Windows President Steven Sinofsky joined the Windows team from the Workplace unit, leading a great number of of us Microsoft watchers to be aware how similar the Windows organization has develop into to Workplace,
Office Home And Student 2010, when it comes to its construction, policies and procedures,
Office 2007 Pro Key, over the final few many years.However the Office team is understanding in the Windows staff, as well — especially now that it;s headed up by their former leader Sinofsky. One area where Office is now emulating Windows is in compatibility tools and techniques.In early December, the Office team released numerous new compatibility tools into beta. These tools are aimed at both independent software vendors building on high of Workplace, as well as customers doing the same. Among them:Office 2010 Code Compatibility Inspector: There;s one for Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and one for Visual Studio. According to Microsoft, hese are add-ins that you install with Workplace 2010 or Visual Studio that scan VBA, VB.NET, and C# code for object model usage that is incompatible with Office 2010.Office Environment Assessment Tool (OEAT): A tool for helping to determine the kinds of add-ins that are installed on users; computers and the extent to which the they;re being used. OEAT collects and reports add-in information about Office 2000, Workplace XP, Office 2003, and the 2007 Office system, Microsoft officials say.Application Compatibility Assessment and Remediation Guide for Workplace 2010: A document that “describes the overall assessment and remediation process, including planning, testing, piloting,
Office 2007 Pro, and deployment,” the Softies say.I asked Microsoft why the Office staff has begun focusing so much on compatibility. Is there something changing in Office 2010 that is going to affect negatively existing line-of-business apps built on top of Office 2003 or Workplace 2007? A corporate spokesperson said it;s additional a case of being proactive. Her response:“The Windows Application Compatibility Toolkit taught the group several lessons about the value of managing compatibility. The Workplace team is hoping to supplement these existing services with this effort, as well as bring tools to market which can help customers who do not typically employ consultants or services when planning upgrades for Office….“The purpose of the tools, documentation and services are to ease the transition to Workplace 2010 for both developers building Workplace applications, and for IT professionals who deploy Office. The tools and documentation are provided at no cost.”Up until this point, consultants, resellers, software providers and others have been the ones holding the compatibility bag — or, as the Microsoft spokesperson even more delicately put it “offer(ing) remediation support for Workplace upgrades.” Microsoft had already built internal compatibility tools for testing Workplace, but never offered them publicly, she said, so why not make them available to these “remediators” and customers?One area where customers and developers may require extra support and handholding could be around 64-bit Workplace. Office 2010 marks the first time Microsoft will offer a 64-bit version of its productivity suite. I;d think Office Web Apps might create some extra support/compatibility work for Microsoft and its partners, as well.A lot more in the aforementioned spokesperson:“We aim to provide developers with precise guidance on areas of their code which may require updates for Office 2010 (including guidance for 64-bit Office). For IT, we want to provide tools which give them improved visibility into Workplace add-ins used in their environment, even those which call Office externally. This will give deployment teams a additional accurate picture of issues may affect deployments.”Now I;m curious. Any developers,
microsoft Office 2010 Serial, business users or consumers running the Workplace 2010 beta seeing anything unusual or disconcerting, compatibility-wise,
Discount Office 2007, at this point?