The New York Times "Purging Bloat to Fashion Sleek Software"
NY Times has an good article about the new Office redesign. Nearly these articles are turning out really positive... Nice to see.
"Eventually, however, Microsoft Office developed a reputation for bloat and complexity. It was fully grown: tall, hairy and toothy.
"So what did Microsoft do then? It began shrinking Microsoft Office. In fact, the chief sales point of Office 2007 (for Windows XP or Vista), which arrives on Jan. 30, is that it’s simpler, it’s more streamlined and its documents take up far less disk space. "
"Excel, the world’s most popular spreadsheet, can now handle ridiculously large matrices of numbers (one million rows, 16,000 columns). Charts are fancier, and “conditional formatting” automatically applies color to cells whose numbers meet certain criteria. For example, cells in a temperature-tracking spreadsheet could show shades of blue for cold days, or reds and yellows for warmer ones. "
"Over all, Office 2007 is much more pleasant to use than previous versions. It seems to be the work of the New Microsoft, a company far more concerned with elegance, beauty and simplicity than the Old Microsoft."