The new Microsoft Office 2010 productivity suite, released in June, includes a broad selection of new and upgraded features. Primarily targeted at the business market, the updated version includes new ways to create, enhance, and co-author documents in PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and OneNote, connect with contacts and keep track of events in Outlook, and deliver presentations using the Web. Improvements to the core environment, such as the new Backstage View and additional file format support, round out the suite’s new features.
The important additions for virtual hosting customers are the revised user interface and improvements to Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Professional Plus users will benefit from improved SharePoint integration and additional Outlook features.
Integration with social networks, including LinkedIn and SharePoint, are included in the new version of Outlook, with Facebook coming soon. The Outlook Social Connector imports social network data into your contact list, displaying the online activity of business associates and friends. If e-mail recipients or meeting attendees have recently blogged on a subject or posted a link that’s important to users on Facebook or SharePoint, users will be able to access that information right away. In addition, advanced e-mail management and calendar features make planning easier than ever.
Word offers an array of improved editing and picture tools, including picture correction, background removal, picture layout options, and artistic effects.
Word 2010 also supports concurrent editing by multiple users for .docx files located on SharePoint Server 2010 or a cobalt-enabled server. Collaboration features include automatic highlighting of new material, color-coded author bar with initials, version support, and near real-time synchronization speeds.
An Interesting new feature to PowerPoint is its remote slideshow capability. This enables users to present a slideshow over the Web or a network connection to virtual and live attendees simultaneously. Broadcast Slideshow allows users to present sales material one-on-one to a potential client, or offer an educational seminar to employees located remotely.
Simultaneous editing enables users to create presentations in collaboration with a team, or from a home or office without closing the document. Features include automatically highlighted new content; color-coded author bar with initials; version support; and faster synchronization, enabling changes to be displayed in near real-time.
New features in PowerPoint also include video and audio editing, new photo effects, and help and translation tools.
Many of the improvements to Excel will apply to business intelligence users. The new Excel features are as follows. Sparklines: cell-sized, information-dense graphics used to increase reader comprehension by showing trends in a series of values. Slicers: visual controls that allow users to quickly and easily filter data in an interactive way, floating above the grid and acting as report filters, hooking to PivotTables, PivotCharts, or CUBE functions. PowerPivot: a data analysis add-in that allows users to quickly model and analyze large amounts of data.
Excel also offers additional macro support. This includes recording support for chart elements and the ability to complete migration of Excel macros to VBA, while retaining the ability to create, edit, and execute Excel 4 macros.
In addition, Excel can now solve computationally intensive problems using multiple computers by offloading the evaluation of certain user-defined functions to a compatible High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster.
OneNote, Microsoft Office’s notebook application, allows users to create notebook files at work, home, or on the road. OneNote changes include the ability to create Outlook tasks, add links to create wiki-style notebooks, support for math equations, translation support, the ability to dock the application, and an improved search.
OneNote can sync to Windows Live, providing instant access from any location. Using the new Web app, users can update notebooks using a limited version of OneNote from a Web browser. A compact version of OneNote is also available on a Windows Mobile-based smartphone.
Additionally, OneNote supports simultaneous editing, versioning, and collaboration features.
Microsoft Office 2010 includes new and updated file format support, containing Office Open XML (OOXML), ISO/IEC 29500:2008; support for ECMA-376, ISO/IEC 29500, and OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.1.
The online companions to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote enable users to perform lightweight editing of Office documents when away from the desktop. Web apps preserve the look and feel of Office documents, but provide limited functionality. An appropriate device and supported browser are required. Some functions may require Office Mobile 2010.
With a Virtual Terminal Server, Infinitely Virtual provides a choice of Microsoft Office 2010 Standard or Professional Plus. Both services offer Word, Excel, Publisher, OneNote, PowerPoint and Excel, and Outlook. Professional Plus users also get SharePoint Workspace, Communicator, Access, and InfoPath, in addition to full access to information management and policy capabilities, business and social networking, unified instant messaging, presence and voice, integrated enterprise content management, and managed e-mail folders.
To learn more about Virtual Terminal Server and Microsoft Office 2010 and how they can help keep your business connected to customers and co-workers, contact Infinitely Virtual at (866) 257-8455 or go to www.InfinitelyVirtual.com. We can show you how Virtual Terminal Server and its options can increase your company’s productivity while saving you money.
