply include font to document… noooo, and so on the other machine it will require some diferent font or it’s will be rendered bad.
Not to mention that the whole look of printed Word document looks compared to tex or adobe document quite unprofessional. You can’t do something like pdf in word. WHY?
Same goes to architecture of Office, it’s braindead, instead of making simple skeleton for adding plugins for different effects, it only adds and adds new unuseful buttons, without proper help to new version. Office can’t properly collaborate with any other application, I don’t know if macro section was somehow improved, but I always laughed at that you can get virus from document! The whole design of Office was simply said done unprofessionally.
Most effects I need I HAVEN’T found, last time, I searched for comments in several colors or something like that…. and fucking haven’t found it! All are in red or what, it’s worse than beta! 10 years of development and you can’t get comments in other than red bubbles. Or automatically pick up color from picture, so you can match it with headline. Firefox can do it… Or I wonder, if ESBN will be in next version of Office. Well in firefox it’s already. But maybe luckily, in version 2013 I will have comments in different colors, and in 2017 I can tag documents… Maybe in version 2011 I can even blog from Word. But probably in 2 years I won’t need it, cause I will have the better feature set in some free web application.

Well, my personal opinion is that Office has already missed the point, when it could be useful. I use it little, but it’s all like nice beta version - from very early versions till XP, the Word is uncapable to format paragraph properly on page, sometimes you have to play like stupid inserting lines between paragraph because Word just puts sevenlines long paragraph on other page although half of the page stays empty. Special problem are with pictures+paragraphs. The excel environment isn’t better, my mom gets always some stupid excelsheets from government in which can’t be even copy+paste, in halfway of writing it the form changes in picture and she must quit it (undo doesn’t work) and start all over.. That’s combo XP version+bad excel sheet.
Also there are numerous errors in version compatibility, especially for nonenglish users, you can’t simply include font to document… noooo, and so on the other machine it will require some diferent font or it’s will be rendered bad.
Not to mention that the whole look of printed Word document looks compared to tex or adobe document quite unprofessional. You can’t do something like pdf in word. WHY?
Same goes to architecture of Office, it’s braindead, instead of making simple skeleton for adding plugins for different effects, it only adds and adds new unuseful buttons, without proper help to new version. Office can’t properly collaborate with any other application, I don’t know if macro section was somehow improved, but I always laughed at that you can get virus from document! The whole design of Office was simply said done unprofessionally.
Most effects I need I HAVEN’T found, last time, I searched for comments in several colors or something like that…. and fucking haven’t found it! All are in red or what, it’s worse than beta! 10 years of development and you can’t get comments in other than red bubbles. Or automatically pick up color from picture, so you can match it with headline. Firefox can do it… Or I wonder, if ESBN will be in next version of Office. Well in firefox it’s already. But maybe luckily, in version 2013 I will have comments in different colors, and in 2017 I can tag documents… Maybe in version 2011 I can even blog from Word. But probably in 2 years I won’t need it, cause I will have the better feature set in some free web application.

I’m pretty much an Office “Power User”, and have been for about 20 years. I’m also , by most accounts, a reasonably bright guy with a real knack for software and computing: I’ve built networks for Fortune 10 companies, and been the architect for ultra high performance storage-over-IP, Interactive Television and embedded networked real-world interface devices, but I have *never* been able to “get” Pivot Tables. I’ve spent probably a total of ten or twelve hours, but never yet understood how to build a pivot table, so I just don’t use them at all. I would like to, but the PITA factor is just way too high, even for someone that’s pretty comfortable with the bizarrely twisted mindset that underlies Excel. It’s a damning indictment of an execrable user interface, when even most experts can’t or won’t figure it out, even when the payoff is fairly high.

Hopefully, this new Excel will finally make creating and managing PivotTables easy enough to actually use them.

You know, if you do something like that, you *might* even give me a good reason to upgrade from the ancient versions of Office I’m still slogging along with now. (97 and 2000 - I keep wondering why I stay with these, since XP makes them worse and worse, especially now that secure and modern alternatives are available for free…)

I’m pretty much an Office “Power User”, and have been for about 20 years. I’m also , by most accounts, a reasonably bright guy with a real knack for software and computing: I’ve built networks for Fortune 10 companies, and been the architect for ultra high performance storage-over-IP, Interactive Television and embedded networked real-world interface devices, but I have *never* been able to “get” Pivot Tables. I’ve spent probably a total of ten or twelve hours, but never yet understood how to build a pivot table, so I just don’t use them at all. I would like to, but the PITA factor is just way too high, even for someone that’s pretty comfortable with the bizarrely twisted mindset that underlies Excel. It’s a damning indictment of an execrable user interface, when even most experts can’t or won’t figure it out, even when the payoff is fairly high.

Hopefully, this new Excel will finally make creating and managing PivotTables easy enough to actually use them.

You know, if you do something like that, you *might* even give me a good reason to upgrade from the ancient versions of Office I’m still slogging along with now. (97 and 2000 - I keep wondering why I stay with these, since XP makes them worse and worse, especially now that secure and modern alternatives are available for free…)

Dub: Open up the excel sheet that has the data you want to make into a pivot table. In the Data menu, choose “PivotTable”. Put it in a new sheet, drag items from the “PivotTable Field List” onto the sheet. Done. Perhaps an oversimplified explanation, but if you are an “Office Power User” I’m unsure of why pivot tables would be so hard.

Dub: Open up the excel sheet that has the data you want to make into a pivot table. In the Data menu, choose “PivotTable”. Put it in a new sheet, drag items from the “PivotTable Field List” onto the sheet. Done. Perhaps an oversimplified explanation, but if you are an “Office Power User” I’m unsure of why pivot tables would be so hard.

Whenever someone can’t open a word document because it became corrupted (happens pretty often for documents >30 pages), I can open it in OpenOffice, resave it as a .doc file and send it back to them as an email attachment and they’re happy again.

Whenever someone can’t open a word document because it became corrupted (happens pretty often for documents >30 pages), I can open it in OpenOffice, resave it as a .doc file and send it back to them as an email attachment and they’re happy again.

I enjoyed the video and I enjoy seeing all of the Channel 9 videos even if I don’t agree with where Microsoft is heading sometimes. I think the videos are valuable enough that a screen capture feed should be made during demos and the time is taken to edit the screen capture feed and live demo shot together. That way we can better see things like the comment tabs, quick sorting, and polished UI in products like Excel.

I enjoyed the video and I enjoy seeing all of the Channel 9 videos even if I don’t agree with where Microsoft is heading sometimes. I think the videos are valuable enough that a screen capture feed should be made during demos and the time is taken to edit the screen capture feed and live demo shot together. That way we can better see things like the comment tabs, quick sorting, and polished UI in products like Excel.

Well, I recently had to use Excel for a task at work (I’m a text files, scripting and RDBMS kinda guy by preference), and I have to say that Excel wasn’t nearly as quick at the sort of data mangling I needed to do, versus writing a little Python script to massage things. Which is actually what I ended up doing: writing a Python script which output my data in nifty little colon-delimited files, which I then imported into Excel so that I could submit the report in the preferred format.

I’ve recently been using postgresql for a lot of stuff here at the office, and having to go from a relational database to a spreadsheet is pretty painful!

Well, I recently had to use Excel for a task at work (I’m a text files, scripting and RDBMS kinda guy by preference), and I have to say that Excel wasn’t nearly as quick at the sort of data mangling I needed to do, versus writing a little Python script to massage things. Which is actually what I ended up doing: writing a Python script which output my data in nifty little colon-delimited files, which I then imported into Excel so that I could submit the report in the preferred format.

I’ve recently been using postgresql for a lot of stuff here at the office, and having to go from a relational database to a spreadsheet is pretty painful!

Oh, the pain is coming back…

MS’s apallingly botched knock-off of Lotus Improv gives me a migraine.

For anyone who’s ever tried “pivot tables” and decided that they suck, please, try out a proper N-dimensional spreadsheet, and see how they were supposed to be. Get your hands on an old copy of Improv somewhere, or try out “Quantrix”.

Oh, the pain is coming back…

MS’s apallingly botched knock-off of Lotus Improv gives me a migraine.

For anyone who’s ever tried “pivot tables” and decided that they suck, please, try out a proper N-dimensional spreadsheet, and see how they were supposed to be. Get your hands on an old copy of Improv somewhere, or try out “Quantrix”.

Oh, and Scoble: what you’re touting is NOT a NEW feature. It’s another botched implementation of Lotus’ invention from 1989.

Oh, and Scoble: what you’re touting is NOT a NEW feature. It’s another botched implementation of Lotus’ invention from 1989.

I agree that the videos on ch 9 should have a bit of post production.
real screen shots, a bit of editing, chapters would e nice.

I agree that the videos on ch 9 should have a bit of post production.
real screen shots, a bit of editing, chapters would e nice.

James: I agree there too! Problem is I don’t have time. All the evil in the world can be blamed on one thing: lack of resources.

James: I agree there too! Problem is I don’t have time. All the evil in the world can be blamed on one thing: lack of resources.

When are you dumping the shitty WMV for a multi-platform format? Won’t watch these silly videos until then.

When are you dumping the shitty WMV for a multi-platform format? Won’t watch these silly videos until then.

I agree that the videos on ch 9 should have a bit of post production. real screen shots, a bit of editing, chapters would be nice.

Yeah, and maybe a two, three or four camera setup, filmed linear, with the sync up in Vegas or Avid after (Vegas I prefer as more a dream for broadcast-event styled post-production, and boy did 6.0d clear up some bugs for me). Never ever do live-switching, unless you have an army of people and a director. Do the switching in post-production, lay and sync the tracks, and mark mark in preview and then cut a final track. You make better decisions in post-production. It’s elementary, but sooooo many people don’t do that, and get out of sync and pull hair out in editing. So if you don’t plan it right you, get one-cam rot or disjointed post-productional HELL. Cold hard water of experience was my teacher here. Events are not films, I had too much of a screenplay-thought-process and it killed me. The main event body, has to be broadcast style, only in post-production.

And the camera doesn’t have to be an expensive HD or 24P, found the Panasonic AG-DVC30 to be a dream, great in low light, and has a warm film tone. Amazing little bugger. And ‘chapters’ or rather snippets would be nice touch. Or could shoot in HD, but then contrast and gamma script to get the film tone. HD is too sharp, too white, needs warmth. Or a trick I like is shooting in PAL and using Atlantis 2 to convert, still experimenting with that technique tho.

Surely in all of Microsoft, they got some decent Screenwritingese Film School type of Video guys? Not really Scoble’s fault, he’s busy up to his arms. If not, I can send a resume, not that it’d ever get past the paper shredder

I agree that the videos on ch 9 should have a bit of post production. real screen shots, a bit of editing, chapters would be nice.

Yeah, and maybe a two, three or four camera setup, filmed linear, with the sync up in Vegas or Avid after (Vegas I prefer as more a dream for broadcast-event styled post-production, and boy did 6.0d clear up some bugs for me). Never ever do live-switching, unless you have an army of people and a director. Do the switching in post-production, lay and sync the tracks, and mark mark in preview and then cut a final track. You make better decisions in post-production. It’s elementary, but sooooo many people don’t do that, and get out of sync and pull hair out in editing. So if you don’t plan it right you, get one-cam rot or disjointed post-productional HELL. Cold hard water of experience was my teacher here. Events are not films, I had too much of a screenplay-thought-process and it killed me. The main event body, has to be broadcast style, only in post-production.

And the camera doesn’t have to be an expensive HD or 24P, found the Panasonic AG-DVC30 to be a dream, great in low light, and has a warm film tone. Amazing little bugger. And ‘chapters’ or rather snippets would be nice touch. Or could shoot in HD, but then contrast and gamma script to get the film tone. HD is too sharp, too white, needs warmth. Or a trick I like is shooting in PAL and using Atlantis 2 to convert, still experimenting with that technique tho.

Surely in all of Microsoft, they got some decent Screenwritingese Film School type of Video guys? Not really Scoble’s fault, he’s busy up to his arms. If not, I can send a resume, not that it’d ever get past the paper shredder

Isn’t it unfair to entirely dismiss a product/software before having thoroughly tested it?
Haven’t had the opportunity to work with the beta yet. But from the glimpses I had at several new versions of MS software, I did notice that the publisher seems to have made a real effort to make them easier to use.
Agree that there wasn’t much improvement in Office from 97 to 2003 version. Have a feeling it’s due to 2 factors:

1) MS has been reluctant to address and correct the basic flaws of some of the components of the suite, i.e.
• the unflexibility of Access when it comes to altering a database/application
• the file size of Powerpoint, hence the impossibility to use the files produced on the web
• the mediocre implementation of all Word features relating to handling long documents (outline, stylesheets, index, table of contents)
• the cumbersomeness of Outlook and the impossibility to use its data in all Office application
• the complexity of some of Excel advanced features.

2) MS has failed to realize that users’ needs have considerably changed during this period due to the extensive use of emails and internet research. Therefore a suite like Office doesn’t cover most people needs as it would have in the 80’s and early 90’s.
Do you write as many letters now as you did at that time? Do you print work produced in the same proportions as you did before?

Feel that 1 and 2 combined make quite a few people dissatisfied with what is supposed to be their daily tool set.

For myself, I do get enraged more or less every day when Outlook or Outlook Express still doesn’t recognized duplicate address entries ‘cos I have my own classification system which is different from the owners’ way of showing their name in the from box. I do get frustrated not being able to refer to an email by drag and drop in a report. I get mad that exporting/importing Outlook or OE data is still so unreliable and exploiting this data still lacks so much transparency. None of this would have bothered me in the late 80’s or early 90’s when sending a few messages through Compuserve was just a touch of fun. But it really does now that email communication takes a large part of my day’s work and that these flaws make me waste time every day and be less productive than I should be.

When Office 95 came out, I still sent lots of letters every day and endless mailings once or twice a month, with printed newsletters and so forth. Do I do this now? No. One letter a fortnight is probably the maximum frequency. So I hardly use Word anymore, except for writing big reports. And again, I get frustrated that Word hasn’t improved much in this respect over the last 10 years.

And my Office tools haven’t taken into account the new needs that came with the internet and emailing. An Outliner (or note keeper) in which I could store notes but also links to files, websites, specific stored web pages, emails, rss streams, etc. A flexible contact database, with user-defined field and conditional drop-down/ lists which I can carry on my 2 Go usb stick and use seamlessly in all the modules of the suite , including mass emailing. This would make an Office 2007 worth twice its price in my eyes and daily work. But if it comes out as being just an easier to use version of a 20th century product, I very much doubt that I will bother. I’ll keep the version I have or switch to Open Office. Because now I hardly use it.

Gave up on Access years ago to use Filemaker. The latter had some flaws as well (creating entry screens and reports is more time-consuming) but altogether it was more flexible and compatible with the Mac some of my colleagues used and still use. New stuff runs on mySQL.

Gave up on Powerpoint (which I loved using in the early 90’s and so did kids as well when they practically built movies, with effects, sounds and their recorded voices) when Flash MX came up‘cos it more easier to use than previous versions and I could finally put the output on the web.

Use Word to write articles ‘because of its word and character count and it’s still on my machine. Until recently also used it to write reports but now I find that I’m using Tiddly Wiki more and more. It produces a single html file which I can easily carry with me on a usb, upload to my webserver for other people to collaborate on, etc.

Use Excel to do calculations but since I don’t work in accounting or finance, my needs are pretty limited in this respect. My basic sheets are not very different from those I built with Lotus 1-2-3 in the mid 80’s. New stuff consists in a few , sheets a year to compare several quotes and vlookup is about the most advanced function I use in this type of sheets. But I did greatly appreciate the inclusion of several worksheets in a workbook. Keeps the data tidy and better organized. Also makes it easier to track and handle data for consolidations.

Used Frontpage 98 and 2000 and then reluctantly switched to Dreamweaver which was (and still is) far less user friendly (and made me slightly less productive) due to some hosting requirements, to the fact that it did not run on the Mac and to the fact that a frontpage website could not be run locally without frontpage extensions even when one used page enclosures as the only “frontpage speciality”. Keeping site hierarchy from one machine to the next wasn’t easy either and we had to rebuild it manually several times. When a site has several hundred pages in 3 languages, it’s no fun. Now DW is mainly used to set up initial site templates and stylesheets, data entry is through a web interface.

Used Outlook or OE back and forth throughout the decade. Always found Outlook more suited to people who have a limited set of recurrent/predictable tasks and too heavy for people running one-person shows or startups and jumping from one role to the next. Tried to supplement OE lack of agenda and limited contact manager with various products, Chaos, Lotus Agenda to name just the 2 I used longest. Been watching Chandler but it’s slow to materialize. Had a look at Omea Pro but coupled with Outlook it needs a faster laptop that what I have got . Moreover Omea database is proprietary as well so I’m reluctant to file so much information and not be able to retrieve it should I want to use another software later on. So Outlook will be the module I will look at when considering Office 2007.
Is it preposterous to expect from a 10+ years old product?
 To be able to use the contact manager seamlessly with any Office (or even Windows/Vista) application?
 To be able to define custom fields in the contact manager with combo listboxes to streamline data entry
 To be able to set up/revise/list groups and set up email campaigns easily and getting a report of the results achieved
 To be able to synchronize contacts and mailboxes easily and reliably between a laptop and a desktop?
 To be able to create a link to a message within Office applications and those supporting drag and drop?
 To see it evolve into an information hub like Jetbrains.com is trying to do with its Omea layer.

In summary, If I use Microsoft software less and less, it’s not because I have anything against Microsoft, but because I get impatient that some flaws have not been addressed for a lengthy period of time or because my needs as they have evolved are different from those that Microsoft caters for.

P.S. The absence of MUI language files is a point I’ll mention separately

Isn’t it unfair to entirely dismiss a product/software before having thoroughly tested it?
Haven’t had the opportunity to work with the beta yet. But from the glimpses I had at several new versions of MS software, I did notice that the publisher seems to have made a real effort to make them easier to use.
Agree that there wasn’t much improvement in Office from 97 to 2003 version. Have a feeling it’s due to 2 factors:

1) MS has been reluctant to address and correct the basic flaws of some of the components of the suite, i.e.
• the unflexibility of Access when it comes to altering a database/application
• the file size of Powerpoint, hence the impossibility to use the files produced on the web
• the mediocre implementation of all Word features relating to handling long documents (outline, stylesheets, index, table of contents)
• the cumbersomeness of Outlook and the impossibility to use its data in all Office application
• the complexity of some of Excel advanced features.

2) MS has failed to realize that users’ needs have considerably changed during this period due to the extensive use of emails and internet research. Therefore a suite like Office doesn’t cover most people needs as it would have in the 80’s and early 90’s.
Do you write as many letters now as you did at that time? Do you print work produced in the same proportions as you did before?

Feel that 1 and 2 combined make quite a few people dissatisfied with what is supposed to be their daily tool set.

For myself, I do get enraged more or less every day when Outlook or Outlook Express still doesn’t recognized duplicate address entries ‘cos I have my own classification system which is different from the owners’ way of showing their name in the from box. I do get frustrated not being able to refer to an email by drag and drop in a report. I get mad that exporting/importing Outlook or OE data is still so unreliable and exploiting this data still lacks so much transparency. None of this would have bothered me in the late 80’s or early 90’s when sending a few messages through Compuserve was just a touch of fun. But it really does now that email communication takes a large part of my day’s work and that these flaws make me waste time every day and be less productive than I should be.

When Office 95 came out, I still sent lots of letters every day and endless mailings once or twice a month, with printed newsletters and so forth. Do I do this now? No. One letter a fortnight is probably the maximum frequency. So I hardly use Word anymore, except for writing big reports. And again, I get frustrated that Word hasn’t improved much in this respect over the last 10 years.

And my Office tools haven’t taken into account the new needs that came with the internet and emailing. An Outliner (or note keeper) in which I could store notes but also links to files, websites, specific stored web pages, emails, rss streams, etc. A flexible contact database, with user-defined field and conditional drop-down/ lists which I can carry on my 2 Go usb stick and use seamlessly in all the modules of the suite , including mass emailing. This would make an Office 2007 worth twice its price in my eyes and daily work. But if it comes out as being just an easier to use version of a 20th century product, I very much doubt that I will bother. I’ll keep the version I have or switch to Open Office. Because now I hardly use it.

Gave up on Access years ago to use Filemaker. The latter had some flaws as well (creating entry screens and reports is more time-consuming) but altogether it was more flexible and compatible with the Mac some of my colleagues used and still use. New stuff runs on mySQL.

Gave up on Powerpoint (which I loved using in the early 90’s and so did kids as well when they practically built movies, with effects, sounds and their recorded voices) when Flash MX came up‘cos it more easier to use than previous versions and I could finally put the output on the web.

Use Word to write articles ‘because of its word and character count and it’s still on my machine. Until recently also used it to write reports but now I find that I’m using Tiddly Wiki more and more. It produces a single html file which I can easily carry with me on a usb, upload to my webserver for other people to collaborate on, etc.

Use Excel to do calculations but since I don’t work in accounting or finance, my needs are pretty limited in this respect. My basic sheets are not very different from those I built with Lotus 1-2-3 in the mid 80’s. New stuff consists in a few , sheets a year to compare several quotes and vlookup is about the most advanced function I use in this type of sheets. But I did greatly appreciate the inclusion of several worksheets in a workbook. Keeps the data tidy and better organized. Also makes it easier to track and handle data for consolidations.

Used Frontpage 98 and 2000 and then reluctantly switched to Dreamweaver which was (and still is) far less user friendly (and made me slightly less productive) due to some hosting requirements, to the fact that it did not run on the Mac and to the fact that a frontpage website could not be run locally without frontpage extensions even when one used page enclosures as the only “frontpage speciality”. Keeping site hierarchy from one machine to the next wasn’t easy either and we had to rebuild it manually several times. When a site has several hundred pages in 3 languages, it’s no fun. Now DW is mainly used to set up initial site templates and stylesheets, data entry is through a web interface.

Used Outlook or OE back and forth throughout the decade. Always found Outlook more suited to people who have a limited set of recurrent/predictable tasks and too heavy for people running one-person shows or startups and jumping from one role to the next. Tried to supplement OE lack of agenda and limited contact manager with various products, Chaos, Lotus Agenda to name just the 2 I used longest. Been watching Chandler but it’s slow to materialize. Had a look at Omea Pro but coupled with Outlook it needs a faster laptop that what I have got . Moreover Omea database is proprietary as well so I’m reluctant to file so much information and not be able to retrieve it should I want to use another software later on. So Outlook will be the module I will look at when considering Office 2007.
Is it preposterous to expect from a 10+ years old product?
 To be able to use the contact manager seamlessly with any Office (or even Windows/Vista) application?
 To be able to define custom fields in the contact manager with combo listboxes to streamline data entry
 To be able to set up/revise/list groups and set up email campaigns easily and getting a report of the results achieved
 To be able to synchronize contacts and mailboxes easily and reliably between a laptop and a desktop?
 To be able to create a link to a message within Office applications and those supporting drag and drop?
 To see it evolve into an information hub like Jetbrains.com is trying to do with its Omea layer.

In summary, If I use Microsoft software less and less, it’s not because I have anything against Microsoft, but because I get impatient that some flaws have not been addressed for a lengthy period of time or because my needs as they have evolved are different from those that Microsoft caters for.

P.S. The absence of MUI language files is a point I’ll mention separately

Office 12 will be a success, Microsoft must be licking their lips in anticipation. Proof? If Google Desktop Search is any indication of user stupidity.

How many idiots have installed this crap on their computers? This evil app came preinstalled on my Dell the other day, just say NO!

Link: http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,108845,00.html

…

Google Desktop 3 is the latest version of Google Inc.’s desktop search application. The software’s “search across computers” feature allows users to search for information stored on other PCs and servers. To do this, Google stores an index of files contained on a PC running the software for 30 days, promising that the information is encrypted and accessible to a limited number of Google employees, according to Gartner.

…
Love that part about being stored for 30 days, long enough for the government to subpoeana them? To de-crypt the contents of your hardrive. I can see a whole new class of spyware coming soon. Any hacker worth his salt will be creating their own versions of desktop search, this makes user acceptance so easy. How hard would it be to create your own version of Google Desktop search? Brand it the same, hell name it the same, but send the information to your own servers? This stuff is getting outta control.

Office 12 will be a success, Microsoft must be licking their lips in anticipation. Proof? If Google Desktop Search is any indication of user stupidity.

How many idiots have installed this crap on their computers? This evil app came preinstalled on my Dell the other day, just say NO!

Link: http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,108845,00.html

…

Google Desktop 3 is the latest version of Google Inc.’s desktop search application. The software’s “search across computers” feature allows users to search for information stored on other PCs and servers. To do this, Google stores an index of files contained on a PC running the software for 30 days, promising that the information is encrypted and accessible to a limited number of Google employees, according to Gartner.

…
Love that part about being stored for 30 days, long enough for the government to subpoeana them? To de-crypt the contents of your hardrive. I can see a whole new class of spyware coming soon. Any hacker worth his salt will be creating their own versions of desktop search, this makes user acceptance so easy. How hard would it be to create your own version of Google Desktop search? Brand it the same, hell name it the same, but send the information to your own servers? This stuff is getting outta control.

MUI language files. Multinational companies have been entitled to these files so that their users can change the language of menus and help files as they move around their offices round the world. Why haven’t these files been made available to smaller companies, startups and individuals who also move around the world. It may not be the case in the US, but in Europe it’s not unusual that all members of the same family don’t speak the same language, or rather have a different mother tongue in which it is a lot easier to refer to in the help files. These MUI files exist. Why are they not released?
Has this issue been discussed within Microsoft prior to the launch of Office 2007 and Vista?

MUI language files. Multinational companies have been entitled to these files so that their users can change the language of menus and help files as they move around their offices round the world. Why haven’t these files been made available to smaller companies, startups and individuals who also move around the world. It may not be the case in the US, but in Europe it’s not unusual that all members of the same family don’t speak the same language, or rather have a different mother tongue in which it is a lot easier to refer to in the help files. These MUI files exist. Why are they not released?
Has this issue been discussed within Microsoft prior to the launch of Office 2007 and Vista?

Richard:

I think the real PITA is figuring out what insane way it wants the data formatted in the spreadsheet in the fist place before you can slice and dice it. I know that the layout I’ve already built has never been acceptable to the PivotTable function. I suppose you have to know from the beginning you need a pivot table and lay your data out to suit the tool, but that seems kinda bass ackwards in the 21st century, doesn’t it?

What would *really* be nice is a real multidimensional capability, like what used to exist in Lotus Improv and Informix WingZ, but with a better UI than either had. MS is actually pretty good at some UI stuff - I know it’s a hard problem to properly represent 3 or more dimensions on a 2D screen, but it’s possible if you think outside the box, and is the sort of thing we’re *willing* to pay MS for. (Although a different beast for sure, 3D CAD UIs are an interesting study here: Look at SketchUp for an example of really outside-the-box thinking in dealing with real 3D in a 2D interface environement. It’s the first significant advancement in geometry creation since Ashlar invented snap-to drawing assistants, and by far the easiest I’ve seen in real 3D. There may well be some lessons there for dealing with multi-dimensional data as well…)

Richard:

I think the real PITA is figuring out what insane way it wants the data formatted in the spreadsheet in the fist place before you can slice and dice it. I know that the layout I’ve already built has never been acceptable to the PivotTable function. I suppose you have to know from the beginning you need a pivot table and lay your data out to suit the tool, but that seems kinda bass ackwards in the 21st century, doesn’t it?

What would *really* be nice is a real multidimensional capability, like what used to exist in Lotus Improv and Informix WingZ, but with a better UI than either had. MS is actually pretty good at some UI stuff - I know it’s a hard problem to properly represent 3 or more dimensions on a 2D screen, but it’s possible if you think outside the box, and is the sort of thing we’re *willing* to pay MS for. (Although a different beast for sure, 3D CAD UIs are an interesting study here: Look at SketchUp for an example of really outside-the-box thinking in dealing with real 3D in a 2D interface environement. It’s the first significant advancement in geometry creation since Ashlar invented snap-to drawing assistants, and by far the easiest I’ve seen in real 3D. There may well be some lessons there for dealing with multi-dimensional data as well…)

Here’s the thing: use SPSS. No more terrrrrible pivot tables. AND you can do statistical analysis! And, of course, the REAL geeks use SAS.

Excel should be limited to data layouts with pretty colors. All my powerpoint charts start in Excel. If you don’t know better, you use Excel.

Here’s an example, we have Outlook, but management keeps schedules in Excel. And that’s your problem right there. You’re waaaay past the stage where features matter in Office.

Here’s the thing: use SPSS. No more terrrrrible pivot tables. AND you can do statistical analysis! And, of course, the REAL geeks use SAS.

Excel should be limited to data layouts with pretty colors. All my powerpoint charts start in Excel. If you don’t know better, you use Excel.

Here’s an example, we have Outlook, but management keeps schedules in Excel. And that’s your problem right there. You’re waaaay past the stage where features matter in Office.

ok, I’ll play village idiot, but where does one actually set up Pivot tables in 2007?

I’m surfing all over the place and watching video’s and most start off with it already in place.

I can’t see where in the top ribbon to access it. You’d think it would either be under Data or Review tabs.

cheers
tom

ok, I’ll play village idiot, but where does one actually set up Pivot tables in 2007?

I’m surfing all over the place and watching video’s and most start off with it already in place.

I can’t see where in the top ribbon to access it. You’d think it would either be under Data or Review tabs.

cheers
tom