I’m not a huge Office user myself since my switch to Mac and discovering iWork. Pages and Keynote are very clean and allow me to create beautiful content quickly and easily. However, I can’t ignore the fact that the vast majority of the world operates around Microsoft Office. So, with a new Mac version to debut sometime later this year, labeled Mac Office 2008 (the last version was 2004), I thought I would talk a bit about it.

First, I have played around with the new interface in Office 12 Beta, for PC. I was unsure up until MacWorld as to the direction the Mac BU at Microsoft would take as far as to interface design and a feature set for the next version, beyond the fact that it should finally be a Universal application. MacWorld cleared a lot of stuff up this week as there are now screenshots available of the Mac Office 2008. Looks like the Mac BU has borrowed heavily from the Office 12 “Ribbon” interface design, and I’m not sure that I like it just yet.

When using Office 12 Beta for PC, the interface still needed a lot of refinement and more consideration. It does present a large learning curve for most users and required a lot of my attention to get tasks accomplished, because of the revamped interface. That is not the way software should be. Just because the interface changes from something familiar, it should only change to get better and more intuitive, not to cause more confusion.

The Mac version, from what I can tell from the few screenshots posted online, seems to be decently implemented from the PC version, but I don’t believe there is anything to make me switch back to Office anytime soon.

So, do you think that the new “Ribbon” interface will revolutionize Office for millions of users, or will create lots of headaches and is a bad move? Leave your thoughts below, I’m interested to see other people’s opinions on this.

Office 2008 Screenshots