Peter Griffin: Changing vistas for software giant

With the amount of attention devoted to each new web-based service made available by Google, you'd be forgiven for thinking that software giant Microsoft hasn't been particularly innovative over the past couple of years.

Microsoft has certainly learnt a thing or two from its nimble rivals, and that's been reflected in its new products. Internet Explorer 7 borrows some of the better features of rival browser Firefox. The Windows Live platform, which will integrate closely with Microsoft's new operating system, Windows Vista, was built with the Google's web-based services model in mind. But with Vista's launch scheduled for January, Microsoft is playing its hand, using Google's model of delivering all its products to customers as early test versions and tweaking the software based on user feedback.

Early versions of Vista and Windows Live are already available. I've been using Office 2007 beta version 2 for a couple of weeks and am getting comfortable with its new look and features. Office has been revamped to work best with Vista, but you'll be able to use Office 2007 on Windows XP.

To run it you'll need to have Windows XP installed with service pack 2 (the latter is a free download from Microsoft's website), a computer with a 500MHz processor, 256MB of memory and 2GB of hard drive space. That's not too onerous, though you'll want a gruntier system to run Vista.

You'll find old favourites Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Access, and the big difference across all of them is the look. The software is easier on the eye and defined by a new menu navigation system called the ribbon. The old Office menu headings, such as File, Edit and View, have been replaced with the likes of Home, Insert and Page layout. Clicking on the headings brings up tabbed options, so you don't have to search through as many menus to get the tool you need. While this means a fatter bar at the top of the page, it's an easier way of using Office tools.

A very useful addition is Office Groove, an application which came out of Microsoft's acquisition last year of Groove Networks. It gives you a messaging pane alongside documents so you can work collaboratively on documents with other users on a local network or via the internet. Several people can access the same document, make changes and discuss these, and hold online chat meetings, and audio and video conferences.

You can now also save files in PDF format. Microsoft has updated its file formats to be based on the Open XML standard, which means new file extensions such as .docx in stead of the familiar .doc.

Excel's engine has been improved to allow for more elaborate charts. I rarely use Excel, but I can see the benefits for business users.

From what I've seen, Office 2007 will be worth the upgrade. Microsoft is certainly moving to a place where the web is integral to all its products, adding a huge amount of flexibility for us Windows users. Roll on the release of Office and Vista, and hopefully more enjoyable computing.