Microsoft Launches Office 2007 Service Pack 1

Much like Vista SP1, which is due in Q1, Office 2007 SP1 doesn't add a raft of new functions and features, but instead includes tweaks that improve the performance and stability of the software.

Microsoft last month revealed plans to release Office 2007 SP1 in Q1, and today's release suggests that Vista SP1's release could also happen earlier than expected.

On the client side, Microsoft has fixed a number of bugs that have been causing crashes in each of the major applications, said Reed Shaffner, product manager for Microsoft Office.

On the server side, Microsoft has beefed up Sharepoint Server 2007's indexing and searching capabilities and added support for Ajax running in the Windows Server 2008 environment, according to Shaffner.

Some solution providers have reported customer resistance to Office 2007 as a result of the major changes Microsoft made to the user interface, which is known as Office Fluent. But Shaffner disagrees with the notion that this has stalled adoption of Office 2007.

"We have a lot of data that shows Office 2007 is being received quite well once it has been adopted and deployed. And after the user has used it in their environment for a few weeks, productivity goes up," said Shaffner.

"There are custom solutions that allow you to go back to the Office 2003 user interface, but we're betting on the future of the new UI," added Shaffner.