TechLahore

Wanna use Microsoft Office on the web? Ok. But you can only use half your screen to see the stuff you care about. The other half will be eaten up by our GINORMOUS new menu.

Microsoft’s been talking about their plans to release a web version of Office for a while now. They obviously weren’t too hot on the concept of browser enabling one of their core revenue earners because it could potentially de-link Office from Windows on stock x86 machines. But, ultimately, it became clear that the only choice they had was either to cede the web based productivity app market to the likes of Zoho and Google, or to wet their toes and see how things shape out.

Of course, they still aren’t quite web enabling Office in earnest; there are enough serious limitations that, frankly, you would want to continue using the desktop version for pretty much everything other than viewing documents. But that’s to be expected. Microsoft is taking the position that Cloud based offerings are extensions to the desktop app, not a replacement for it. Something to be said for that…

But here’s the thing that gets to me. And yes, I will confess it may sound like wee little trifling of an issue in contrast to all the Cloud “strategery” we just walked through. Yet, it’s bugging me enough to want to point it out. So here I go…

Why the heck are screen snapshots of Office 10 running in a browser showing literally the entire top half of the screen consumed by the ribbon, title bars and various and sundry menus? That’s just ludicrous! Those of you who remember Lotus 1-2-3 or its daddy, VisiCalc, will recall that back in those good ole days, the entire screen was devoted to the spreadsheet itself. Menus and help appeared only when needed. And here we’ve come 180 degrees from that philosophy and decided that a good use of half the screen is to splatter it silly with a ginormous menu.

And then you wonder why people need eight monitors on their desktop…

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