Mcrosoft’s long awaited follow up to their most successful software besides Windows finally goes RTM. It’s only been three years since the last version, but oh so much is different – both within Office and the suddenly hyper competitive marketplace. Can Office survive the latest threats to its dominance?

Microsoft Office 2007

At 9am on November 6, Microsoft finally released the gold RTM code for Office 2007, capping off three years of development. In that time, Microsoft has had to create enormous amounts of code for a range of other projects, from Windows Vista itself, through to the Windows Live online services, the Xbox 360, the Zune and much more.

When Microsoft first showed us what Office 2007 would look like, many were impressed by the amazing scale of change that the new Office offered, radically redesigning the interface for the first time in more than a decade.

Making such a big change was clearly a gamble, but if Microsoft needed further proof that changes were needed, a user survey said it all in the simplest manner possible. No doubt you already know the story, but if you don’t, the short version goes something like this:

In surveys Microsoft conducted with its Office user base, it was shocked to discover that the top 10 features requested for the next version of Office, which is now Office 2007, were features that Microsoft had already incorporated into previous versions of the software.

The features were already there… but people didn’t know how to find them or use them! This, amongst other findings and insights, would confirm to Microsoft that a major update of the way we use software was needed.

Not something so completely radical as to be incredible pretty but unusable, but something that brought immediate benefits, had the smallest learning curve possible (indeed one that invited self discovery with the very pleasing result of actually being able to intuitively figure the new system out quite easily) and one that was instantly obvious to the eye as a major advance.

Three years of work down that path has led us to Office 2007, the most advanced office application software on Earth. Light years ahead of competitors, it should be a tremendous success and whatever happens, will no doubt sell in the millions, if only by virtue of millions of corporate customers who will be buying new computers with Vista and Office 2007 pre-loaded through a volume licensing program.

It will no doubt be a massive hit with consumers too… at least, those that can afford it and decide to buy it. For therein lies Office’s biggest flaw.

Serious competitors now exist, and then even exist at the incredibly hard-to-resist price point of $Free. The fly in the ointment is that the competition effectively does the same job as previous versions of Office, and even this new version, for most people’s uses.

You’ll no doubt get better back-end IT system integration with Microsoft’s latest server products, Office 2007, Vista and a corporate network, along with excellent collaborative functions as well.

But if you’re an everyday user, you can do pretty much anything you want in competitors like OpenOffice, ThinkFree Office, Zoho, Google’s Docs and Spreadsheets and others.

Just as 13% of the market now uses Firefox, competitors to Office 2007 (and its previous versions, which are indeed competitors to Office 2007 as well) are growing in number every day.

The simple fact is… if you like the idea of Office 2007, and can afford it, you’ll probably buy it. If you can’t, or even don’t want to buy it yet, you can keep on using whatever you’ve already got (which is probably a previous version of MS Office), or try one of the freeware alternatives.

Either way, Microsoft is going to sell millions of copies of Office 2007, and it will be a big success. Let’s just hope it really spurs on the competition from everyone else so the next generations of office suites from everyone respectively break large amounts of new ground.

Office 2007 has gone through one of the largest beta testing programs in the world, with over 3.5 million people deciding to download the second beta and try it out for themselves, providing valuable feedback to Microsoft along the way.

To help spur sales to the general public, which are probably more difficult to convince than most corporate customers, Microsoft will be starting an Office 2007 trial download program from December 1^st in the US and Canada.

Although customers will not be able to buy a boxed copy of Office until the January timeframe, almost anyone interested in Office will be able to download the free trial version during December.

Very soon after that, the program will commence in 13 other countries including Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Mexico, Irelane and Luxembourg, with more countries to follow after that.

The trial program will be available to try free of charge, with other products in the Office range also set to be made available (besides the main Office 2007 programs). These include programs such as Project, Publisher, Visio and in the US only, Office Accounting Professional 2007.

You’ll be allowed to run the trial software for 60 days after the first time you install and activate the trial, after which you’ll still be able to view and print existing files, but will be unable to create new files, modify existing ones or save any changes you make.

To buy the software, you’ll need to run through a short and simple process on Office Online, likely involving your credit card, or you’ll need to buy the software from a local retailer and re-install it on your computer.

A massive amount of helpful information is built into the new version. 50,000 help articles are now included as standard, a ‘how-to’ section takes you through 35 different demonstrations, there are 24 new courses that you can do online training with, over 400 new templates are available for download and there’s plenty more at the Office Online site.

Microsoft Office may well be facing its biggest competitive threats, on multiple fronts, in more than a decade. But Office 2007 breaks new ground, and is an important milestone that signals the next-generation of software is arriving to take advantage of next-generation operating systems and computer hardware.

Strap yourselves in, it’s going to be quite a ride!

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