Microsoft announced Nov. 6 the release to manufacturing of Office 2007, which will introduce a significant change in the way end users work with and view the productivity suite.
Weve been testing the pre-RTM Build 1011 version of Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007, which Microsoft burned a week before the new suites RTM, and have seen plenty of new capabilities that are likely to nudge corporations toward an upgrade. These include improved security, better usability and enhanced graphics, as well as suitewide attention to collaboration. Office Enterprise 2007 comprises Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, InfoPath, Communicator, Publisher, Groove and OneNote.
Office 2007 requires Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Server 2003 with SP1. Office 2007 also can be installed on systems running Windows Vista Beta 2, but not earlier prerelease versions of Vista. We performed a clean install of the pre-RTM build on machines running Vista and Windows XP and had no problems.
Our full review of the suite is slated to appear in the Nov. 27 issue and at eweek.com.