Learning Ecosystems

Sneak peek: Office for Mac 2011 — from fortune.cnn.com by Philip Elmer-DeWitt

Here are the highlights:

• Collaboration. There’s heavy emphasis on co-authoring, with new feature that allow two or more users to work simultaneously on the same document without screwing each other up. In Word, for example, you can edit one paragraph while a collaborator is editing the next. The names of active collaborators appear on the bottom of the screen; you can click on them to send IMs or e-mails.
• Compatibility. “This is the most compatible version yet shipped,” claimed senior marketing manager Amanda Lefebvre, although the apps haven’t actually shipped and apparently aren’t ready to be demoed. The emphasis, however, seems to be on compatibility with the Windows versions of Office. (The current Windows edition is called Office 2007; the new version, Office 2010, is in beta and is scheduled to be released before the end of June.)
• Cloud computing. Microsoft’s new Mac suite is designed to work smoothly with the company’s Google-like Web Apps, its cloud storage service SkyDrive (formally Windows Live Folders) and its SharePoint enterprise servers.
• There’s a new “ribbon” across the top of each application that puts a lot of familiar looking icons in easy reach. It also takes up a lot of screen real-estate, but it can be turned off with a click.