Microsoft Office 2007 OS would be made available to large business customers on Nov. 30. Retail customers will be able to buy the package in the beginning of the next year at $399. Upgrade version will cost $239.

Following are the key features unique in Microsoft Office 2007:

Ribbon: The traditional menus and toolbars have been replaced by the Ribbon — a new device that presents commands organized into a set of tabs. The tabs on the Ribbon display the commands that are most relevant for each of the task areas in the applications. For example, in Office Word 2007, the tabs group commands for activities such as inserting objects like pictures and tables, doing page layout, working with references, doing mailings, and reviewing.

Button: The new UI brings together the capabilities of the Microsoft Office system into a single entry point in the UI: the Microsoft Office Button. This offers two major advantages. First, it helps users find these valuable features. Second, it simplifies the core authoring scenarios by allowing the Ribbon to focus on creating great documents.

Tabs: Contextual tabs will only appear when they are needed and make it much easier to find and use the commands needed for the operation at hand.

Galleries: Galleries provide users with a set of clear results to choose from when working on their document, spreadsheet, presentation, or Access database. By presenting a simple set of potential results, rather than a complex dialog box with numerous options, Galleries simplify the process of producing professional looking work.

Live Preview: It shows the results of applying an editing or formatting change as the user moves the pointer over the results presented in gallery.

An interesting excerpt from CNet

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.

The new Vista Build 5728 is out to beta testers. According to the Windows Vista Team Blog, the 57xx builds are reserved for Release-to-Manufacturing (RTM).

New Vista Build 5728 source

In a case of “too late and done that before”, the guys at Microsoft are coming up with some scaled down online versions of its Office suites. Big deal. With so many so called Web 2.0 services around, why should I even bother to wait for them ? They will have to give me free t-shirts before I use their site. Good thinking ?

techdigest says

Presumably in a bid to compete with the ever diversifying range of online products from Google, amongst others, there are reports emerging that Microsoft may consider releasing free, scaled-down web versions of its popular Office software.

Looks like Microsoft Live Search is no more a test tube baby…Its been released official to beat the G out of Google…Good luck to them…Their MSN search had a lot of spam in the heydays back in the 90s. I know..I was from that era..I still find the Microsoft Live Search a bit too slow for my taste. How can they ever try to beat Google’s searching hardware that’s been dubbed the largest collection of open source servers.

Software giant Microsoft has launched the new Live.com search service in its ongoing battle to beat the mighty Google. The search engine has been in beta testing for several months and features the streamlined look of Google’s popular homepage.

Official launch of Microsoft Live Search