$499.00
-
Pros
Ribbon interface in all apps enhances consistency and usability. New Backstage menu makes file-management and printing options easy. Superb graphic tools include video editing and image enhancement. 64-bit version allows huge data sets in Excel. Lightweight Office Web Apps (not yet tested) will allow editing in a browser.
-
Cons
Intrusive Word auto formatting. Word still doesn't store printing options. No upgrade pricing. Outlook still can't print just one page of an e-mail. Crashes during our testing suggest possible stability issues.
-
Bottom Line
Office 2010 is a dazzlingly attractive upgrade, but probably essential only for enterprise customers who need the new collaboration features.
Microsoft has put the final touches on Office 2010, and corporate customers can either buy it via resellers or download a 60-day free trial (via TechNet) as of May 12 (the boxed, retail versions hit shelves in June). As with many revisions of popular applications, one vital question must be asked: Do you need the new version? If you're a home or small-business user of Office 2007 ($399.95 direct, 
), the answer is: probably not. Our Office 2010 review shows that the latest version packs in enough new conveniences and performance tweaks that you'll probably at least want Office 2010—something that hasn't been true of every Office upgrade.
Three categories of users should regard Office 2010 as an essential upgrade: anyone who creates graphically rich documents and presentations; anyone who buys software for a whole corporation (especially if that business relies on collaboration and sharing tools); and anyone in need of the new 64-bit compatibility which enables users to create worksheets even more humongous than 32-bit Excel's 2GB limit.
View All
Pricing
I looked at the $499.99 Professional edition of Office 2010, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, Access, and OneNote. Home and small-business users will be most interested in the $279.99 Office Home and Business edition of Office 2010 (which omits Publisher and Access), and the $149.99 Office Home and Student (which omits Publisher, Access, and Outlook) version. Other, higher-priced editions for corporate and enterprise use include tools for working with SharePoint servers and other collaboration tools.
For the first time, Microsoft doesn't offer upgrade pricing on any Office edition; you'll need to buy either a full copy or a "Product Key Card" which gives an activation key (no DVD or packaging) used to unlock a trial version of Office 2010. Product Key Cards have street prices typically about two-thirds the price of the boxed versions. That's not to say there are no free upgrades; if you bought Office 2007 on or after March 5, 2010, you qualify for a free upgrade to Office 2010.
Of course, you don't have to pay at all for Office-like functionality. Open-source darling OpenOffice.org works pretty much like Office 2010, and it's free. Sadly, however, it's got a clunky interface and generally lacks the polish of the last couple revisions of Microsoft Office. If you're not a power user who does tons of formatting of word docs and don't tend to put a serious strain on Excel, you might consider Google Docs (Free, 
), which is free for personal use and still pretty cheap for business. Of course, free is a relative term; some businesses might find that the process of making the switch can be costly in terms of disruptions of workflow during the transfer. And then there's the issue of keeping your documents in the cloud, which isn't for everyone.
Enhanced (Not Transformed) Interface
Unlike Office 2007, which introduced a brand-new Ribbon interface that proved controversial among consumers, 2010 lacks a steep learning curve. By now, users who took the 2007 plunge feel at home with the Ribbon. Office 2010 improves on the Ribbon by adding an option to create custom tabs that contain only the tools you use most often. It's still not perfect, because Microsoft only lets you choose from a small set of built-in icons for commands that you add to the ribbon—ancient pre-Ribbon versions of Office let you choose your own icons when you added commands to a toolbar. I am, however, grateful for the option to export my Ribbon customizations, so that I can import them on other systems without building them again from scratch.
In Office 2007, few users discovered they could hide the ribbon by clicking in it, or pressing Ctrl-F1. The Office 2010 ribbon sports an arrow icon that reminds you to click on it to turn the ribbon on or off. As in the 2007 version, if you tap the Alt key in 2010, the Ribbon displays little boxed letters you can type to perform tasks entirely from the keyboard. I was impressed to see that Microsoft added new keyboard shortcuts to perform tasks that required the mouse in 2007. Some features, however, such as paragraph styles, still require too much mousing.—Next: Office 2010's Backstage View
