Office 2003 verses Office 2007 - Some interesting comparisons
I use the Office 2003 family of products extensively, (e.g., including Project, Visio, Front Page, etc.). While I've been interested in Office 2007, I've not had an opportunity to test it for myself yet. In the Excel forums, a user asked about Excel 2007 based on the chart below. I'm sharing the total response to point out that folks should not use just one article to either buy or refrain from software upgrades. They should instead review many evaluations, examine whether there are true benefits in moving to the next product, and most importantly test it before deciding if there are business benefits.
quote:
ORIGINAL POST: I have read some information that really scares me. It seems that Excel 2003 is still superior to Excel 2007. The comparison table is here:
http://www.add-ins.com/Excel%202003%20versus%202007.htm
What do you think about it?
quote:
REPLY: Hi - First of all thanks for sharing, as I found some of the comparisons informative 
Some brief comments:
1. While much of this appears and may be accurate, I'd suggest not using just one article (or a 1 page chart in this case) to evaluate a product. Maybe some of the reviews found in this quick search might offer differing opinions. I've certainly read some positive reviews also. I'd suggest searching PC Magazine, PC World, ZDnet, CNET, and other sites for a more comprehensive reivew than just a 1 page generalized chart. These links might help in your research:
Google
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=excel+2007+review
PC Magazine - Evaluation of Office 2007
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2052255,00.asp
PC World - Top 20 products of 2006
Office 2007 receives receives most innovative product of year award
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128176-page,1-c,electronics/article.html
PC World - Evaluation of Office 2007
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128266/article.html
PC World - Evaluation of each product in Office 2007
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,127919/article.html
2. The vendor which did the comparison is selling add-in products which may be helpful. Still, they may even be selling something that Office 2007 now covers? I think many of their factual comments are okay, but when they use terms like "some users report ..." I'm not certain if it's one, dozens, hundreds, etc. Their product may even work with Office 2007 and I'm not suspecting a hidden agenda either. Still much of the review is slanted with no positive aspects for Office 2007 at all -- and thus that raises suspicions.
3. Personally, I'm most likely to stay with Office 2003 Pro for a while at work. As an IT professional, I need to be compatible with the rest of my company (even though you can save to older formats in Office 2007). Still, on the other hand, if I could switch to Office 2007 I'd jump at the opportunity. I'd probably do so just for the learning experience and based on favorable reviews I've read elsewhere (even though I know I could get by with Office 2003).
4. As I've shared in Point #3, a company should perform due diligence in certification testing of their more complex Excel applications, so that they have assurances of compatibility with VBA or macro based code. If there are no driving business reasons to move to Office 2007, then they should enjoy at least a few more years of good support under Office 2003.
5. Companies definitely need to move away from O/2000 and Office XP as these older versions are either no longer supported or near end-of-life. I'd recommend folks moving to at least Office 2003 as their standard Microsoft based Office suite