bit-tech Shopping: Microsoft Office 2007 Small Business

• E-mail/Contact Manager
• Presentation
• Publishing/Marketing
• Spreadsheet
• Word Processor

Rating: 6

Time with product: 1 Week

Strengths: Looks great and has some nice new features. Outlook 2007 with Contact Manager is a plus. Absolutley no problems with installation.

Weaknesses: A headache locating familiar features and functions. Takes some time to learn and get used to new User Interface. More overhead.

Summary: Office 2007 looks nice. The Outlook and PowerPoint is amazing and is filled with new features. The Word interface has changed a lot since Office 2003 as it requires you to learn its controls all over again. The Excel and word have a nice new feature where you can type in the numbers for a chart, and the chart appears in word. Thats very handy if you need to make a presentation. Overall Office 2007 is a good 'all in one' office tool and is a good upgrade if you have the time and patience to learn the new interface! My reccommendation is keep 2003 for as long as you can.

Rating: 4

Time with product: 30 Days

Strengths: When you highlight text and go to change the font, you'll be given a preview of that text with that font without actually having to apply it.

Weaknesses: Too graphics and image heavy, Office 2003 was much better. 2007 is not as organized and more difficult to personalize

Summary: I'm not a fan of the new wave of Microsoft software including Vista and now Office 2007. I only purchased 2007 because Vista, ridiculous that it is, is virtually incompatible with everything old. Office 2007 is only worth it for those who have Vista, otherwise it's a waste of money. It's memory and graphics heavy and not as neatly organized. It also has an annoying habit of inserting an extra space between each paragraph which I've put into the default settings not to do many times over but nevertheless, it continues to do it. There are other ways to remedy this but I'm still annoyed by it. Overall, waste of money unless you have Vista.