On April 16, Microsoft’s Newsroom included an article entitled, “Microsoft Word 2010 Coauthoring Enables Multiple People to Work on a Document at the Same Time.” The piece discussed the coauthoring collaboration tool that is supposed to be all the rage when this Office Suite is finally released to the public. It also included an interview with one of the creators of the tool, Jonathon Bailor, in which he stated, “Our goal is actually not to change the way people work, but to make the way that people work easier.”
In line with this statement, a few days later, I received an email in my hotmail inbox alerting me to a new MSN homepage. It advertised a new section of the homepage that includes social networking feeds- Facebook and Twitter to be exact. Nice effort to tie in the ease of collaboration and communication, which Microsoft is moving toward. Though, I was a bit disappointed to find that this portion of the page is hidden in the bottom corner. It actually took me a minute to locate it even though I was searching it out. It was easy enough to set up the live feed once I located it though. I also like the ease of editing the page to fit my interests. Choose from the RSS feeds suggested by MSN, or select your own, including ZDnet.
All and all this page redesign is a nice introduction to the new Microsoft. Though, I still have my reservations as to how great Office 2010 will be. Google Docs, along with its selection of sister applications, are improving at such a rapid rate, it makes me wonder if even a software giant can keep stride. We will just have to wait with baited breath to see just how well the public takes to Microsoft’s new venue.
