Office 14, the next version of Microsofts Office suite looks to have had its release date pushed back to 2010, a transcript of a speech made by Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer has revealed.
Not many details are known about Microsoft Office 14 as the features are still being worked on, but we are aware of some of the objectives that Microsoft want to work towards. Objectives such as “Continued focus on individual productivity and effectiveness”, “Enable better communication and more efficient information sharing to keep communities, co-workers, partners and customers in sync”, and ” Author, Manage and Organize Complex Documents and Content”.
What does all that mean? Well that’s anyone’s guess, but the general upshot will be more of the same, a push toward greater collaboration, and integration with the cloud. We do know that there will be some web 2.0 technology in there somewhere, and this may manifest in some type of web based office product. Also there is rumor of some components of Share Point Server being put into the mix.
One of the interesting things about the holdup on the release of Office 14 is the potential of an opening for a major release of something else, something slated for an ’09 release? Step forward, possibly, Windows 7! Could this be a clue that Microsoft are gearing up to release a product on time? I hope so.
The eagle eyed and those gifted in numeracy will notice that there has been a missing version of Office, Office 13. Microsoft has avoided this for superstitious reasons. What could Microsoft possibly have reason to be superstitious about?