Today Microsoft announced Office 2013 and made its consumer preview available for those on Windows 7 and Windows 7 Release Preview. Windows XP and Windows Vista will not have access to this preview, as Microsoft is dropping support for these operating systems. This is to be expected for users of the old operating system, as several improvements have been made including touch controls and cloud support.
The consumer preview is currently available at Office 365 for those who are interested in testing it. This modern version is designed with cloud connectivity in mind and will work across Windows 8 tablets, laptops, and desktops. To support this, Microsoft is introducing an on-demand subscription version of Office 2013 that can be streamed to any PC with sync settings available for all documents. This is in direct competition with Apple and Google, as both offer cloud services that have been in place and used for some time now.
Microsoft has shown off several features of its new Office suite, but one of the most interesting shown in the demo today is the radial menu for touch based editing. It allows for quick access to all controls anyone needs for document editing, including text size, bold, italics, colors, and others. The touch menu is hidden until you need it and with just a tap, you can bring it up to find all of the changes you need to make. The fact that Microsoft has given your documents more screen real estate is very nice.
Another neat feature for Outlook is the ability to create extensions that function within the app. For example, an extension that features Bing maps can be installed that will scan emails for addresses and will bring up directions to the address when prompted. This is on par with what Gmail already does, so this is once again Microsoft attempting to play catch up with what is already available on the market.
Skype is also now integrated into Office, so any contacts in your Outlook can be accessed directly through Skype from the Outlook application. This is the first step of many Microsoft is finally taking to integrate Skype into its products and services.
If you’re interested in trying out these changes and many more across the new Office suite, head to Office 365 and let us know what yo think.