[Infowarrior] - MS previews Office 2008 for Mac (no ribbon, thank gods!)

[Richard Forno]

Office 2008 for Mac hits beta: lush ŒEscher¹ graphics engine revealed

    * 30th March 2007
    * David Flynn
    * Mac

Office 2008 for Mac has gingerly stepped out of the alpha phase of its
development as Microsoft works towards a late 2007 release of its overhauled
Macintosh suite.

"We're in private betas right now" confirmed Sheridan Jones, Lead Marketing
Manager for Microsoft's Mac Business Unit (MacBU), during an exclusive
interview with APC magazine.

While Jones was unable to speculate on the timetable for any public beta or
the targets for RTM (release to manufacture), a demo of an alpha build
showed the revised user interface is moving in a very appealing and Mac-like
direction.

It's a move sure to please the thousands of Office for Mac users who became
nervous after APC reported last year that the suite's UI would be overhauled
and borrow ideas from the work done in Office 2007 for Windows, which saw
the menus and toolbars replaced with a single Œribbon'.

At that time the Mac developers had already had one radical redesign tested
and rejected after user feedback, said MacBU group product manager Mary
Starman.

"We had what we thought was going to be this perfect UI solution, and the
first time we put it in the labs, no-one understood it! It was so different
they were completely confused!"

Happily, the latest version of the UI is heading in a much better direction.
Our peek at the alpha build, which Jones cautioned was still in the very
earliest of stages of both the UI and backend development, showed hints of a
streamlined look with a modern black sheen, at times similar to the elements
in recent Apple applications such as iTunes 7 and iLife 06. Rest easy,
Mac-fans -- this is not Office for Windows.

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http://www.apcmag.com/5780/office_2008_for_mac_hits_beta_shows_slick_ui_and_
draws_on_escher