Microsoft braced for Office confusion

Microsoft's Word, Excel and Powerpoint Office programs have all been given improved file that are smaller, more versatile and accessible than in previous versions thanks to the use of Extended Markup Language (XML).

Documents created in the new Office 2007, a public Beta 2 version of which was launched today, are distinguished by an ‘x’ at the end of the old three-letter suffix, for instance: .docx.

XML, a data description language related to the HTML used to describe web pages, allows files to contain new levels of information and its simple (in principle) tagging system is more readily understood than the obscurities of the old binary files.

These advantages will be lost on non-techie users, and Microsoft is steeling itself for complaints from people having to cope with new formats.

The company has been through this once before, in 1997, when there was uproar after people discovered old versions of Word could not read new documents formats.

This time, the company says, it has done everything possible to avoid confusion. Filters for reading the new formats will be downloaded automatically where possible to versions later than Office 97.

Office 2007 modules will save in legacy formats, but businesses may have to reply on people remembering to do so. And naïve users are likely to find the change difficult to cope with.

But Microsoft executives admit that there is bound to be some confusion, not least for people who do not have an always-on broadband connection, for whom downloading filters may be a big deal. Others may not have a connection at all.

Office 12 also contains a wealth of new and revamped collaboration features that could spread into general use from the enterprise environment… or not, considering that they include ideas that have been pushed for years by IBM-owned Lotus, which has failed to make them mainstream.

They revolve around what Microsoft called a workspace, a ghastly word meaning a kind of cross between a virtual office and a virtual meeting space. You can think of it as a room in which you can meet and share ideas and projects with colleagues or friends.

The new suite of software and services includes several approaches to this concept. One requires a stack of software including Microsoft Office Server and Sharepoint Server 2007, which creates a sophisticated web portal for content management, business information and collaboration. Features include allowing you to access you workspaces from anywhere via a browser.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates predicted today that Sharepoint will become as synonymous with collaboration as Powerpoint is with presentations.

Some of its functionality will be offered as part of Microsoft Office Live, a portal of web-based services targeted at smaller businesses.

A program called Groove, inspired by former Lotus Notes creator Ray Ozzie, who now works for Microsoft, offers a similar collaboration space using secure peer-to-peer links that can cross company firewalls.

It may appeal to mobile and home workers as it allows you to synchronise folders across a network or the Internet – something Microsoft says can avoid the need for Virtual Private Network (VPN) links.

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