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Office 15: Let the feature requests begin

By | December 4, 2009, 9:37am PST

Summary: Planning is already underway for the next release of Microsoft’s productivity suite,known as Office 15, as a December 3 blog post on the Microsoft Access Team Blog site makes clear. The Access database team is soliciting input regarding new kinds of SQL Server support that Access customers would like to see by the time the Office 15 release ships.

The same way that folks were champing at the bit for Windows 8 news even before Windows 7 was done, there’s interest about what’s coming next for Office 2010’s successor, codenamed “Office 15.”

Unsurprisingly, the planning is already underway for the next release of Microsoft’s productivity suite, as a December 3 blog post on the Microsoft Access Team Blog site makes clear. The Access database team is soliciting input regarding new kinds of SQL Server support that Access customers would like to see by the time the Office 15 release ships.

From the post by Program Manager Greg Lindhorst:

“As Office 2010 nears shipping, we are starting to plan Office 15.  One area that we are considering improving is our SQL Server support.  Based on what I’ve heard from the community, that would be most welcome.  Note that we are very early in planning, and considering many possible areas of investment, I unfortunately can’t commit to any actual improvements at this time.”

Lindhorst requested feedback about specific SQL Server features Access users need to access (no pun intended). Lindhorst asked for more information on which features in Access that target SQL Server are falling short of users’ needs today, as well as for input on which SQL Server features aren’t currently exposed to Access users that would be useful.

Access is slated to be part of the Office 2010 Professional and Professional Plus releases.

Office 2010, codenamed “Office 14″ will be available by June, Microsoft officials have acknowledged. Microsoft recently delivered a public beta of several Office 2010 SKUs, including the client version, SharePoint Server 2010, Office Web Apps and Office Mobile 2010. On December 3, Microsoft officials said that testers had downloaded 1 million copies of the Office 2010 public beta.

This latest mention of Office 15 is not the first. Blogger Stephen Chapman unearthed a mention from a Microsoft SharePoint blogger in September, which also noted that Office 15 would likely be a 2013 deliverable. (I’m betting that is a worst-case deadline and we might see Office 15 by the end of 2012, but who knows?)

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Topics

Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Office, Databases, Office Suites, Software, Enterprise Software, Data Management, Mary Jo Foley

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

Disclosure

Mary-Jo Foley

Freelance journalist/blogger Mary Jo Foley has nothing to disclose. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I do not own Microsoft stock or stock in any of its partners or competitors. I have no business ventures that are sponsored by/funded by Microsoft or any of its partners or competitors.

Biography

Mary-Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 25 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.

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Talkback Most Recent of 26 Talkback(s)

  • Office will be rolled into Windows.
    And documents will be server based.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    No_Ax_to_Grind
    4th Dec 2009
  • Wrong
    That will never happen
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Djblois
    4th Dec 2009
  • Wha... ???
    Have you been asleep whilst the EC went absolutely batshit over Internet Explorer being included in Windows?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Hallowed are the Ori
    4th Dec 2009
  • No, they didn't.
    They went "batshit" over the way Microsoft integrated IE into
    Windows in response to a complaint by Opera.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    UsernameRequired
    7th Dec 2009
  • "Simplicity mode"
    A number of years ago Corel or Novell put out a stripped-down version of WordPerfect for home use, but it didn't catch on. One of the major problems with Office is "feature bloat". MS should offer a "simplicity mode" interface option with only the major features.

    For instance, the majority of Word users don't usually use more than justification, bold/italics/underline/normal, select front face and size, margins, page numbering, first-line indent and a handful of other features. Even power users don't routinely use all the bells and whistles.

    Related to that, put back the Classic Menus as an option. The problem with the "Office fluent" ribbon concept is that nobody routinely uses all the features. Having to hunt through a bunch of hieroglyphics is a pain in the butt. It's also a HUGE pain when trying to write out step-by-step instructions. (Luckily, we still use Office 2003 at work, so that hasn't been a problem there.)

    I know all the whiners about "people need to leave archaic interfaces". But that's just not realistic. Reality is that most companies--especially SMALL businesses--provide little or no training. And whether "techies" like it or not, employers don't want staff spending hours on company time exploring all the features. And they're just not gonna do it at home. What makes an interface obsolete is that it can't perform its function reasonably well, not whether it uses icons or ribbons or text or menus. Plenty of programs have used toolbars for over a decade. But they add them as options, not replacements for traditional menus.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Rick_R
    4th Dec 2009
  • It's called
    Home and Student Editions.

    You only need Word? Maybe just Excel? Buy only the versions you need. $108.99 each

    Or you could always used WordPad, which is way better in Windows 7.

    You could also get Standard for $339 Retail (209 for upgrade, which the majority of users out there qualify for). Since it takes 3-4 years per release, you're looking at about $9 a month for Office. That isn't too bad. Seeing as you write your term papers, create invoices, make powerpoint presentations, check your email, create appointments, balance your budget, and more.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    TylerM89
    4th Dec 2009
  • Not the point
    The different versions of Office just have different members of the office family bundled together. Buy just Word does not get you a "simplicity mode" which would be a simple version of Word not Word bundled with fewer other products. That's the point.

    I think it was somewhere around Word 97 that it had every "feature" I would ever need.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    cornpie
    4th Dec 2009
  • That's office starter or office web nt
    nt
    ZDNet Gravatar
    keoz
    7th Dec 2009
  • Win7 WordPad is a joke
    WordPad *used to be* a usable word processor
    substitute, and I would often use it to open
    documents that MS Word told me were corrupted
    or otherwise inaccessible, but now it's merely
    a juiced up version of Notepad. I feel cheated
    by Office 2007 because of all the great Office
    2003 features (e.g., the toolbar icon editor--
    only one of many, though) MS ripped untimely
    from the UI. I noticed that the price of MS
    Office 2007 did fall despite the serious
    reduction in features compared with Office
    2003. I wish these office suites were modular.
    I used to complain that MS Office was
    bloatware, but now I miss the bloat: there were
    some great options hidden amongst the garbage.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    billfranke@...
    7th Dec 2009
  • Huh?
    Wordpad was, is and always will be a very, very, VERY lightweight "wordprocessor". It's file format support was always limited to text, RTF, and, in the past, some Word 6.0 documents.

    Wordpad had enormous problems correctly rendering Word 6.0 docs and generally caused more bother than it was worth because it confused users into thinking that there was something wrong with the doc when it was actually Wordpad that was unable to render the doc correctly.

    If you want to view Word docs, you should be using the free Word document viewer anyhow.

    In exchange for dropping WordPad's poor support for old Word 6.0 docs, in Win7's Wordpad, MS added support for ODF and OpenXML docs. This, to me, more than makes up for dropping support for an old doc format for which I need to use a separate viewer anyhow.

    To your other point:

    Care to share with us what multitude of features MS cut from Office 2007 that you're heavily dependent on?


    If the extent of your displeasure is that they removed an Icon editor, one might think that perhaps you're being a little silly - there are FAR better icon editors out there.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023
    8th Dec 2009
  • Maybe it's called...
    Open Office.

    Alright, alright, let's just calm down everybody.

    My point is it has a simple to use interface, even for the uninitiated. And if we forget, for the moment, the argument of weather or not it is mature/stable, it has a nice feature set with a clean layout.

    Oh yeah, it's free.

    Just thought I'd stir the pot a bit.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    ericeaton@...
    7th Dec 2009
  • ... and it regularly corrupts presentations ...
    ... and it isn't fully compatible with Word
    ... and it isn't fully compatible with Excel
    ... and it isn't fully compatible with Access

    OO is an okay product. However, it's future looks pretty bleak with Sun imploding as they are. Not sure Larry is goign to continue to foot the bill to find HIS developers working on a product that Oracle doesn't earn money from.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023
    7th Dec 2009
  • Office interface - The Ribbon is good!
    Previous post said:
    The problem with the "Office fluent" ribbon concept is that nobody routinely uses all the features. Having to hunt through a bunch of hieroglyphics is a pain in the butt.

    I disagree. I didn't like the Ribbon at first either, until circumstances forced me to use it.
    Guess what? It took about 15 minutes to watch a tutorial that explains the overall concept. It took about 30 minutes of frustration until I got used to it.
    I would now be unwilling to go back to the old menu sytem. As far as how to write instructions, just read a couple of help files from MicroSoft. The examples will show you how.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    HRstudent-kitchener
    8th Dec 2009
  • RE: Office 15: Let the feature requests begin
    I want facial recognition!

    yeah
    ZDNet Gravatar
    haterlinux
    5th Dec 2009
  • RE: Office 15: Let the feature requests begin
    As it stands Office is brilliant! The way the UI is developing is
    pleasing. The only thing that needs fixing is Excels accuracy.
    It's useless for any meaningful application of statistical
    analysis, and has been since at least Excel 97.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    UsernameRequired
    7th Dec 2009
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