Office 12 Impressions

Ooookay, its geek time. Get on your thinkin caps guys, here we go:

Firstly, you need to know about Office 12's XML Formats. That?s a link to Channel9, the MSDN geek blog/community where they have a video of Brian Jones, Head Mofo In Charge of MS Word just straight up geeking out over his new baby (just look at that smile in the final seconds, the guy is giddy!). You can also read/comment over at Scoble's.

Let?s get to a few ?Talking Points?:

? New file extentions. No more .doc, say hello to .docx (and .xlsx and .pptx)
? Updates for all versions of Office except ole ?97 to read/write the format
? Old files in the new format are 75% smaller! Wow!
? The format is intentionally left open to encourage development and standardization
? The change will institute DRM on the server side, not the client side

Now all of these points are well and good, but what does it mean to you and me? Well, a few things:

Firstly, there will be web services and businesses built around doing things with your documents. Since they are so open, their deconstruction will be far more interesting than their construction. This is probably the most easily abusable via Powerpoint, as they could benefit the most.

For example, you have a huge presentation but you?d like to turn it into a movie/flash file instead of clicking through the slides. PowerpointIntoMovies.com can help you. You simply upload your file, it analyzes the amount of text, images, and video found within it and then makes a compiled flash or quicktime (or even windows media) video file that is on a balanced timescale thanks to its ability to analyze the given data.

This change will also actually make Google a -huge- force in the corporate world and really test the ability of Longhorn?s upcoming search capabilities. If (and that?s a big if) Office 12 makes a significant impact and is adopted by a large number of customers, the ability to search inside every Office document becomes a breeze. Of course, Microsoft knows this as well and will most certainly tune their own Spotlight application to take advantage of this.

Thinking down the road, we?ll need a utility from Microsoft that does bulk conversion processing on hundreds/thousands of old Office documents to the new standard. If they?re looking for a request, there it is. If not, then someone will be able to make a lot of money just on that idea alone. I akin it to the COBOL programmers who struck it rich during Y2K, except now it will be just one smart programmer who can do the job.

I think the most important impact of this announcement is that it turns all Office-created data into metadata. The enabling of this announcement is huge in terms of operating systems and programs you rely on for interoperability and access.

It also raises the question of ?What about Outlook?? for XML adoption. The Outlook .PST file has always be a PITA, and as much as Brian talks about corruption and problems regarding it, turning all of your Outlook binary data into XML-rich data just opens the doors for search, collaboration. collation, and just about any other efficiency-based ?ation? you can think of. Exchange Server could, finally, really shine and live up to its name.

I know that Slashdot is cynical (they always are), but as a cynic myself I can?t help but be enthused and excited for the future. Tools and projects based around using and abusing the now-open data formats will bring leaps and bounds to the stagnated Office market and any vendor who makes their living by targeting that audience.

Microsoft has plagued itself by making the best Office productivity tools almost 10 years ago and releasing not much more than Service Packs from then on out. By giving us an open format and limitless possibilities with how we can use that data, including letting other Office clones like OpenOffice in on the fun, MS has given me a reason to buy Office again.

If nothing else, this is progress and I?m excited about this news. Now as for us network/system admins, the changes on the server side (DRM) will be very intriguing as well, but let?s cross that bridge when we get to it.

I believe I can see the future
Because I repeat the same routine

Tags: Microsoft Office 12 Channel9 XML Brian Jones Word Excel Powerpoint Google Spotlight Apple COBOL Slashdot OpenOffice DRM