Over the past month, we’ve had 2 companies approach us with the same problem. Their staff has mutinied and wants Office 2003 reinstalled! Run for your lives!

Well, maybe they don’t have pitchforks and torches, but the IT director is at least getting dirty looks. The tragic thing is that Office 2007 is great and all of that angst could have been avoided.

I think everyone would like to turn back the clock on a couple of inventions. Remember bill boards before LED lights, or baseball games without flashing advertisements between the pitches?

But Office 2007 is much better than 2003. It’s easier to use. It has more features. It is more secure. Microsoft has taken advice from thousands of users to redesign the entire suite to make it faster and friendlier.

Companies without good implementation strategies, however, have immense trouble with the new software. The user base will inevitably be slower and less productive for weeks after the installation. The Information Technology Help Desk will be inundated with phone calls and complaints. You might even have a mutiny on your hands.

But a good installation, with quality training, well thought out and planned will help the users feel supported and keep their productivity high.

Here are five reasons to switch to Office 2007.

1. The format paint brush – Copy formatting and paint it elsewhere in the same document. Genius.
2. The right click – Text formatting is now easily available without using submenus.
3. PowerPoint- Creating slide shows has drastically been improved.
4. Adding graphs in Excel is much simpler.
5. Office 2003 is no longer supported by Microsoft. Office 2007 is a train that everyone has to board.

For more help with Office 2007, please see our Office 2007 training page.