Microsoft Office 2010 includes slimmed-down versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote – under the term Office Web Apps.  The Office Web Apps is a good new feature and allows users to view, edit and share documents online.

Microsoft has also priced Office 2010 aggressively – you can download the basic Home and Student version, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, for $149 (£110 in the UK), or buy it loaded on a new PC for as little as $119 (£90).

There is just one big interface change in the latest version: the inclusion of the ribbon on Outlook, Microsoft’s e-mail, contact management and calendar desktop app, making it feel much more integrated into the Office suite. Office 2010 users can now customise the menu ribbon in all the desktop apps to assemble the commands they use most often – which should help satisfy critics who felt the ribbon lacked the simplicity of the old Office menu bar.

Overall, Office 2010 will feel familiar to anyone who uses Office 2007, and the version of the software available on Tuesday is very similar to the beta version, which was Microsoft’s most extensive software trial to date. More than 5.5m users downloaded the beta code, which expires in October. 

I like the new feature, the Backstage view, which includes several new options for creating, printing, saving and sharing a document as well as information about recent versions of the document and the “permissions” (who can do what) associated with it .

Outlook that has undergone the most dramatic – and long overdue – changes.

Some, such as the option to view all messages in an e-mail thread, rather than in purely chronological order, match those already available in Google’s Gmail. Others make it easier to manage, delete and organise messages (including deleting a whole e-mail thread), add new e-mail accounts and configure automatic “Out of Office” replies.

Overall, these changes transform Outlook from an ageing desktop e-mail app into a modern communications-management tool that can compete with the best of the rest, including applications such as Mozilla Thunderbird and Gmail.

With the launch, the UK will become the third country after the United States and Canada to receive a tailor-made version of Bing.

In the United States, where the full version of Bing has been available since June, the search engine has been steadily building market share, though it still trails the market leader Google by some distance. Bing’s approach to search is based on a more visual approach than that offered by its rivals. Searches for a major company will return not only a direct link to the site in question, but a precis of useful information from that site, including telephone numbers and even search boxes. Maps are also integrated into the search results, as is the ability to search Twitter feeds.

“Microsoft has so far spent $2 billion on rebuilding and rebranding its search effort, but it is unlikely ever to dominate the market in the same way as Google, one search expert told The Times. “The difference is that Google began as a search engine, producing results that people liked, whereas for Microsoft, it’s just another weapon in their armoury.”

The biggest challenge for Bing is breaking the Google habit.  Microsoft stated that “We’re not really in this for clever marketing. We want to build a relationship with people who use this tool for research. Once you treat it like that, Google starts to look really old-fashioned and clunky. If people use Bing to aggregate decisions about what to buy, that’s when we start to build relationships. We expect numbers to climb gradually over the next 12 months.”

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Microsoft’s move into the online office applications will put pressure on Google’s Docs service.  But apparently  those clever folk at Google won’t let Microsoft get its own way where its rumoured that Google have got a number of new interfaces and features planned for its Google Docs service.

Microsoft has also reduced the number of versions of Microsoft Office from eight to five.  There will be three versions of the software aimed at Home and Small-business users and a new Home and Business version that contains Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word.  For larger volume users, there will be Professional Plus, which contains every application and Standard, which includes Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Publisher.

The news is that Microsoft Office has never been so unified as it is now, where all its applications have virtually identical user interfaces.  Usability is improved and its future-proofed by building in video-editing tools into PowerPoint.  A common features in all the Microsoft Office applications work exactly the same way.

The biggest new feature common to all applications is the Backstage View, which replaces the File menu for basic tasks such as saving, printing, sending or sharing documents, and is accessed from a small Office Button at the top left-hand corner for all the Office applications.  When you click the Office Button, Backstage View fills the application’s window with a menu, with major options on the left, while the centre and right of the window show sub-options that depend on which option you choose.  An example of this is the Print section of the Backstage View combines the old Print dialog with the Print Preview display so you can visually look at your document abd alter setting such as duplex printing and which pages to print.  This works well…we like

The software section provides pratical advice on Software Features and functionality and includes articles such as….Windows 7 for laptops…Windows 7 Home….Anti virus software FAQ’s….Firewall buying guide….What is firewall software?….Benefits of Business Software?….Buying business software

Microsoft has said that Morrow, remember this is only the rumoured name, will offer protection against viruses, spyware, rootkits and Trojans.  The release of Morrow is seen as a strategic move by Microsoft against anti-virus providers  such as Symantec and McAfee who both generate billions of dollars each year with their anti-virus products.  McAfee and Symantec are said to make most of their revenue from full security suite software that features encryption, password protection, a firewall, parental controls and data backup features in addition to basic anti-virus protection functionality.

Apparently Symantec and McAfee have indicated that they don’t see Microsoft’s entry into the ant-virus market as a threat, but this seems a bit strange to me, Microsoft not a threat?  However, it is also rumoured that Morrow is said to be a basic product and and will not offer the same type of protection as Symantec and McAfee products.  We will wait to see what happens but it’s a very interesting development.

It’s expected that Windows 7 will become the dominant Operating System for Laptops and Netbooks.  As the processors that usually run netbooks are roughly equivalent in power to a typical processor found inside laptops bought five years ago.  It’s possible that your old Windows XP laptop will be able to run Windows 7  too.  So it’s expected that Windows 7 will become the dominant OS for Laptops.

Windows 7 removes the need to load up separate software when you’re connecting through mobile broadband.

With Windows 7, there is the option to connect a second screen or projector, where you simply attach it to your Windows 7 laptop and press <Windows-P>.  you’ll be offered four choices that can either click or cycle through using the cursor keys.

Microsoft has made much of the the multitouch features within Windows 7.  These range from the friendly taskbar buttons to the ability to zoom in and out.  If you are reading a web page this means that if you want to zoom in , you can put two fingers to the screen and move the section you want to zoom to apart, this functionality is similar to that offered by the iPhone.  It’s also possible to quickly bring up the right-click menu – press and hold until a circle animation appears and the menu will pop up.

The standby and hibernate mode on Windows 7 is also much improved.  By default, your laptop will go into sleep mode when you close the lid and within a second or two of being re-opened you should be greeted by your login screen.

Windows 7 offers improved battery life, by reducing background activities when on battery power and also by shutting off power to unused Ethernet ports.

Windows 7 also offers an enhanced ability to tweak your settings further.  Not only can you take control over basic settinggs such as how quickly the display switches off after a period of inactivity,  you can also xcreate your own power plan that controls how much power the system uses in different occassions.

The software section provides pratical advice on Software Features and functionality and includes articles such as….Windows 7 for laptops…Windows 7 Home….Anti virus software FAQ’s….Firewall buying guide….What is firewall software?….Benefits of Business Software?….Buying business software

The good news is that once you’ve set up a HomeGroup, it will show up on other Windows 7 PCs, but not XP or Vista machines, as being available to join in the Network and Sharing Centre.  Once you’ve joined up, an icon for the group appears in the left-hand pane of Explorer, containing default library categories that mirror those of local document libraries and you can add files and folders in the same way.  This feature is simple and user friendly.

HomeGroup also avaoids the hassle and need to install printer drivers on every machine in the home.  Once the printer has been installed on the first PC in the HomeGroup, the drivers are automatically installed on any subsequent Windows 7 PC that joins the network.

The document libraries in Windows 7  are in some ways an extension of the file shortcuts that have been around since Windows 95 – they allow you to organise files from different locations via a link, without the need for multiple copies of the file.  There are huge benefits to the use of libraries.  A large media collection o can be housed on an external hard disk, and doesn’t have to be tied to the system disk.  This makes organisation and backup easier.  You can also create as many custom libraries as you want.

Once you’ve associated two Windows 7 PCs with an online ID, you can sign in and stream media from your home PC across the internet to the other PC.  The second streaming option is to allow remote control of the Media Player.  Once that’s activated you can push media from one PC to another on the home network.  So if you have a PC connected to your hi-fi, you can push music from your laptop to it, instead of playing it through the laptop’s speakers.

There are plenty of backdrop images to choose from with Windows 7.  You get six themes by default, Architecture, Characters, Landscapes, Nature, Scenes and a local theme for the UK, which gives you views of heritage sites such as Stone Henge.  The themes seem to be much improved than the equivalents on Vista.  There’s also a good desktop background sideshow option with a configurable time delay.

Windows 7 is heavily based on Vista, so if a program fails to install and run, a dialog box pops up automatically and offers to try and run it in a special compatibility mode.  The Program Compatibility wizard then starts up and attempts to identify problems automatically.  Windows 7 will then try to launch the application in an environment resembling close to an old Operating System as possible.  If it doesn’t work it offers to try again, giving you the chance to simulate a different operating system.

Depending on which software packages you choose there will be significant benefits to implementing small business software packages.

These benefits will include:

• Reduced employee hours working on routine and complicated daily tasks
• Easy integration with other office computers. Easy bank reconciliation processes
• Easy manipulation of data using different formats such as Charts, Graphs and Tables
• Accurate and easy reports on a variety of different business areas such as VAT, tax, clients and profits
• Cost effective and time saving.

The software section provides pratical advice on Software Features and functionality and includes articles such as….Windows 7 for laptops…Windows 7 Home….Anti virus software FAQ’s….Firewall buying guide….What is firewall software?….Benefits of Business Software?….Buying business software

There are two kinds of office suite on the market; one aimed at professionals and the other designed for home users. They make producing a smart, professional looking document with the minimum amount of fuss easy. They allow you to create Presentations, Spreadsheet and allow you to word process letters and memos. Save time, stay organized, and focus efforts on sales, marketing, and customers Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 is a powerful and easy-to-use suite of productivity and contact management software with new tools to help you save time, stay organized, and deliver better customer service. Easily manage your prospect and customer information in one place. Microsoft Store: Buy Office Small Business here