Opening a New Microsoft Office 2013

If there is a more important set of applications to the channel than Microsoft Office, it's hard to imagine. Microsoft this week began previewing Microsoft Office 2013 that among other things includes tighter integration with cloud services such as Skype, Yammer and SkyDrive. Designed to run on Windows 7 and the forthcoming Windows 8 platforms, a new edition of touch-enabled Microsoft Office will be a critical component of Microsoft's bid to become relevant in the tablet computing wars. While it's not clear when Microsoft Office will ship or how much it will cost, there are a number of new features that solution providers might want to start getting customers excited about "tapping" into as soon as possible in order to start driving Windows upgrades starting late this year.

• Radial OneNote Menu

  

  Has been optimized for touch

• Lync Videoconferencing

  

  Integration with Microsoft Office will be much tighter

• Social Networking with SharePoint

  

  Document sharing via social networking

• Outlook People Card

  

  Multiple contacts are transparently joined into one view, reducing distracting duplicates and offering social context.

• Outlook Bing App

  

  Without ever leaving the Outlook window, address recognition in the Bing app for Outlook allows you to find where you're going.

• Word Start Screen

  

  The new Start experience includes templates and a list of your recently viewed documents so you can easily get back to where you were.

• Outlook Peeks

  

  Take a peek at your schedule, a specific appointment or details about the person you're emailing with, without moving screens or losing context

• PowerPoint Presenter View

  

  When presenting with a second screen (such as with a projector), behind-the-scenes tools provide more control.

• Excel Flash Fill

  

  Reformatting and rearranging data made easy. Excel learns and recognizes patterns to auto-complete remaining data with no formulas or macros required.

• Word PDF Reflow

  

  Word now opens PDFs and makes content, such as paragraphs, lists and tables, like any other Word document.

• Word Read Mode

  

  Easier reading as text reflows automatically in columns to fit the screen.