For years, Microsoft has been trying to add features to Office without them getting in the way of people who already know their way around the software.
Unfortunately, the company was a little too successful at making its innovations unobtrusive. In user testing, Microsoft found that nine out of every 10 features that customers wanted to see added to Office were already in the program.
"They simply don't know it's there," Chris Capossela, a Microsoft vice-president, told a developer crowd last week. "It's just too hard to find it."
Indeed, Office has become a case study for feature creep — the phenomenon in which a simple technology becomes complicated and unmanageable through the addition of new features. Office, which once had 100 commands neatly organised into menus, ballooned to contain some 1,500 commands located in scores of menus, toolbars and dialogue boxes.
Having sensed that the software has reached the limits of functionality, Microsoft has been preparing its most radical overhaul ever for Word, Excel and friends. With Office 12, due next year, the company plans to do away with a system that depends on people remembering which series of menus lead to a particular command. Instead, users will see a "ribbon" of different commands above their document, with the options changing depending on the task. Microsoft previewed the new look for Office at last week's Professional Developer Conference in Los Angeles.
The move could help Microsoft in its perennial quest to come up with enough reasons to prompt current Office users to upgrade, and might also stem some defections to rivals, such as OpenOffice. At the same time, it risks alienating some loyalists, as well as prompting some businesses to question the cost of retraining those accustomed to the current Office.
The stakes are high: Office has long been one of the company's most profitable products. Microsoft's Information Worker unit, which includes Office and related tools, generated more than $11bn (£6.1bn) in revenue — more than one quarter of Microsoft's total revenue in fiscal year 2005, according to the company.
But the growth in revenue has slowed as some customers delay upgrading to new versions, and others switch to "good enough" Office alternatives.
Microsoft executives say they understand the risk.
"There will be some shock among users," chairman Bill Gates said in an interview last week. However, Gates predicted...
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Talkback
Biggest problem is the package deal that comes with Microsoft Office. Buy into it and soon you'll bounce your head (as details pop up their ugly head as you move along) against things that require upgrading or purchasing something else (the domino effect that makes it impossible to oversee total impact) in order to reach the next level of whatever functionality. If not, you'll have to do with reduced functionality or deal with other things that'll irritate the hell out of your users.
Even stranger. In order to get there you'll first need to purchase, learn, deploy, migrate, tune, tweak, compromise, teach, maintain and what not that what you thought would give you opposite results.
That all adds up. Significantly and in more ways then just financial. As such you might want to start now by deploying various alternatives here and there including trial versions of Microsoft Office newest versions once you can. And see what problems and benefits come with that. Then give it a best effort to make it all work (you'll have to give an effort no matter what you choose anyway). Some months later, next year, maybe the year thereafter you'll have a rich list of findings backed up by in-house tried and tested experiences and expertise across the board that'll allow you to make the best choice (which could be a mix) that best serves the (business) needs of all.
Save massive amounts by switching to OpenOffice and Windows, start using Firefox for greater (free) internet securiy. Then you have greatly reduced your dependency on a monopolist vendor, will be in a stronger position to negotiate future deals or switch to an alternative OS if needed.