May 23rd, 2006
Microsoft Releases Windows Vista, Longhorn and Office 2007 Betas
By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
As expected, Microsoft has released the betas for it’s biggest software titles, Windows Vista, Windows Server, or Longhorn and Office 2007 today. The new trial versions were to be announced at the Microsoft Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Seattle by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.
Windows Vista moved a big step closer to completion today as Microsoft formally released Beta 2 of its next-generation flagship operating system.
“I just came from Redmond and I brought something for you,” Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft’s Platforms and Services Division, brandishing a box of Beta 2 DVDs before attendees at the end of a day-long reviewers’ workshop in downtown Seattle on Monday.
Allchin spoke at length of Windows XP’s ongoing security problems, telling an anecdote involving Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer forcing him to personally fix a friend’s PC that had been crippled by spyware. Of his expectations of how difficult it would be to make XP safer and how hard it turned out to be, he said, “I was naive. I was just humbled.” Source: PCWorld
The Office 2007 beta is available as a download to the general public, but will expire on 31 January 2007. Office 2007 Beta Office 2007’s most visible new feature is a user interface that will change according to the task that a user is performing. Source: Vnunet.
We Say: I haven’t played with any of the betas, I usually just wait until the release of the software before checking it out, save myself some aggravation. Anyone have any opinions on any of these betas yet?
David Johnston says:
If you’re not a member of the MSDN or TechNet, you’ll still have to wait a few days for the real public release. There’s a lot of talk about this beta being the “make it or break it” release so far as making MS’s deadlines with a production-quality OS.
May 23rd, 2006 at 10:21 am
Dan Zagrodnik says:
I have the Office Beta and I would encourage others to get it. It is such a great improvement, that I do not know how I could go back to the older version, even to the previous version Office 2003. With Internet Explorer 7, Windows Live Messenger, and Windows Media Player 11 (these three betas are available for XP already from Microsoft) as well as with Vista and the new Office, Microsoft is really bringing some great new products to the table.
May 23rd, 2006 at 11:14 am
zipity says:
Well, #2 smells like astro-turf…. But my opinion is that betas are for people with machines and/or data they don’t care about And possibly too much time on their hands. But to each, his own…
May 23rd, 2006 at 5:03 pm
David Johnston says:
I just got the Office 2007 beta and it seems pretty neat. It faster than I expected, though still not completely fluid on my 2.52Ghz Athlon 64 box w/ 1GB RAM. It will also take some getting used to, but it is promising. The new tabbed menu system is nice and the live preview of text formatting, etc. is also pretty cool.
May 23rd, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Ben Zagrodnik says:
Never trust a marketer to have any sense of history. And never marvel at their lack of shame at not having one.
Reading comment #2 above without any knowledge of the campaigns around previous Microsoft releases of their application products, you could be forgiven for thinking that the new release of Office will indeed be a valuable event.
In truth, every marketing campaign for each Office release has touted the _exact_ _same_ _thing_. “This version of Office is _so_ much better than previous versions, you cannot get along without it.”
Anyone who has used any version of the Office suite (or the individual programs before they came bundled as the Office suite) knows this is a patent falsehood.
If I forced you to do your word processing with Word 1.0 (dating from 1997), I’d bet you would be nearly as productive as you would be with Word 11 (the current version.)
Most of what each new release does is expand upon the capabilities of some peripheral aspect of the product–table formatting, pagination, web-page development. The core remains unchanged. (And let’s face it, any competent grade-schooler can develop a basic word processor today.)
So zipity, I’m with you–astroturf campaigns or not, don’t drink the marketing Kool-Aid and believe that this version of Office (or Vista, or Office Live, or any of the other streams of effluent from Redmond) will be even a modest bit better than what has come before it.
May 28th, 2006 at 1:16 pm