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Office 2010 boasts new
features, Web-based apps
REVIEW: Microsoft’s flagship desktop suite comes with enhancements
to core Office capabilities and breaks new ground by pushing Office apps
beyond the bounds of the Windows desktop into rich, Web-based versions.
By Jason Brooks
After an Office 2007 release
packed with file format
and interface overhauls
that many users and organizations found challenging to digest,
Microsoft returns to a smaller and
more familiar-size release with Office
2010. It became available last month
for volume license customers, and is
set to hit retail this week.
As with most other Office releases,
the 2010 version introduces plenty of
enticements for upgraders: new features for producing slick-looking documents, spreadsheets and presentations;
interface tweaks for surfacing and, in
some places, tamping down the slicker
output features from previous releases;
and more hooks into SharePoint Server
2010 (which shipped alongside Office
2010) to more tightly knit together
knowledge workers.
Office Web Apps boast uncharacteristically broad support for non-Microsoft products.
The apps support Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome Web browsers
nearly as well as Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer.
Modest enhancements and interface tweaks aside, Office 2010 is a
major release—if not for the way
it churns up existing components,
then for the way it expands Office
to new platforms and devices. Office
2010 marks the debut of a slate of
Web-based Office applications that
are available in hosted, on-premises
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