Office 2007 may be confusing
My NBC-TV segment this week looks at Microsoft’s Office 2007, suggesting that the redesign may present a steep learning curve for many. Here’s a link for info on the new features and how they correspond to the old.
Religiously evangelizing the commited tech faithful
March 2nd, 2007 at 10:30 pm
I’ve recently went to the Oklahoma City’s launch event for Microsoft’s office 2007 and vista. Got myself and my 70 year old mother a copy of Office 2007. But I get the feeling you don’t like the new “ribbon” feature and show your ignorance towards the New Office.
I’m glad you gave the information about the office document converter plugin. But you ignorantly explained to people that Office 2007 will make things more difficult to most of the people. I’m not a spokesman for Microsoft but I have learned that majority of the features in the old menu system was rarely used to help boost productivity.
If you had gone to the launch event or even read the link a little more, you might have learn it was Microsoft’s intension to redesign the menu area into the new ‘ribbon’ feature to unleash items that people hardly used in previous versions of Microsoft. On top of this, Microsoft knew that people like you would take to offense “thinking” it would be hard to learn.
But this isn’t the case, Mircosoft has incorporated help and knowledge into a cursor hovering feature. Hovering over a ribbon feature to see text on what that item is used for and also if it was a format feature it would end up showing you what your documents body would look like. It would not save these changes unless you clicked on that ribbon item.
My 70 year old mother (qrumpy novice user) was used to “her” Office XP version(between Office 2000 and 2003). But she took only a day to re-associate herself from the old office features into the new Office 2007. The ‘grumpy-novice’ that she is …she never complained once. She is actually is using more office features now than she did with Version 2003.
My parents were eager into watching your segment. They even called me to have me watch it. My mother and I both agree that you only put enough stuff ttogether to fill time with out adequately researching the product like a true journalist or good broadcaster. Your episode tonight was not worth watching at all. It gives journalism/broadcasting a bad reputation.
Even if you were a Microsoft hater, at least give the decency of researching properly instead of ‘half-ass’. I’m sorry if I came off mean but thank you for taking the time into getting this far into my opinion.
If you want to win my vote back, research things a little more. …and check out the ribbon features and help features a little more from the link you provided on your website. “I don’t even think you called it a ‘ribbon’ in your report”
Thanks for your time, Greg.
March 3rd, 2007 at 1:03 pm
To Greg…
Come on, Greg… read some of the reviews yourself and you will see they are overwhelmingly negative… the learning curve is ridiculous. Mike got it right, Greg.
March 4th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Why do I need reviews when I actually have been using the software. And, did you even read the part in my comment about my computer novice mother having no problems adjusting and actual using more features.
I have the feeling he only had a brief chance to use the software. Like I said, “I don’t even think he called the new menu feature a ‘ribbon’ in his report. This is telling me he didn’t research properly and only went with, like you said, the information that other reveiwers have posted.” This isn’t good journalism.
“…what is news segments supposed to be, good informative journalism reveiwing both sides or an opinion?”
Rhonda, thanks for taking the time into read parts of my comment. Your due to your opinion too.
March 4th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Greg…
You must be a Microsoft shill, Greg. EVERYONE who has migrated to Office 2007 has commented on how totally different it is and howe much getting used to it is a major challenge. The “ribbon” is the silliesty thing I’ve ever seen and there’s no reason to name it. I’m an IT professional (430+ machines on our netwrk)and I can tell you our corporation, and every other major corporation I have contact with, is NOT going to implement Office 2007 because of the ver things Mike wrote about. You are the one who lacks credibility.
March 4th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
I’m not going to brag about my credentials because I’m in the same boat as you. And, I’m not mocking his creditability, I’m commenting on his journalism on knowing and showing both sides instead of briefly skimming on limited research and making one sided comments. If this was a commentary, maybe I would let this go. But this was a journalistic broadcast report to the general public.
Even though I didn’t mention stating implementation, I too come from a IT job related field that has the same amount of computers as yours plus many other computers connecting into our server(s) from the outside. Our agency is mostly still on Office 2000 and Windows 2000 Pro. I don’t see any time soon that we will upgrade to more than Office 2003 and XP Pro on new contracted computers in the next several years. Yes, your right, companies aren’t going to run out an implement Office 2007; this would be crazy for most unless they had a real need for the app. As you know, it would problably conflict with apps and custom programming that connect to the existing Office apps. But his report is geared to the general public not just to IT fields.
Since using the Office 2007 apps, I would love to use Access’s and Excel’s reporting and charting/graphing power with what we are doing at work (I feel it would help out my Director’s number crunching and documentation presentation tremendously). Plus, you as an IT manager, don’t you think yours and my companies will ever consider going out to use anything else in the future? Maybe, OpenOffice? “I don’t think so.” The true fact is we are probably going to end up with some kind of Office version on our MAC/PC computers. And later down the road we’ll eventually use 2007 or later in our companies because of support reasons.
We’re getting off track here. I’m sorry if I’m pushing buttons. I’m starting to get a little annoyed at bad broadcast reports on any subject. It’s very misleading to the public. In my opinion this was a bad report. I commented on a side of a couple people’s veiws that have actually used the Office 2007 programs (My mother and Myself). Only the look has changed on the new office, but the original features and shortcut keys are still the same. And, Office 2007 isn’t really hard to use. Like I commented in my first thread, my 70 year old mother had no problems adjusting from Office XP to 2007. If he had said he used the Office 2007 application for over a week, I wouldn’t had commented.
So if my computer novice mother has no problems, this gives me the reason to believe he didn’t have the opportunity to use the product adequately to give two sides of the story equally. I get the impression, as commented before by some one else, he used only reviews from based others that might not had much experience on the app. You can’t tell me that these people that gave bad reveiws ended up not being able to use the Office apps correctly. The have to be complete morons if they can’t function the Office 2007 apps properly versus what they used prior. …like I said in the last paragraph nothing has changed on the past office features, just the looks and the help sections(and some new features). Mike didn’t even mention this (…giving me another reason he didn’t use or adequately used the Office app).
I love to go into details more but I’ve ‘typed’ your’s and other’s eyes off. I’m not mad at your comments, this was just a poor report in my books and it could have been better. One day if he continues like this, his peers will understand what I’m saying and might pull the plug on his broadcast reports. I’m just asking for a two sided research in a report and then make people decide for them selfs. Not one-sided, making a person like you affraid into looking at it until it was actually needed to be used.
Once again to those that read my comments completely, thank you for your time and concern.
March 4th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
The fact that he hasn’t banned your gibberish here is beyond me.
Greg, you don’t know what you are talking about. How much did Microsoft pay you to write this? No… don’t answer. Spare us. We don’t want to hear any more of you and your mother.
And Mike, if you read these posts, don’t pay any attention to Greg.
We appreciate your not being afraid to go against the big guys.