Microsoft Office 2010 glues generation gap

By Beverley Head
Wednesday, 09 September 2009 06:51

IT Industry - Development

Office 2010, scheduled for release in the first half of next year, will be the glue that brings millennial generation workers and baby boomers together thanks to its ability to run on three platforms – PCs, phones and browsers, according to software giant Microsoft.  

In an interview with iTWire at TechEd, currently running on the Gold Coast Reed, Shaffner, the Office 2010 product manager, said that the mantra of the new product was ‘collaboration without compromise’.  He expected uptake of the product to be driven by demand from young millennial workers keen to integrate Office tools with social networks, a move which would then drive adoption of the tool and collaboration techniques among older Baby Boomer workers.

The technical preview version of Office 2010 was released a month ago, with the beta version expected to be released by the end of the year.

Shaffner explained that a compelling argument for enterprises considering a move to Office 2010 was that the tool provided common ground for both young and older employees. “Take the NSW schools which have just deployed notebooks with Windows 7, 60% of teachers are going to be leaving schools in the next five years. We need to transition people but capture knowledge.”

Younger workers who were comfortable with collaborative and networking tools  such as blogs and wikis could use these tools within Office 2010 on a variety of platforms; but older workers  already comfortable with the Office metaphor would be happy to use the tool also. “People already spend more time with Outlook than their spouse,” quipped Shaffner.

Office 2010 could be used as a form of intergenerational glue – used to capture and share knowledge among different generations of workers.

Quin Nikel, director of product management for Microsoft, said; “The anywhere access and collaboration will drive business value for users.” As will the continuation of the home access programme, which will allow organisations with a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement to offer a home access version of the product to staff for $28.

Executive users of the tool will also be pleased at some of the new features of PowerPoint which will allow much simpler integration of video content into their presentations, and the ability to compress video content making it simpler to share presentations.

Disclosure: Beverley Head is attending TechEd as a guest of Microsoft.