In the article on PowerPivots, I mentioned Office 2010 was due for full release sometime in late June. Well Microsoft slipped it out during this last week, mid-June. Microsoft are so convinced of the value of Office 2010 that existing office users need to pay full price for the upgrade. So is it worth it? What else can be used?
By sheer coincidence I have two laptops on my desk. My trusty steed running Windows XP and Office 2003 - or not so trusty as I lost count of the number of re-boots I had to do yesterday (Thanks Microsoft! Or is it Adobe Flash Reader? Apparently not. OK, it could be a hardware problem. Looks like a problem with wireless networking, as a 3G dongle fixes it. So let's blame Microsoft!). The other is my wife's Windows 7 laptop that I'm using to write this, which runs Office 2007.
Why do I still run XP/2003? Partly because of XP's compatibility with my trusty printer. But mainly because I prefer Word 2003, for two reasons:
Why do I still run XP/2003? Partly because of XP's compatibility with my trusty printer. But mainly because I prefer Word 2003, for two reasons:
- Compatability with clients and other third parties is key. With so many still running Office 2003, it's easier to be one or two steps behind those with 2007 or 2010 rather than be ahead of those with 2003. It's better to only use 2003 functions so no-one finds they cannot read or use 2007 files I would otherwise send them.
- I far prefer the old menu system rather than the new ribbons. This is partly familiarity with where things are, but mainly because the ribbons simply take up too much room on the screen, especially for portrait Word documents. (Why aren't laptop screens square, so there's room for working space and menus when working in both portrait and landscape modes?)
A word of warning!
I've just received this email from a colleague who is tech savvy: "I upgraded to Office 2010 and have spent the past four days trying to repair the damage it caused...!" Well 2010 is going to have to be good to be worth this pain! I'm awaiting his response on why he was compelled to upgrade, other than to learn about it.Versions of Office 2010
The software components are available individually, but there are 3 "suites" of the on-premise version:- "Home and Student" that includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote
- "Home and Business" (aka SME) that adds Outlook
- Pro that adds Access and Publisher
The standard pack for the Student and SME versions, at least when bought in a store, includes 3-user licences to use at home, whereas Pro can only be used on a desktop plus a laptop for the same user.
For new PCs, single user licences of the suites are available which cut the cost approximately in half.There's also a "Starter" version, replacing "Works", that does the basics for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, but does not have useful features such as Excel pivot tables. It is only available pre-loaded onto new PCs.
It's then worth comparing Office 2010 against earlier versions and alternatives, and considering compatibility (which is fundamentally the reason I use Office rather than anything else):
Comparison of Office 2010 to Office 2007 / compatibility
This article on Wikipedia sets out the key differences between 2010 and 2007, both for improvements and what has been removed. There's also the history of development.
Key changes include:- Changes to the user interface, including ability to customise those darned ribbons
- Larger spreadsheets plus PowerPivots in Excel
- But you can no longer save a PowerPoint file as a web page
Comparison of Office 2010 to Office 2003 / compatibility
In Office 2007, the Open XML file format was introduced for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, which has been continued in 2010. Users of Office 2003 should download the "compatibility pack" to be able to read, edit and save documents in that file format.There can also be issues with macros when moving from 2003 to 2007/2010.
Comparison of Windows and Mac versions / compatibility
Microsoft has tolerated Apple , and in 1997 kept Apple afloat, in my view principally to avoid monopoly problems. Nonetheless Office is available for the Mac. After all, Excel was written for the Mac before it was ported to Windows.
In recent years Mac users have had to wait a while after each Windows release:- Office 2003 became Office 2004 for the Mac.
- Office 2007 became Office 2008.
- Office 2010 will become Office 2011, albeit expected to be released in 2010
The same file format issues exist Mac 2004 to 2008/2011 as for PC 2003 to 2007/2010, with an equivalent fix,
Comparison to OpenOffice / compatibility
Now part of the Oracle stable, OpenOffice is free software, for any purpose, written as one consistent suite covering 5 aspects:- Writer (word processor)
- Calc (spreadsheet)
- Impress (presentations)
- Draw
- Base (database)
Here's an independent review of OpenOffice 3.0
Comparison to GoogleDocs / compatibility
If it's collaboration you're after, or just simple free software for words, spreadsheets and presentations, then GoogleDocs is worth a look.It benefits from the advantages and suffers from the risks of cloud computing, but in some respects no more so than sending documents via unencrypted email.
Here's a comparison of GoogleApps with Office Web Apps
There is a useful Office plug-in called Offisync available to convert Office documents to GoogleApps for collaboration.
In Conclusion
If you do not exchange documents with other people, or only have to read what people send you, then OpenOffice and GoogleApps provide cheaper and probably adequate alternatives to Office.
If you are buying new PCs and you need Office, then Office 2010 is clearly the way to go. Office 2007 users can upgrade relatively easily, albeit it at a cost of re-licensing. For those people who have stuck with Office 2003, and avoided Office 2007/Vista, then this is probably the right time to move to Office 2010 with Windows 7 . Excel users who use it heavily for reporting will benefit from larger spreadsheets and PowerPivots, though watch out for issues with macros if moving from 2003. Corporates and SMEs will need to carefully consider all the ramifications.
If you are using a Mac, Office 2008 should be basically compatible with both Office 2007 and Office 2010 files, with Office 2011 for Mac available later this year.
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Chris, I suspect I am the person you referred to as the individual who spent four days repairing the damage due to the upgrade....! If not - there are two of us....!
ReplyDeleteYou wanted to know why I did it - other than learning about the new system. My main reasons are:
1. Consistency of interface. Office 2007 confuses me because each programme has a different way of doing things. The "ribbon" is fantastic when you understand it - so much better than drop down menus. But only half the apps in Office 2007 use the ribbon and then not in the same way. Office 2010 is consistent and uses the ribbon in the same way throughout, thus improving productivity.
2. Reliability. No matter what people tell you about new software and bugs, history tells us that the newer versions are generally more reliable than the older ones. remember Office 2007 was launched in 2006 and was finalised in 2005. It is rather "old" in computing terms and I have had several issues with Office 2007 in Windows 7, which I suspect were due to the old trying to work with the new. Office 2010 is (now I have sorted it out) much more reliable it seems.
3. I love new things.
4. As an academic it only cost me £45 (instead of the public price of £430. So even if it all went wrong, the deep discount meant I wouldn't have lost a lot.
I discovered the problems were due - not to Microsoft Office 2010 - but to other software which is incompatible with it (and for which no upgrades are yet available). This is a constant battle for Microsoft. The issue their technical guidance for other developers years in advance together with schedule dates. Other software companies have plenty of time to get their programs right and compatible. But when crashes happen, Microsoft gets the blame. Perhaps they should start pointing the finger to the real culprits...!
Overall, I'm a convert to Office 2010. Just don't upgrade yet if you need some older Outlook Plugins or if you use the Nuance (Scansoft) PDF products - which crashed Office 2010 constantly in my case.
Very comprehensive article with some particularly useful links regarding the product comparisons.
ReplyDeleteI was no great fan of the Office 2007 but I think that the ability to customise the ribbon introduced in Office 2010 will eventually lead to a much more productive and targeted user interface. I'd like to see ribbons linked to templates so that a template could be built to accomplish a particular task, and the entire user interface would adapt to include the right set of tools for that task.
I agree that the Excel new features, particularly PowerPivot, Sparklines and Slicers are well worth investigating. Also, worth reading Edward Tufte's 'The Visual display of quantitative information' for the rationale behind sparklines.
In my experience MS Office can handle files saved by OpenOffice, and OpenOffice can handle MS Office's file formats.
ReplyDeleteHowever the Open Office suite does not handle Access files well, so Access users will not want to switch.
But for all other users, there really ought to be serious consideration of the free open source software that does just about everything the MS suite does with almost no additional learning curve - especially for staff whose use of IT is limited to simple word processing, spreadsheets and web access (browsing/emailing).