Windows7Forums.com takes a quick look at the Office 2010 suite and what its subtle advantages are in comparison to Office 2007. Now available in 1080P High Definition.
One of the most common themes that can be seen from evaluating the final version of Microsoft Office 2010 is the less intensive resource consumption, as well as the focus on consolidation. Office 2010 will likely have its greatest impact on businesses with the advancements made in Outlook 2010, and its forward looking extended compatibility with Business Contact Manager (BCM) 2010 for Small Businesses, as well as its integration with Microsoft Exchange for Windows Server. The weeding out of bugs in Outlook has been something greatly anticipated by IT managers and support staff for several years, since the introduction of Business Contact Manager. As small businesses may find that support for Business Contact Manager and Exchange has improved, they may be less likely to move to third party applications for customer relationship management (CRM), such as ACT!.
The main advancements of Office 2010 rely in the area of reliability and ease of use, consistent with the effort that was initiated by Microsoft with the development of Windows 7. For project managers in a business environment, Office 2010 promises to streamline the process of constructing online and offline databases, queries, and other functions in both Access and Excel, making the process easier, and allowing project management tasks to be less focused on tech-heavy investments in coding, and more focused on the actual use of these databases for data entry, marketing, and so forth. This can best be seen by the efforts made in Access and Excel to further improve upon the XML open standards now used in the software, as well as the ability to create and link via ODBC. While the promise of InfoPath to make the creation of fillable forms and data entry easier, it probably won’t supplant the features found in competitive products like Adobe Acrobat, whereas, fillable, downloadable forms have become commonplace in PDF format. However, InfoPath still offers unique opportunities for companies to easily create fillable forms for data entry. It is clear that this type of consolidation between data existing in multiple programs of the Office suite (Excel, Access, InfoPath, and SharePoint Workspace) is at the heart of an initiative to make the management of complex data easier.
The rebranded Microsoft Groove, now known as Sharepoint Workspace, promises to make the idea of “working from home” not a criminal offense, but a reality. With a Sharepoint Workspace account, Office users can work collaboratively, as a team, on a level that would normally require an entire Windows Server setup. By presenting this product in a way that Microsoft can host this data online, in a cloud computing environment, Microsoft is taking early steps to see the Office suite, not only as a product that can be activated and used on a single computer, but one that can be used from any computer worldwide.
For the home user, Office 2010 stands out in the areas of an improved word processor, a relatively faster loading Excel, and the new version of InfoPath. OneNote’s drastic improvements allow for the taking of huge amount of notes, which will benefit students greatly around the world. It can also clearly be used by businesses to take down meeting minutes, or create a binder of information that can be made accessible to the business at large. PowerPoint will still be a major player in presentations, and online versions of the software promise to make it universal and accessible through cloud computing.
Overall, Office 2010 stands out with what may seem to be at first: minor innovations. But when taking into account the potential it has to change the nature of how we use and access data, along with major improvements in reliability, it actually promises to revolutionize the experience of the actual office worker. While Office 2010 may not be the perfect solution in every scenario, the learning curve for new users, this time, may not be as steep as it was in Office 2007. Here we see that the famous “ribbon bar” has been made entirely easier to use, understand, and the creation, manipulation, and management of documents and projects has never been more open to learning and understanding.
Last edited:
