Microsoft Office 14 delayed for one year — hope deferred breaketh not the heart

Microsoft Office 14 is going to be late. How late depends on who you listen to but some suggestions are as late as the second half of 2010. The Microsoft Business Division is responsible for about 29 percent of that company’s revenue and 90 percent of that contribution comes from the sale of Microsoft Office-branded products, including its principal applications suite.

As this is written there is no debate that it is the world’s dominant platform for everyday document production and management and there is nothing that comes near it. Almost every other attempt is high farce.

If you take on an employee in a major business it is a given that if they can use a computer they can use Microsoft Office in one of its forms.

Yes, there may be a short break-in period (some people prefer %, others per cent) while the individual eccentricities are learned but the underlying skills are normally all there.

So will the current programs sail past this delay without it having a major effect on the Microsoft business?

Sure.

Carmi Levy, independent contributing analyst to Betanews, said, “Any delay in updates to any of Microsoft’s cash cows is scary news both for the company and for entire industries that base their business roadmaps on Microsoft’s operating system and productivity software timetable.”

But Windows 7 is about to take the nasty taste of Vista from our mouths. Because of the accelerated timetable for Windows 7 development, the problems with Vista are almost passed.

In a year, people will have difficulty remembering its name.

So Win7 and Office 14 are not going to be released as a pair of inseparable twins. It matters not, for at a time when the world’s economy is at its worst state in decades no one is going to take a risk on teaching all of its staff a new business system. Win7 and Office 14 will work quite happily together and Microsoft will have another major launch, say, a year on.

Win7 has to go it alone. It cannot afford any delay. It is the principal operating system and it is taking the place of an operating system, Vista, which could hardly be called the jewel in the crown.

Directions on Microsoft analyst Rob Helm said, “I think a lot of organizations will want to wait for both products to be out so that they can design a new desktop image around both and deploy it in a single operation. However, I don’t think this will lead Microsoft to delay Windows 7 — it’s important to get Vista behind it as soon as possible. Furthermore, some organizations on Windows XP will be impatient to get off of that version, because support is being retired and some valuable Windows Server features won’t work with Windows XP.

“If anything lets the air out of the Windows 7 launch, it will be the world economic situation, which is making both organizations and individuals question whether they really need new PCs. Office 14 arriving a quarter or two later will have a minor effect by comparison.”

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