Overview of Microsoft Office 2007

Microsoft Office 2007 (officially called 2007 Microsoft Office System) is a Windows version of the Microsoft Office System, Microsoft's productivity suite. Formerly known as Office 12 in the initial stages of its beta cycle, it was released to volume license customers on November 30, 2006 and made available to retail customers on January 30, 2007. These are, respectively, the same dates Windows Vista was released to volume licensing and retail customers. Office 2007 contains a number of new features, the most notable of which is the entirely new graphical user interface called the Fluent User Interface (initially referred to as the Ribbon User Interface), replacing the menus and toolbars � which have been the cornerstone of Office since its inception � with a tabbed toolbar, known as the Ribbon. Office 2007 requires Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or higher, Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 or higher, Windows Vista or Windows 7. Office 2007 is the last version of Microsoft Office which is officially supported on Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. The 'Ribbon User Interface' is a task-oriented Graphical User Interface (GUI). It features a central menu button, widely known as the 'Office Button'. The Ribbon Interface has been improved in Microsoft Office 2010. Office 2007 also includes new applications and server-side tools. Chief among these is Groove, a collaboration and communication suite for smaller businesses, which was originally developed by Groove Networks before being acquired by Microsoft in 2005. Also included is Office SharePoint Server 2007, a major revision to the server platform for Office applications, which supports "Excel Services", a client-server architecture for supporting Excel workbooks that are shared in real time between multiple machines, and are also viewable and editable through a web page. Microsoft FrontPage has been removed from the Office suite entirely. It has been replaced by Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer, which is aimed towards development of SharePoint portals. Its designer-oriented counterpart Microsoft Expression Web is targeted for general web development. However, neither application has been included in Office 2007. Speech recognition and handwriting recognition are now part of Windows Vista. Speech and ink components have been removed from Office 2007. Handwriting and speech recognition work with Office 2007 only on Windows Vista or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. However, XP users can use an earlier version of Office to use speech recognition. According to Forrester Research, as of May 2010, Microsoft Office 2007 is used in 81% of enterprises.

Development

The first beta of Microsoft Office 2007, referred to as Beta-1 in emails sent to a limited number of testers, was released on November 16, 2005. The Beta-1 Technical Refresh was released to testers on March 13, 2006. The Technical Refresh fixed issues in installing with Windows Vista build 5308. Microsoft revealed the Ribbon UI on March 9, 2006 at CeBIT in Germany. Office 2007 Beta 2 was announced by Bill Gates at WinHEC 2006, and was initially released to the public at no cost from Microsoft's web site. However, because of an unprecedented number of downloads, a fee of $1.50 was introduced for each product downloaded after August 2, 2006. The beta was updated on September 14, 2006 in Beta 2 Technical Refresh (Beta2TR). It included an updated user interface, better accessibility support, improvements in the robustness of the platform, and greater functionality. The beta versions continued to function in a reduced functionality mode after February 1, 2007. If users downloaded the Technical Refresh to update Beta 2, then users could use its full functionality until March 31, 2007 for client products and May 15, 2007 for server products. The Beta program ended on November 8, 2006, when Microsoft declared the product "Released to Manufacturing" (RTM) and started manufacturing the final product. After RTM, the availability of the beta download ended. Office 2007 was released to volume licensing customers on November 30, 2006, and to the general public on January 30, 2007.

Service Pack 1

Service Pack 2

To view a Promotional Video for Microsoft Office 2007 click here