LOS ANGELES - The next version of Microsoft Corp.'s Office software will feature simpler graphics and try to anticipate users' tasks as the company hopes to make the product easier to use, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Tuesday.
Microsoft hopes the new features will entice users who have found it unwieldy to wade through the dozens of tool menus and other features packed into Office, the software suite that includes Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and Excel.
The stakes are high because Office is a cash cow for Microsoft, even as it ventures further into areas such as Internet search and video games.
For Microsoft's fiscal year ended June 30, the unit that includes Office had operating income of nearly $8 billion, on revenue of $11 billion. The company's overall revenue was $40 billion.
Gates used this year's forum at a software conference to preview Office 12 and the next generation of Microsoft's operating system, dubbed Windows Vista. Both are due out sometime next year.
During his presentation, the multibillionaire poked fun at his geeky image, drawing laughs from the crowd for his role in a video skit featuring actor Jon Heder reprising his uber-dweeb character from "Napoleon Dynamite."
The skit had Dynamite turning to Gates for help in making his uncle's business more efficient. At one point, Gates handed him a box for the revamped Office suite of software.
"Dang!" Dynamite said, nodding his head. "This thing has all kinds of new stuff. Sweeeet."
The previews of Windows and Office focused on their use of graphics to give consumers more ways to manage information on the computer screen.
That's a growing issue as software applications become more complex. For instance, the first version of Word had 100 commands. The 2003 version has more than 1,500 commands and 35 tool bars.
"We need to make it easier for people to visualize information that comes from different directions," Gates said.
The Office redesign is meant to make it easier on the eyes, with the myriad of menu boxes fading in and out of view depending on what tools are being used.
Microsoft designers developed the system by tracking — with permission — every keystroke of some Office users, Charles Fitzgerald, general manager of Microsoft's Platform Strategy Group, said in an interview.
The idea is part of an industrywide trend toward personalizing technology based on user habits. For example, Microsoft rival Google Inc. recently updated its desktop search capability to present relevant information based on a user's Web surfing habits.
With Office 12, Microsoft also plans to focus more on how companies can use the software instead of servers.
A new function could route a document to three successive people, allowing each person to automatically receive the most recently edited version when the last person was finished.
The preview of Windows Vista showed it employing animated, thumbnail photo album-style displays to give users a quick look at the content of every application running on their system.
Hovering the mouse pointer over an index of data folders automatically brought up a snapshot of its contents, not merely a description. A quick search feature is also wired into nearly every Vista application.
Microsoft's last major operating system redesign, Windows XP, was
plagued by security problems, forcing the company to issue numerous software updates to plug holes in the code that made users vulnerable to hackers.
Gates said Vista would be easier to troubleshoot and would "avoid the kinds of security problems people have had."
