PreviousMicrosoft Office 12 (beta 1)
Preview The next generation of the Microsoft Office system offers a new look and feel across its applications, with dynamic formatting tools and nimbler files.
Excel 12 (beta 1)
Preview This overhaul to Excel provides new charts to visually analyse complex data; its tools also respond to your behaviour.
PowerPoint 12 (beta 1)
Preview PowerPoint 12 reorganises its interface and dresses up presentations with a vast library of templates.
Word 12 (beta 1)
Preview The next generation of Word drops its menu-based interface in favour of a system that hopes to read your mind, adding jazzed-up graphics and shrinking file sizes.
Inside Outlook 12 (beta 1)
Photos Microsoft makes a few changes to its venerable email client.
Inside PowerPoint 12 (beta 1)
Photos PowerPoint gets enhanced graphics and a beefed-up library of templates to spice up presentations.
Inside Microsoft Office 12 (beta 1)
Photos The next release of Office reveals sweeping changes to the interface, graphics and tools within this productivity suite.
Inside Word 12 (beta 1)
Photos The next edition of Microsoft Word comes with pictures, too.
Outlook 12 (beta 1)
Preview Microsoft's desktop email client provides new skills for handling and sharing tasks, as well as a revamped search engine and built-in newsfeeds.
Inside Excel 12 (beta 1)
Photos Excel 12 is getting a drastic makeover, with XML-based files to boot.
The Search review
Review The Search, by Wired co-founder and Industry Standard publisher John Batelle, covers the history and future of the ubiquitous search box, from Altavista through Google's IPO and on to the prospects for Tim Berners-Lee's semantic Web.
8.0 Editors' Rating
Google Desktop 2 review
Review Google Desktop 2 does a mixed job of anticipating the content you want, but it provides a handy link to files, applications and frequently accessed Web sites; its search is powerful, too.
7.0 Editors' Rating
Wikipedia review
Review Wikipedia offers rich and frequently updated information, but you might need to verify some of its facts.
6.3 Editors' Rating
Blog! review
Review Five years from now, blogging will be such a commonplace tool that people will marvel we ever had to analyse how we might use it. For now, though, this book is a useful mine of ideas.
8.0 Editors' Rating
Alternatives to Microsoft Office
Buyer's Guide Corel's WordPerfect 12 and Sun's StarOffice 8 aren't the dominant productivity suite players, but they each bring strong qualities to the field, such as affordability and ease of use. But do they have what it takes to stand up to Microsoft Office? Also, find out what's in store for the next version of Office.
