No Microsoft Office 13?

The latest version of Microsoft Office is 2007, but its version number is really 12. Microsoft has no plans on releasing the version 13. Find out why on this post.


Microsoft Will Not Release Office 13


The latest version of Microsoft Office is 2007, since it was released that year. But 2007 is not its real version - application versions are replaced usually by something, in this case the year it was released, to make it more appealing. Do you know Windows 5? Windows 5 is really Windows XP; Windows 6 is Vista, and a rumor is going around regarding Windows 7. Instead of releasing 'Windows 5.1', Microsoft dubbed it with XP - it's less geeky and more professional sounding.

You might have heard this before, but Microsoft Office 2007's version is really 12, and sometimes the suite is known as Office 12 (especially for those technical people and geeks). The beta version of Office 2007 is known only as Office 12.

Microsoft Office 2007 featured a new interface called the Ribbon, or the Fluent interface. It grouped the commands into logical tabs to make work easier and faster. The menu bar was also stripped, and taking its place is the Office button that sits on the top-left corner of the window. It contains commands such as Open, Save, Print, and Close.

The newest version also includes SmartArt, that automates the process of creating diagrams; the new contextual spelling checker, that flags correctly spelled words but incorrectly used in context (such as there are tree roses in the pot); the Mini toolbar, dubbed Floatie in beta versions, and Live Preview that shows the effect by just hovering the mouse.

Successful the Office Suite may be, Microsoft has announced that they are not going to release the Office 13 version. This statement is from Jensen Harris, the Group Program Manager for Microsoft's Office User Experience Team and the man behind the radical ribbon interface of Office 2007.

Don't despair - Microsoft is not really cancelling the whole Office suite business - too much money is at stake. No. The company is merely skipping the 'unlucky' version 13. Harris said that the number 13"is an unlucky number so we're going to skip Office 13 and call the next one Office 14"

"Our job isn't done here (with Office 2007), we still have some tricks up out sleeve" according to Harris, who says the team is "in the early stages of planning the next version of Office."

"We're currently immersed in that early and very creative part of the product cycle. We're looking at the customer feedback that we're starting to get from real people going to the store and buying Office 2007, and also from our corporate customers, and also just thinking about what problems we have left in the user experience."

Inconsistencies still exist on the Office 2007, such as the ribbon. Present in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, the ribbon is not used in Publisher, and the main window of Outlook.

Harris said that "it's fair to say that we're going to evaluate every single program in Office and see whether (Fluent) makes sense or not, and whether it's the right step for that program to take. But undoubtedly we'll see more of the Fluent UI in Office in the future, and maybe even elsewhere at Microsoft."

As of now, it's too early to say what features are going to be thrown to the Office 14, although speaking at last year's Software 2006 conflab, Microsoft corporate vice president Simon Witts spoke of Office 14 focusing on "role-based productivity."

Its really something when a multi-billion-dollar corporation, built on the numbers zero and one, is still forced to pander to beliefs about "unlucky" number.

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