The rumour
mill had been working overtime for the last couple of months, talking
about the imminent release of the next version of Microsoft Office and
that day has finally arrived. In a rather low key fashion, Steve Ballmer
unveiled the new productivity suite from the Redmond based company,
along with a new logo for the suite.
Microsoft Office 2013
(the standalone desktop version) and Office 365 (the cloud based
service), besides sporting a new logo, come with a significant amount of
redesign. According to Microsoft,
the redesign focuses on improving functionality with multiple forms of
input, including touch. It seems that the rumours of a version of Office
for the Windows 8 tablets were correct after all, though it remains to
be seen if any differences will be there in the Windows RT (for ARM)
version of the productivity suite.
While Word, Excel OneNote and Outlook
have all received considerable overhaul, it seems that PowerPoint has
garnered some special attention from the company. PowerPoint now
features functionality such as a Presenter View which shows information
such as speaker notes, upcoming slides, total presentation time etc.
There’s also a strong push by Microsoft to bring its cloud based service SkyDrive
to the forefront. For one, the default saving option in the new Office
Suite is “save to SkyDrive” as against the more familiar “save to disk”.
Furthermore to the SkyDrive integration, Office 365 will be available
as a subscription based cloud-solution. The subscription would entitle
you to any future updates that roll out, free of charge, along with
expanded storage space on the SkyDrive. Office 365 will allow you the
ability to install it on up to 5 machines with one login.
Of course, the new Office
Suite will work with the entire portfolio of Windows 8 devices,
including tablets and phones. Currently, the Office 365 preview is
available to the general public for use and can be downloaded from here.
Do also check out our hands on with Office 2013 and Office 365.
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