Office 15 News (NOT Office 2010)

Posted: 09 Jun 2010 12:27 PM PDT

New information regarding Microsoft Office has surfaced and I do not mean 
Office 2010. Stephen Chapman notes on his site, msftkitchen.com, things he’s 
been able to unearth by doing extensive research on the next version of 
Microsoft’s popular productivity suite. If you visit his post you can read 
in full detail his thoughts, sources and proof for many of these details, 
but I’ll quickly summarize that list here:

First of all, the codename is undoubtedly ‘Office 15’ (very creative).

Release is expected to be 2013.

It’s possible the ribbon UI might be removed or dramatically different.

It appears that, based on Microsoft job postings, there may be new features 
and changes to Office Mobile 15.

Outlook, Access, SharePoint and Excel 15 planning has been in motion based 
on the following job post:

    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.

Based on a Microsoft employee’s LinkedIn profile, there may be a ‘major new 
feature’ included in Excel 15.

    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

Based on Microsoft Word Program Manager, Jonathon Bailor, Word 15 will take 
“Collaboration and Communication to the Next Level Using Coauthoring.”

There is definitely more to the story, so visit here to read up on the next 
version of Office. Note that Stephen has done his research on the subject, 
but it is quite a long time until a 2013 release, so many of this could be 
speculation and if it is true, it could definitely change before then. I 
would speculate that because Microsoft seems to be moving ever-so-slowly 
toward the Zune-Metro Interface, the potentially new Office UI could be 
following that direction as well. We’ll also undoubtedly gleen more insight 
based on the UI of future Windows 8 betas.