Big roll of the dice with Office 2007

I just got into Boston after an amazing four days at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival (and a truly traumatic travel day). Catching up on my RSS feeds, I came across a post by Anil Dash that sums up my feelings about the new version of Microsoft Office perfectly. Like Anil, I have been working the beta release for months and while I understand the concerns people have about the complete and utter transformation Microsoft has worked on the core office applications, this is software designed to be used. He writes:

Short and sweet, the Ribbon and new UI in Microsoft Office 2007 is the ballsiest new feature in the history of computer software. I've been using Office 12 for about six months, and not only has it made me more productive, I'm struck by the sheer ambition of the changes in this version.

It's a great post that really puts the magnitude of Microsoft's calculated gamble into perspective.