Some of you might have seen this in the forums- The Office NGO flash preview. Well Paul Thurott has published a nice article about it, and clips of the flash presentation- well worth a read.
Is Office NGO really the next version of Office?
A number of readers alerted me this week to a fascinating Shockwave animation that purports to demonstrate some of the online/subscription features of the next version of Microsoft Office, which will be called Office .NET. Code-named Office NGO ("Next Generation Office") in the animation, this Office version will include links to a number of of online services, including a secure My Office Web site; a consolidated email account with Web-based Inbox; Office .NET Notifications; online scheduling with a sharable calendar; Meeting Workspaces for viewing agendas, pending tasks, and related documents, SharePoint Team Services-based Team Workspace for sharing information with team members; and a set of online content such as templates, online training, communities, and the like.
So is it real? Is Office NGO really a sneak-peak at Office .NET? It"s hard to say, and though some UI inconsistencies have me thinking that this is an April Fools prank, I will say this: If it is fake, it"s the most elaborate fake I"ve ever seen. Let"s take a look.
The Office NGO animation
Here is a complete run-down of the demonstration animation. For the most part, a voiceover simply reads the text that is presented onscreen, but in cases where this isn"t the case, I note what"s being said underneath individual images.