Posted by scobleizer // Tue, Sep 13, 2005 7:04 PM
At the PDC this morning Microsoft demonstrated Office 12 in public for the first time. The news you'll hear is "they changed the user interface." So, we wanted to talk with the team who came up with this new UI and we wanted to ask them "are you nuts?" After all, changing how Office works is not done lightly. Julie runs the team that did the research that led to the came up with and designed the new Office 12 user interface. She gives us a great runthrough of what Office 12 does. Hope you enjoy meeting Julie and your first look at Office 12 the same way I did. You can't see it, but behind the camera I was just amazed at what I was seeing.
Tags: PDC05, MS+Personalities, MS+Execs, MS+Office
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Replies:
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Man, this new UI looks really cool. I love it 
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It is just radically cool, I can't wait to use Office 12. I love the new Access too, its taking advantage of the Outlook 2003 view.
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What are the system requirements going to be. I have already guessed no Windows 2000 support but will this support ClearType fonts and such?
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 | rjdohnert wrote:
What are the system requirements going to be. I have already guessed no Windows 2000 support but will this support ClearType fonts and such? |
It works just fine on "current" hardware, including tablets and such (which aren't known for being "beefy"). The software that will be handed out is NOT optimized for speed (or stability), though, so ignore anyone who complains about performance and crashing. It's simply not at that point.
But, if you have a system with 256MB or RAM or better, and a better than 1.8GHz processor, you should be fine.
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Looks like its back to the old drawing board for the OpenOffice.org team, they cant possibly hope to stand up to Office 12
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| JoshRountree wrote:
WOW! |
You can say that again 
Openoffice (or any other competitor) is dead and burried now!
This exceeds every expectation I had.
Just AMAZING.
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Great video thanks. Few quick questions: I heard Beta 1 will be on MSDN Universal; can you confirm it? Will SBA (2007?) be updated to the new UI too?
TIA
Fritzly
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Minh
Does this make my head look fat?
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Wow! I'm floored. We've been hearing so much about MS Research -- it's
about time that we see the research goes into an actual product.
Finally a program that me AND my father can use. It seems THAT
intuitive. Congrats Office team.
Just out curiousity -- Office must be a huge cash cow, only behind
Windows. What was the politics like in preparing for such a huge change
as O12?
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Out of all the things shown today, this is the one that had me saying wow to everyone. That is just absolutely incredible.
New XML formats, the new UI. This is one stunning release.
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hmmm..just Tabs? is it me or am I missing something?
not all negative, I saw the part where you could use a flash drive as RAM in Vista...like that one
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| orangie wrote:
hmmm..just Tabs? is it me or am I missing something?
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Oh yes, you're missing the huge pile of money that will build up in the manager's office because productivity will skyrocket thanks to these tabs 
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not all negative, I saw the part where you could use a flash drive as RAM in Vista...like that one
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Hey, you're weird 
I'm not excited at all by hearing that you can use a flash drive as RAM (actually I think of many reasons to dislike it: will be slower than actual RAM, people just pull it out while being used as RAM (think of the devastating consequences for apps using that memory)). On the contrary, this Office12 is full of VERY exciting new features, it's not ONLY the UI!!!
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Okay, that's going to take some getting used to. Outlook looks as screwed up as ever.
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Will the Themes (demo'd in Excel & PowerPoint) use some sort of CSS that could be extended to other programs like FrontPage?
It would be awesome if the Theme widget/file could somehow be imported into any document I wanted to create so I could have a common theme set across all documents.
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Karim
Trapped in a world he never made!
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00:00 : (crossing arms) I will not be impressed. I have been around the block in IT, seen lots of stuff. I will not be impressed.
06:14 They know what I've been clicking??? I thought the Customer Improvement Program was to improve Customers!!!!
07:30 (crossing arms again)
08:18 Geez, it looks like she's running Windows XP. I thought Office 12 was Vista-only? Maybe you need XP + Avalon + Indigo...?
09:03 Ok, so tabs are the new black. <rolleyes>
09:38 What was that magic incantation...?
10:30 So what, she's hovering over font -- OH. The document is changing as she hovers over each font. Neat.
12:01 Memo to me: check to see if clicknpick.com is taken.
12:20 Ok, that's cool.
14:10 Hmmm. Maybe that should be "chik-n-pick," a restaurant where you choose your chicken entree from... a pull down menu?
16:10 (crosses arms) Ok so it's customizable. <rolleyes>
17:20 Powerpoint is bor. ring.
17:53 Whoa. Not so boring.
18:12 Whoa.
18:21 Whoa!
19:05 Whoa!!!
20:24 Impressive. Oh wait, I wasn't going to be impressed. (crosses arms loosely)
21:58 Ok, that's useful. Wow, and it works in the other apps.
23:33 Nice.
25:30 Nice.
26:32 Well what would any demo be without a bug...
29:30 One less checkbox for using Word as your text editor.
30:08 Was one of those reminders for "Call back Google recruiter"? </joke>
31:11 Er - there was an edit there. Wonder what she said?
34:10 What did she say? "Floaty?"
34:17 Oh this is going to suck so bad. Floaty = Clippy 2005.
34:27 OH! Cool! Ok, not so bad.
36:00 Huh. That is pretty cool. I think.
37:21 (eyes start to fill with tears)
37:33 I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry. *sniff* Microsoft is sooooo cool. I [heart] Microsoft. *sniff* (wipes nose on sleeve)
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Is any of Office 12 written in Managed code? If so, how much? TIA
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| staceyw wrote:
Is any of Office 12 written in Managed code? If so, how much? TIA |
No. None. It's C++ still. I believe.
That said, you should check out Sparkle (we'll have a video tomorrow) or Max. They are completely done in managed code.
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Actually much of the server side of Office "12" is since we build on the whole Windows Server System.
We will have more to say about the opportunities for developers and managed code at the PDC and beyond.
--Steven Sinofsky
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| scobleizer wrote:
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staceyw wrote:
Is any of Office 12 written in Managed code? If so, how much? TIA |
No. None. It's C++ still. I believe.
That said, you should check out Sparkle (we'll have a video tomorrow) or Max. They are completely done in managed code. |
What the... My posts have been deleted?! Since when are posts deleted?
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I think I heard the documents will now be completely stored as XML. Is this true? VBA changes? C#A now? It was a pretty demo. I like the look and think many in our company could deal with the change. I know I could. Thanks.
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Jeremy, I accidentally erased some posts here. Can you please repost? I'm real sorry about that.
Steven: thanks for correcting me. Everyone else? Steven is the top executive on the Office team. It's a real honor having him here.
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When discussing Outlook it was qucikly mentioned that Word would be the
ONLY editor for e-mail with Office 12. Did I hear that
correctly? Will that mean that Outlook 12 will not be installable
with older versions of Office?
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Wow. I love the new UI...when I first saw the screenshots this morning
I thought i'd hate it, but having seen it in action in this video has
totally changed my mind. Can't wait to try it.
Quick question, will these "themes" be CSS based or what language will
we need to learn to be able to create custom office/corp themes?
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