Shortly after announcing that it was delaying the consumer release of Windows Vista to January 2007, Microsoft announced that it would also delay the shipment of Office 2007, its next office productivity suite, so that it could be released simultaneously with Windows Vista. As with Vista, however, Microsoft still plans to complete development of Office 2007 by the end of 2006.
"The company remains on track to complete work on the 2007 Microsoft Office system in October of this year and is planning to make the product available to the business customers through the volume licensing program in October 2006," a Microsoft statement reads. "Retail and \[PC bundle\] availability of the product are scheduled to coincide with the retail and \[PC bundle\] availability of the Windows Vista operating system in January 2007."
Like previous Office versions, Office 2007 is a monolithic suite of desktop applications that comprises multiple product editions and standalone applications. The new suite will feature a new XML-based document format for some of its applications and a new user interface that replaces the menu-and-toolbar-based UI seen in all previous Office versions. Office 2007 will work with Windows XP, 2003, and Vista, Microsoft says.
