Office 12 was unvieled for the first time during the Bill Gates' PDC keynote.  The main thing of note was a simplified user interface devoid of menus and toolbars and replaced with task-focussed tabs and the 'ribbon' bar.  The big question: does this represent a great leap forward in goal-focussed usability or will this be the 'New Coke' moment for Office?

Bill's initial comments:

• Promise of previous PDCs has been realised.  2000 was about .NET and XML Web Service, 2003 was Avalon (Windows Presentation Foundation) and Indigo (Windows Communication Framework) and Longhorn (Vista).  A shame that Hailstorm and ObjectSpaces have been so quickly forgotten, but software is a cut throat game.
• .NET is the most popular development platform in the word
• XML has been core and has gone through three phases: surface support in terms of tools that worked with it, then platform level support in terms of .NET and XML web services, then core in terms of integration with SQL Server and Office.
• XML has become persuasive.  RSS has given us notifications, XML Schemas are being used to create industry schemas and now with WS-* the enabling of protocols to handle security and other requirements.
• Standard comments about 'an exciting time', 'still not halfway through the PC revolution'.  "Best industry in the world", "exciting times"
• PC shipments are up 15% on last year to 200 million units a year.

Funny things that came up on the closed captions on the video screen as Bill spoke:

• 'Intel a mir a cash mode' -  'IntelliMirror cache mode'
• 'Things like our asses are driving up to do this' (RSS)
• Sin yer jistic (synergistic)

Overall I was incredible impressed that the subtitles kept pace and did such an accurate job.

Windows Vista Demo

"Clarity" Demos:

• Task bar now shows preview of documents when you mouse over them.
• Alt+Tab now shows a 'flip view' that shows a strip with the same document previews.
• Windows Key and Space Bar shows a 'stacked' window view with the windows stacked three deep.
• Quick search shows in all explorer views, plus the desktop sidebar.  Interestingly it now appears at the bottom of the start bar.  It will show search results in place and search the desktop and the internet.
• The thumbnail of files shows up in explorer view.
• The search on the explorer will search document metadata (e.g. author) and text - although unfortunately there was no visual highlighting of where the search appeared.
• Virtual folders are supported.  They are defined with XML files (simple elements like cope and tags) and allow you to see all documents on the PC.  These can be organised by metadata in a couple of new ways (stack, keywords, author).
• Documents can be 'painted' with metadata by dragging and dropping.
• The side bar (think side bar, same clock as PDC 2003) hosts gadgets, written in DHTML, script or WCF).
• Gadgets are a new feature that allows information to be displayed on a laptop lid (such as flight information, or ability to control music).  Some need the laptop to be powered, some don’t.

"Confidence" Demos:

• Phishing sites have increased 500%.  IE 7 has some new features to show phishing sites.  For example, if the site uses an IP address the address bar turns yellow and there is a security icon that warns this may be a phishing site.
• Clicking on the security warning allows you to report this site as a potential phishing site.
• Microsoft is going to host a phishing site review group that will investigate the possible phishing site votes (and similar, 'this is not a phishing site' link)
• The dynamic protection service which powers this feature is opt-in.  If a site has been reported and judged to be a phishing site then the address bar goes red and comes up with a warning.
• IE7 also has tab, as well as an 'all tabs view' where you have the ability to view all open tabs in a thumbnail view.  They can be saved as a common set - so you could save your favourite 5 sites as a set and open them up each morning.
• RSS is built into the browser.  This works with the platform RSS store so the sidebar can display the RSS feeds as well.  Viewing the xml feed behind the RSS shows up with a nicely formatted page.
• Microsoft CRM is using RSS to send notifications via RSS.

Office 12 Demos
Word

• Word used to have 1500 commands and 35 toolbars.  9 out of 10 request for features in Office were features already in the product.
• No more toolbars or menus!  There's now a 'ribbon' area that is task based - so you might be 'insert'ing in word or using tables.
• The keyboard shortcuts are still available, they just don't seem visible on any of the screens.
• The team think that 60 - 80% of the features are available in the new tabs.
• The tabs do make some tasks, like adding a header or footer much easier to use.
• There are improved tool tips with more text to explain the features.
• Using the Tables tab in Excel allows you to format tables in Excel.  Selecting the table formatting example shows the formatting in place (I didn't see how to undo this command)
• Apparently they are finding people don't need much training to use the product.  They 'don't need training wheels'.  It will be interesting to see how this flies with large company's IT directors.
• Word has a nice feature to insert drop-downs, showing the formatting in place.
• There is still a File menu.  It has useful features like Finalize that let you clear up hidden text, comments and other features.

PowerPoint

• Improved shape support - automatically converts bullet points into different graphics (cycle of boxes, graph with points on them).

Outlook

• Still has the command bars!
• Is now focused around a to-do list.  Now easier to create tasks off email.  Ability to flag email with a time to follow up so that they appear in the tasks.  Should improve some of the Getting Things Done style work.
• RSS feeds are built in.
• Support for different office documents and SharePoint emails.
• Attachments can be viewed in place.

Thoughts on the new interface
It will be interesting to see the responses since it is quite a change from the current Office user interface, though I think it is a positive change - ever time I visit my dad he always has 17 toolbars in word, with one button on each of them because the toolbars terrify him so much.  The new user interface will protect him from that kind of advanced customisation.

The user interface definitely seems to work much better than it would appear when initially viewed.  It will be interesting to see how corporate customers react and whether they think the new interface will be as intuitive as it is claimed, or whether the possible re-training costs might be an inhibitor to adoption.