Hi All – I was at the Microsoft Technical Preview Press Event this morning to participate in a panel discussion with members of the press. Session was hosted by Jason Brommet and the good folks at High Road communications.

ITWorld Canada picked up the event and some of the partner discussion:

http://www.itworldcanada.com/a/Daily-News/f83346b9-5007-43c5-b3f0-cd10ccd5b45d.html

Here were a few quick hits on stuff that jumped out at me that I’m going to really enjoy in the new version.

  1. Outlook
    1. Convert voicemail to text (when hooked up to exchange)
    2. You can mark a given conversation thread to ignore further updates
    3. When you receive invites, body of message includes a calendar preview
    4. Mouse-over emails/presence jelly-beans pops up a little contact-preview
    5. New pane listing recent contacts you’ve interacted with (quick click to IM or email)
    6. Quick-steps – kind of like a section on the ribbon where you can stick in some canned/customized macros – e.g. Reply with Invite – takes an email you’re on and creates invite with all the people on the email as invitees. Nice!
  2. PowerPoint
    • video as “first class citizen” – basic video editing and effects tools built right in
    • more powerful image editing
    • Record your PowerPoint presentation without having to go out to a 3rd party tool like Camtasia
    • You can broadcast your presentation (pops up a provider list, including Windows Live for individual consumer audience)
  3. Excel
    1. Sparklines looks interesting – visualization/charting right inside a spreadsheet cell – may seem small, but when you’re pouring over volumes of data, the ability to visually highlight key points so person consuming the information can spot it quickly is really valuable
    2. Slicers – ability to surface up your data filters on table or pivot tables as a little persistent dialog/window and see what filters have been applied, apply new ones, deselect.
  4. Word
    1. Backstage (across all apps) – surfaces lots of great doc properties/tools – e.g. integrates print dialog with print-preview
    2. Ability to minimize the ribbon

You can see more screenshot info here: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/2010office/imageGallery.aspx 

Looking forward to seeing many of the other good stuff coming down the pipe including the web versions - “Office Anywhere” later this summer and the SharePoint side of Office 14 in the fall.