Microsoft’s next Office has screenshots ‘in the wild’

Microsoft has recently reached the stage of Technical Preview with it’s next Office suite, currently known as Office 15, thus allowing various third parties to test Microsoft’s pre-beta code. With a number of businesses, partners and OEMs getting early copies, some people were so excited (or disappointed, who knows) that they went ahead and showed The Verge a couple of screenshots.

Unsurprisingly the next Office runs as standard on Windows 7 and 8 with the ribbon interface that was introduced back with Office 2007 undergoing another change. With Windows 8 being the first product to feature the Metro interface, Office 15 is being adaptive to the same interface. The ribbon will be collapsed by default while things such as the gradients, panels and dividing lines, commonly used previously, will be mostly removed. This move is mainly to follow the Metro philosophy of a less cluttered and cleaner experience.

Another feature being implemented is the ability to publish, or broadcast, documents online. Similar to the “Broadcast Slide Show” found in Powerpoint 2010, this time around it will be referred to as “Present Online”. This functionality will be tied in with Windows Live for the broadcasting of documents.

Even though it looks ready, Office 15 does have one long way to go before release, a public beta is due in the summer when most functionalities are expected to be implemented. The new interface, even though quite similar to Office 2010, does present some good features when it will come to integration with the Metro UI.

Source: Vr-Zone; Images courtesy of The Verge