Well, that was quick! Not very far removed from the release of Office 2010, Microsoft appears to be well underway with Office 15. As made apparent by the screen shots below, the infamous WZor (who were quite active with leaking information and builds during the Windows 7 development phase) has managed to get a hold of some pre-alpha Office 15 bits. A brief write-up accompanying the screen shots from WZor states that they will not be releasing build/lab information or the build itself. Likewise, WZor alludes to a release time frame of 2014 (which I’m not completely sold on) and the addition of “Office Lime”. More on “Office Lime” after the screen shots below (click on them to see a higher-resolution version):

Getting back to Office Lime, Mary Jo Foley writes that it’s a user interface utility for Office and not a new application in development for Office 15. Personally, I remember Office Lime being included in Office 14 (the codename for Office 2010), and though I do not have any Office 14 beta builds to install for verification, a quick Google search yields the following two results that reference Office Lime as far back as October of 2009:

October 2009: http://www.redmondpie.com/microsoft-office-2010-beta-2-build-14.0.4514.1009-zin795/
February 2010: http://pc-main.blogspot.com/2010/02/microsoft-office-2010-beta.html

So, between Mary Jo’s investigations and the two links above, I think it’s safe to assume that “Office Lime” is something Microsoft utilizes during the development phase of Office (since Office 14, at least) and indeed not something to keep an eye on for the Office 15 RTM time frame.

Click here if you would like to read much more on what Microsoft currently has in store for Office 15.

-Stephen Chapman

http://www.msftkitchen.com

Goodbye Office 2010; hello Office 15! After some extensive (see: exhaustive) research, I’ve unearthed enough to confidently say that Office 15 planning is not only under way, but thriving as well. Amongst all the information are implications as to when Microsoft aims for its release, some of what Microsoft is specifically focusing on in their plans, mentions of specific Office 15 applications, services, and more! Follow along as I take you from the earliest mentions of Office 15 back in September 2009 up through to the very latest of what’s floating around from job postings, employee profiles, documents, and more. If you don’t feel like delving into the whole post, I’ve summarized the key points at the bottom of the post for quick review.

It’s Official: Office 15, the Codename

Beginning with a bit of history, I’ve been keeping my eye on Office 15 since September 2009 when I first noticed what seemed to be an employee referring to the next version of Office as “Office 15″ and “Office 2013.” A couple of months afterwords, I made note of a program manager mentioning Office 15 in an interview on Microsoft’s website. Shortly thereafter, references were also being discovered by MJ Foley and others. Fast-forward 6 months and now there are job postings on Microsoft’s Careers website that specifically reference “Office 15″ in various contexts which I will be referencing shortly.

Additionally, residing on Microsoft’s download servers is a PDF document by a company named Basex who makes mention of Office 15. Though in its own right, that doesn’t say much since any random company could simply reference “Office 15″ from what they’ve read elsewhere, the fact that the document is being served on Microsoft’s download servers lends a little more to its credibility:

Now, I know some of you are saying, “alright, already — it’s called “Office 15,” geez.” The reason I’m being so thorough is that an impending codename is never guaranteed (as we learned with “Office 13“) and I would rather err on the side of too much information to state my case than not enough. And for those of you who still aren’t sold, don’t worry; much more “Office 15″ referencing is on the way.

Release Date Implication: Office 15, a.k.a. Office 2013

Along with my previous mention of what appeared to be an employee referencing the next version of Office as “Office 2013,” I’ve now found a similar reference from the following job profile of Microsoft employee Adam Callens courtesy of LinkedIn:

Directly engaged IT Pros to understand pain points and opinions of trending technology and drove their concerns directly into our planning pillars for Office 2013.

Basically, the key (and ridiculously obvious) takeaway here is the year Microsoft aims to release Office 15: 2013. With Windows 8 rumored to wrap up between late-2011 and sometime in 2012, that would potentially position the release of Office 2013 within a similar cadence to Office 2010, where Office 2010 was released well-after Windows 7 as opposed to alongside it as was Office 2007 with Windows Vista.

Office 15: Goodbye Ribbon UI?

This is mere speculation on my behalf, but the following found on Microsoft employee Josh Leong’s LinkedIn profile provides a vague-yet-enticing user experience mention that gets me thinking on the track of if Microsoft is going to simply refine the Ribbon UI as they did with Office 2010, or if they’re going to opt for something completely different:

Designing the new visual & interaction experience for Office 15.

The Ribbon UI is highly-touted in Microsoft’s products since its implementation in Office 2007. It has been carried through to much of Windows 7′s OOTB applications like MS Paint, Calculator, WordPad, and more recently, refined in Office 2010. Personally, I’m not so willing to bet that it will be done away with in place of something drastically different by the Office 15 time frame. I feel as though Microsoft will see to getting as much mileage as they can out of the Ribbon UI. Having a look at Josh’s personal page, it appears he does some pretty forward-thinking concepts (which probably don’t include the Ribbon UI), so I’ll certainly be paying close attention to any work on that front.

Office Mobile 15

Remember the job postings on the Microsoft Careers website I said I would be referencing? You guessed it; now is that time! Here, we have two job postings seeking to fulfill different positions on the same Office team. Both ads make reference to the Office Mobile suite and hint at additional functionality being planned for Office 15. Clearly not going anywhere, Microsoft acknowledges the need for Office tools on mobile devices and they’re obviously positioning themselves to meet that need as best they can through the Office 15 time frame (albeit, specifically on their mobile OS platform).

Now is your chance to get in on the ground floor of the Office organization’s newest team. The Office Mobile suite includes Communicator Mobile, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, SharePoint, with more applications and capabilities being planned as part of the Office 15 product suite. This unique position involves technical challenges of working across multiple operating systems and devices as well as the chance to work with teams across the company and around the world. Our key focus going forward is designing and developing new end to end Mobile Office scenarios that greatly improve mobile meetings, productivity, and document management. All while taking advantage of the greater computing power, networking, memory, screen & touch, and GPS capabilities on next generation mobile computing platforms.

Source 01: https://careers.microsoft.com/JobDetails.aspx?jid=16832
Source 02: https://careers.microsoft.com/JobDetails.aspx?jid=16684

Outlook 15, Access 15, SharePoint 15, and Excel 15 Services Planning

Now to touch on some vaguely-mentioned specifics that are planned for Office 15 inclusion, I’ll begin with another job ad located on the Microsoft Careers site. This time, we see the Outlook team seeking a candidate to help impact the Outlook 15 release:

Outlook is currently in the process planning for Office 15. Right now is an excellent time to utilize your passion for engineering, contribute in the strategy and have a major impact on what Outlook does for the next release.

Source: https://careers.microsoft.com/JobDetails.aspx?jid=17753

Up next, the following Microsoft employee’s LinkedIn profile contains a mission statement-of-sorts for their part in Office 15 planning. Receiving shout-outs are Access 15, SharePoint 15, and Excel 15. At the very least, it’s safe to assume that those applications/services are being considered for inclusion in Office 15. Have a look:

Office 15 Planning (Feb 2010 – present): Initial planning of user session management in Access Services 15.
• Identifying load balancing and session management requirements for Access Services 15;
• Investigating existing features for this purpose in SharePoint and Excel Services;
• Deep understanding of the existing implementation in Excel Services;
• A final set of suggestions on planning the implementation.

Excel 15 to Contain a “Major New Feature”

An employee by the name of Ben Gable has a rather interesting mention in his LinkedIn profile. Having completed a 12-week internship in the Office Excel group, he apparently has quite an offering to be unveiled in Office 15 (specifically, Excel 15). Who knows as of yet what that could possibly be, but it certainly sounds exciting. Here’s a snippet from his listed experience:

• Designed major new feature to be introduced in Office 15
• Wrote 80-page spec
• Managed tight deadlines
• Led technical team to plan implementation
• Held Office-wide review meetings
• Consulted with international Excel clients in financial services
• Coordinated with Product Research to hone feature design for the needs of world-wide Excel clients.
• Led usability testing. Created demos and mock-ups for usability tests. Analyzed data and presented findings. Used testing results to validate design decisions.
• Completed project 2 weeks ahead of schedule

Word 15: Taking Collaboration and Communication to the Next Level with Coauthoring

While browsing through recent interviews that populate the Microsoft Press Pass website, Microsoft Word program manager Jonathan Bailor answered some questions in regards to Office 2010. At the end of the interview, he was asked, “What’s next for you at Microsoft?” His answer sheds a bit of light of what may well be a major focus for Word 15:

In Office 15, we’d love to take collaboration and communication to the next level. We’ve unlocked all of these new ways to work and a new set of expectations from users, and we’re like, “Put us back in the ring; we’re ready for round two.” Until coauthoring a document is as easy and ubiquitous as e-mail attachments, our job isn’t done.

Customer Management and Relationship Marketing

If you keep up with Microsoft as a business (as opposed to just using their products), you’re probably familiar with the emphasis they place on their relationships with high-profile customers and partners. Employee Kristin Fitzpatrick’s LinkedIn profile shows that Microsoft is keeping true-to-form by identifying scenarios and key partners, as well as building business cases — all for research and development, planning, and feature request submittal. Detailed below are some of Kristin’s noted areas of work in these early stages of Office 15 development:

• Identified and built business case for in-product Relationship Marketing (RM) areas of investment in Office 15: identified successful examples of in-product RM (that increased usage & SAT) across Microsoft, worked with research vendor to quantify business impact, prioritized top areas of investment, and socialized results (CXM walking deck and Business Perspectives) with Office Product Management.
• Integrated CXM feature requests into Office 15 planning by identifying relevant partners, establishing new relationships, and understanding key milestones and points of engagement.
• Set up process for prioritizing Marketing requests to R&D (Office Online) to ensure feature requests were consistent with overall business strategy and R&D bandwidth.

Personas and Automation

Thanks to the following Microsoft employee’s LinkedIn profile, we learn here that Microsoft is researching and defining personas as well as focusing on upgrading Office’s Automation Framework (which some of you advanced Office users out there should be thrilled to hear). Here’s the profile quote:

CODE COVERAGE DRIVER
- Monitored code coverage for our Automation suite and communicated status to Management.
- Trained the team to use code coverage for effective Automation.
- O15: Came up with a strategy to use code coverage as a product health check and signoff tool for O15 and presented to management.
O15 PROJECTS
- Working with a few PMs to research and define Personas to target for O15.
- Leading the effort to fix our Automation Framework.

Office 15: Everyone Matters

I thought the following mention of Office 15 in the following LinkedIn profile was cute when placed in context of everything else above. This just goes to show that everyone from the top developers, designers, and managers all the way down to the testers and assistants help the planning process to happen as smoothly as possible!

Download data, create spreadsheets and other statistical reports to aid in Office 15 framework.

Conclusion: Key Takeaways

Well, this wraps up everything I’ve dug up thus far. To summarize the key aspects of all the information above, I thought I would culminate a list of key takeaways. Thanks for reading and please do chime in with your comments! In no particular order:

• Office 15 is without a doubt the codename for the next version of Office.
• 2013 appears to be the magic year Microsoft aims to release the next version of Office.
• Office Mobile 15 is at the very least a consideration alongside the planning of Office 15.
• Currently known to be planned for Office 15 inclusion are Outlook 15, Word 15, Access 15, SharePoint 15, and Excel 15.
• Office 15 will sport a new user interface. How drastic of a change it will be is yet to be determine.
• Excel 15 may include a “major new feature” completely new to the Office suite, courtesy of Office 15.
• Improving document coauthoring, a new tool in Office 2010, appears to be a primary focal point for Word 15.
• Target personas are being researched and defined for Office 15 focus.
• Office 15 should see an improved Automation Framework.

-Stephen Chapman
http://msftkitchen.com

Back in September, I posted a story regarding a mention of Office 15 having a tentative release date set for 2013. The comment I referenced made note of a feature that would not be available to SharePoint developers until such a release (WF 4 is the feature). Well, albeit a very minor mention in passing, I just stumbled upon a mention of Office 15 right on Microsoft’s site. It’s from Kolby Hoover, who, ironically, is the Program Manager for Microsoft SharePoint Designer. When asked by Microsoft PressPass, “[w]hat is a typical day like for you,” Kolby responded in part with the following:

Other days I’m wearing my thinking hat, opening my mind and dreaming of the questions and problems that we’ll need to tackle in Office 15.

Comments like that never cease to get my brain churning. I can’t help but wonder what folks like Kolby have on their mind when they say things like that. Office 2010 is shaping up to be a fine product in its own right, but as I said, it’s ironic to note that both Office 15-related comments I’ve come across so far have had some link with SharePoint. Perhaps the O15 release will be somewhat of the holy grail for SharePoint devs? Whatever it ends up being, it has a lot of time to get there.

For the sake of archival purposes (since there’s always a chance they may remove things like this from the site), here is a screen shot of the interview up through the mention of Office 15:

Source: Microsoft PressPass

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

Unfortunately, I don’t have a roadmap screenshot for this one but I’m sure one will make its way down the pike here soon enough. What I do happen to have is what appears to be an insider throwing out a mention of what the next version of Office will be code-named and when it is planned to hit the market.

On Fred Morrison’s popular SharePoint blog, a user with, “insider insight” (aka a Microsoft employee) responded to a post regarding SharePoint 2010 workflow development using WF (Windows Workflow Foundation) 4.0 with the following:

Couple of things on Office 14′s workflow you mentioned above:
- Office 14 (or SharePoint 2010 to use your words) won’t be supporting .NET 4 and WF 4.
- Office 14 still uses workflow foundation 3.5 and .NET 3.5 and you wont get the same benefits compared to when you use only .NET 4 solutions in custom development.
- The workflow platform for WF 4 was indeed rewritten from the ground up and is a much better platform, however, we will have to wait for Office 2013 (or Office 15) before we can use this for SharePoint development.
- WF4 does provide some out of the box sharepoint activities, but these are very different from SharePoint’s workflow and is built by the WF team, rather than the Office 2010 team.

Two things to note are that the comment was posted back in January, so the 2013 mention could be outdated by now, and even though he does indeed seem to be speaking via an informed perspective (aka a Microsoft employee’s perspective), this is merely an observation I’ve made and, ultimately, speculation until confirmed otherwise. I know it seems as though Office 15 was the obvious code name for the next version of Office (seeing it as Windows 8 is following Windows 7 and, “Office 2013″ would put the next version of Office right in line to meet the projected 3-year development cycle Microsoft adheres to), but plenty of people put their foot in their mouth when Microsoft randomly made the decision to choose Office 14 in lieu of Office 13 for superstitious reasons (which I covered in my article, “Why did Microsoft Skip Office 13?“).

As soon as I can dig up one of those roadmaps I’m so fond of running across, I’ll be sure to slap it up here! Let the speculation commence…

-Stephen
http://msftkitchen.com

Well, it looks like Microsoft is finally filtering down information about Office 2010 via some presentations. Take a look at the following screen shots to glean any information you may not already be aware of at this point regarding Office 2010, such as Office Online, milestones through the development phase (including planned Beta and RTM time frames), Office Professional Plus 2010 information, and what the SharePoint Workspace (formerly known as, “Groove”) homepage looks like:

-Stephen

If you haven’t checked up on it in a while, go watch the latest clip on Office 2010: The Movie. It’s fairly cheesy but definitely managed to get a few, “lol’s” out of me. I’m all for a humor-based campaign to sell a product, but hopefully this won’t flop… wherever it’s going. The massive Bing marketing campaign seems to be paying off for the company, so perhaps this, too, will be another step in the right direction for Microsoft’s recent marketing ventures. Anyway, enough chat.

Office 2010: A Virus all Over my Face

-Stephen

So, I wrote a 4-part series back in January (I can’t believe it’s been that long ago) titled, “Office 14 Revealed”. I don’t think it reached a very broad scope of readership, so I want to post about it one more time since I still haven’t seen a good bit of this information circulate yet via Microsoft or otherwise. No, I don’t expect you to run and post this stuff on your blog or site, but with the interest of Office 2010 growing and growing, I don’t want this information to just be sitting there in old posts that will never be seen again (my new template should help to alleviate issues like this). Naturally, if you’ve already read this information, CLICK HERE. Otherwise, take a look and please feel free to discuss via the comments!

Part 1: Integration of Volume Activation 2.0
Part 2: Security
Part 3: A More Far-Reaching Fluent UI
Part 4: Improving Desktop TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)

If you’d like to help spread the information, I’d be grateful! …or, you can always just CLICK HERE. Mwah ha ha…

-Stephen

Apologies to all my faithful readers for the extended hiatus. Ol’ Steve-O here has about a gazillion+1 things going on in his life and he thinks it’s really odd to talk about himself in the 3rd person. Anyway… onward to some news-ish-y stuffs! Yaaay!

How’s your French? Mine is pretty freakin’ horrible. Luckily, deductive logic + Babelfish sufficed quite nicely.

On the 15th of April, 2009, a presentation was given in France regarding Exchange 2010 and, “Wave 14.” There are a number of details in this document, including the pillars of Exchange 2010, some statistics and percentages that come along in just about every presentation I get a hold of, and other randomness – but the following details are what I found to be the most appealing, seeing it as this is as-recent-as-7-days-ago confirmation of certain release schedules previously noted internally and brought to us by wzor.net and neowin.net, to name a couple:

April 15: Exchange Server 2010 Beta 1 was released via Microsoft.
July 2009: Office 2010 Beta 1 scheduled for release.
3rd Quarter 2009: SharePoint 2010, Visio 2010, and Project 2010 Techical Previews scheduled for release.
2nd Half 2009: Exchange Server 2010 RTM
1st Half 2010: Office 2010, Sharepoint 2010, Visio 2010, and Project 2010 RTM

Yay, pictures!

Honestly, I haven’t been keeping up with the most recent news regarding Office 14, but I figured the aforementioned information out of an April 15th, 2009 presentation was – at the very least – worth mentioning; even if only to reinforce what’s already out there!

In other news, UX Evangelist is going through some major changes behind the scenes, including a name change to reflect more accurately the content of this blog (since it’s not just primarily UX-based content any longer). So, I’m still around! Things are just taking a while with everything else I have going on these days. Thanks for your patience, everyone!

-Stephen

Russian site WZor.Net has posted a handful of nice looking screenshots of the Office 14 Alpha recently given to TAP members. Check ‘em out:

To be honest, some of the UI resembles Longhorn 5048 to me:

What do you think of it? I think it looks interesting. Certainly quite a change already from Office 2007. As for the screenshot with, “Office Mondo Fourteen” in it, “Mondo” was a term used for Office 12 as well. Apparently, it carries over internally regardless of code number (as opposed to code name).

Update: Raiker has translated the text from the site to give a little more information. According to WZor, Office 14 will indeed be called “Microsoft Office System 2009,” and the beta is said to start in may with the final release being planned for the end of the year. Thanks for the translation, Raiker.

-Stephen

I ran across another slide from a recent presentation in which the Microsoft presenter clearly states Office 14 will be released in, “late 2009/early 2010.” Man, this has been tiresome! At the very least, this just goes to show that Microsoft is publicly admitting (in some capacity, anyway) that Office 14 could very well slip into 2010. Here’s a screen shot of the official slide:

This slide jives with what Mary Jo Foley has been hearing from Office 14 testers she’s been speaking with: “Testers to whom I’ve been speaking said their Microsoft reps have been telling them Office 14 could still ship by the end of this calendar year, but also might slip into early 2010.”

Oh, and if you missed it, be sure to catch my 4-part mini-series, “Office 14 Revealed” where I discuss some of the new features in the upcoming Office release! You can view them all via this link, which takes you to all of my posts tagged with “Office 14″: Office 14 Posts

-Stephen