A ton of talk lately when it comes to Windows 8 especially with the recent demonstrations of its new features at the Build Developers conference, but what about Microsoft’s other popular product, Office? Well, according to CEO Steve Ballmer, we might just see a metro-styled Office suite.
“You ought to expect that we are rethinking and working hard on what it would mean to do Office Metro style,” CEO Steve Ballmer stated. Looks like Microsoft is working on a version of Office for Windows 8’s Metro-styled interface.
Of course a Metro styled Office suite would be a major change in direction considering that the company just introduced the Ribbon UI in Office 2007. Many users were critical about the look initially, but grew to tolerate it in Office 2010. Although Windows 8 is expected to have a Ribbon-based UI in portions of its components, many consumers are looking forward to the Metro-styled aspects of the operating system.
Many analysts are envisioning the new Metro styled Office suite as a modified version of Office Web Apps, rather than a full fledged Office Suite. Either way, having a Metro styled Office product would be great.
No word yet on a timetable for Office 15’s release but one can safely assume that we might see a release next year alongside Windows 8. As we all know, Office 2007 was launched side by side with Windows 7.
