Office 2007 Enterprise Office 15 What's Microsoft

You'll find reports that a brand new early construct of Microsoft;s Workplace 15 have escaped the Redmond halls. More intriguing than the mere existence of these pre-alpha develop, however, is another mention of a new application which will turn into part of Microsoft;s next-generation Workplace suite.Despite the truth Microsoft only started shipping Office 14 (a k a, Office 2010) a couple of months in the past, an August twenty Softpedia report (by way of the Russian web-site Wzor) statements there;s a new Workplace fifteen develop floating about.Softpedia;s report also consists of something near and dear to this Microsoft watcher;s heart: a brand new codename. “Microsoft Limestone Integration Application” (also known as “Microsoft Lime”) is a new application development element that may be component of Office 15, according to information that allegedly is part of the newly leaked develop. (Update: 1 of my contacts says Lime is just a user-interface utility for Office, and probably not considered a brand new application in and of itself. Update 2: Microsoft blogger Rafael Rivera agrees and shares a bit additional on Lime/Limestone….Nevertheless, it still sounds like there is a brand new Office 15 app coming. Read on….)Stephen Chapman noted on his Microsoft Kitchen internet site, back in early June this year, that there were indications Microsoft was planning to add a new application to its coming Office suite. Chapman connected the dots and discovered a point out of “a major new feature” coming to Office 15 through a LinkedIn profile of a former Microsoft intern. That intern worked about the Excel team.That;s not a whole lot to go on, but it;s got me thinking Limestone/Lime the new mystery Office 15 application could involve integrating Excel with an additional technology. Could it be some kind of business-intelligence-related app? Some thing to do with charting/data visualization? Hmmm.Robert McLaws, a Microsoft consultant and former Windows blogger, offered a possible (and convincing, in my opinion) guess as to what the new mystery feature might be: “I’d say that the new app is most likely the extension of the co-authoring features of Office Net Apps into a shared desktop runtime. Think about it… why were Groove’s best features missing from the last release? Likely because they were being re-architected into an Azure-based next-gen real-time collaboration platform.” (McLaws emphasized this is just his own speculation and not based on anything from Microsoft about its Office 15 plans.)One last point: According to Softpedia/Wzor, Office 15 is planned for delivery in early 2014. I;m skeptical of that date; I;d say 2012 or 2013 is much more likely, given the Office team;s typcial two- to three-year development/release schedule (and that group;s tendency to under-promise/over-deliver so as to ship “early,” rather than late).Microsoft, unsurprisingly, isn;t commenting on anything related to Office 15. “Wave 15 is currently under development, but we have nothing further to share at this time,Office 2007 Enterprise,” a spokesperson said on August 20.Any guesses of your own as to what kind of new app Microsoft might add to Office fifteen?