MicrosofT recently held an event to announce the latest version of Microsoft Office that is due to be released later this year after the release of the upcoming Windows 8 operating system in October.
Early signs suggest that it relies heavily upon Office 365, which is Microsoft's online service. SkyDrive cloud service integration will allow easy sharing and collaborating of documents between users and groups.
With touch screen support it has been designed to work with Windows 8 and tablet computers such as Microsoft's upcoming tablet "surface". Microsoft states that you can "use a stylus to create content, take notes and access features, handwrite email responses and convert them automatically to text."
Time will tell if Apple's iOS will be supported or if Microsoft will make iPad users wait longer.
Since Microsoft acquired Skype, we will now see Skype integrated into new product lines including the new Office applications.
According to blog sites, the verge one of the most noticeable things will be that Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems will not be supported meaning that users will have to make the upgrade to Windows 8 if they wish to use the latest version of Office. The 10-year-old Windows XP operating system is still popular today so this may frustrate some customers. A customer preview of the new Microsoft Office is available at www.office.com/preview.
* James Trusler is a director of Foneology. For queries or suggestions, please email fijitechchat@gmail.com.