Message #70204

[Cathy S]

In general I think new versions on a regular basis are a good thing but from a corporate point of view it can become a costly exercise in rolling out new versions and retraining staff.  It is very easy to be tempted to have the new shiny version without carefully evaluating the benefits of it.

For example the Excel video shows some interesting looking features but if I am honest they would almost certainly not work for the data I need to use - so yes it would be fun to play but a waste of the organisation's money if they wanted to buy the new software to gain business advantage.  The version we have will do what we need and more, but that will vary in different commercial sectors I am sure.

On my own computer, I never upgrade to a new software version for a minimum of 6 months after release because that is the time it takes to iron out the major bugs.  Our organisation is unlikely to upgrade for several years, partly due to the time taken to roll out across the business and partly becasue our Microsoft Office interfaces with so many other systems it is not just a matter of deploying new Office ...