They might have signed off on the RTM build of Office 15 but what about the performance of PowerPoint when there are so many advanced stuffs on the slides? You know, I tried out working on Zigg-Zagg PDA PPT Animation with PowerPoint 15 Beta but the whole thing is unstable that I decided to stick back to Office 2k10 version of PowerPoint to do the work. Thankfully, Office 15 is not shameful a lot compared to Windows 8 which is going to be a development catastrophe. Everything in Office 15 is Metro-ized and that means it’s completely clean and fluid but the same cannot go to Windows 8 in which we still see some some glassy stuffs and that’s not fluid enough. It’s more like getting technically worse if not, even more unstable no matter how simple things can look. At least, Windows Phone 7.5 is even more fluid than the original Windows Phone 7 as it still contains some elements which are not even fluid yet. However, only mobile version of Office 2k10 is NOT considered fluid like this perfectly so hopefully Windows Phone 8 should have the next version of Office Mobile but still, this is what a fluid product should be like.
With cloud technology, it looks like we’re entering the future with Office 15 and it may be the same with Skydrive as both Windows 8 Metro app and desktop app although there will be no signs of easier synchronization for Cloud Storage apps if you’re using a tablet as using the desktop app of Skydrive on tablets may be difficult to interact. Who knows if you can synchronize the local photos stored on the tablet to Skydrive which may mean synchronizing the photos that can be open in Photos app to Skydrive just like Camera Upload folder for Dropbox for smartphones. Camera Upload folder for Dropbox is somewhat a special folder for storing synchronized photos you take and that’s pretty brave and if Skydrive can do the same with Office documents and photos in special ways, that will be a good thing.
Office 15 will be planned to be released in general in the first quarter of next year. Starting October 19, customers purchasing Office 2k10 from local retailers or resellers will receive the new Office for free upon availability and speaking of next year’s release of Office 15, it sounds kind of bullshit though that Windows RT users will end up getting the prototype version of Office 15 for Windows RT. We can still use Office 2k10 in the meantime but for Windows RT users, this is in-excusable.
For business users, there will be roll-out of new capabilities to Office 365 Enterprise Customers in the next service update starting in November through general availability. Sure, Office 15 had recently reached RTM so the release may be kind of safe but even then, this is one month too late as if Windows RT business users will have to wait until a month to get the final version of Office for Windows RT. Volume Licensing customers will get the product on December 1st while the IT professionals and developers will be able to download the final version via their TechNet or MSDN subscriptions by mid-November.
Overall, the business users of Windows RT may be patient enough to wait but the same cannot go for other users of Windows RT as waiting for next year is insane. Perhaps the future is still not fluid like this.
