Office 2013 First Thoughts

I have not used Office 2013 as much as I had hope by midweek, but seeing as I decided to reinstall windows and dual boot I am hoping it will have a better impact on fully immersing myself in Windows 8. In the mean time however I did get the chance to show the new Office to some co-workers and we have a short list of our first takes on the system.

1. Windows 8 integration is not as great as it should be - Live tiles, launching to the desktop, and no notifications on the lock screen just irk me the wrong way. If you can give us that Microsoft then its just Office 2013 running on Windows 7 (which is how I would rather have it)

2. WHITE! - Every office product is wrapped in a blinding white sheet of snow, or ice, or maybe a snow cone with no flavoring. I have not found any way to change the default color scheme rending my eyes blinded after a few minutes of use.

3. Missing shortcut keys - Ok so the touch things are pretty nifty I must admit, but it would be nice to be able to do some document interaction from a keyboard too. Seeing as how most companies do not hand out touch screens I would think it would be a little important to add (especially with most not moving to Windows 8)

Honestly the only big change I have noticed is in Outlook, and the movement of the task/calendar bar on the right to roll-over menus down below. Without that it really just looks like a 2010 facelift more than a complete rehab of Office.

Office 15 - Out in the "Wild"

The Microsoft Office 15 Preview was released to the public today to the collective cringe of System Administrators everywhere. Spouting a new look, tweaks to all interfaces and launching along a social storm with access to yet another completely redesigned SharePoint, this could be one of the most confusing office releases yet (based on my experience today with the preview on Windows 8). I will be testing the software piece by piece over the next week and will give my best neutral review of the software and services.