Microsoft Office is by far the most widely used desktop productivity suite and is ubiquitous in the NHS.
In our experience, most trusts are still using Office 2003, though almost all that we talk to are in the process of migration to a more up to date version.
There are typically 3 reasons why trusts have held off migrating:
- Lack of a software deployment tool to provide remote installation to the thousands of desktops in most trusts
- Some clinical systems rely on a specific version of Word
- Concerns about training users on the new interface and features
The first is rare thanks to some wise investments in infrastructure management tools across the NHS. The second is regrettable and a product (in our humble opinion) of some poor decisions by some system developers, but is being addressed through updates for the most part. The last has been a key stumbling block.
Our view is that now is generally a good time to migrate – the new ‘Fluent’ ribbon interface has been in the market for 3 years; most users have personal experience with it and many are now finding the old versions of Office cumbersome by comparison; all the Microsoft products (and many others) are adopting this interface so users need to become familiar with it; and the business benefits of the latest versions are increasingly strong.
For trusts considering a migration, we advocate leap-frogging the 2007 versions and moving straight to Office 2010. Office 2010 is a more mature, more feature rich, elegant and integrated version. It has addressed a few inconsistencies in the interface so it’s actually easier to train users for 2010 than for 2007. Deploying 2010 now avoids having to consider another upgrade in a few years time.
We also like Office 2010 because it has even better integration with SharePoint, though it is not necessary to have Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010. Talk to us about that if you want to know more.
Even though the Enterprise Wide Agreement with Microsoft has now lapsed there are in perpetuity licenses for Office Professional Plus 2010 available as a consequence of the previous EWA).
