Sunday, January 22, 2006

Office 12 beta users and the deafening silence

Now and then you hear something about Office12 - most of the time from people working at Microsoft. The rest of us is bound by NDA and it seems that not everybody is too happy about it.

Source: The unofficial Microsoft weblog
Office 12 and Vista Beta Users Second Class Netizens
microsoft censorship | MicrosoftCensorship | nondisclosure | Office 12 NDA | Office12Nda | Vista NDA | VistaNda
This is such a shame. Office 12 and Windows Vista beta users were forced to sign a very restrictive non-disclosure agreement which prevents them from openly discussing the features of the new OS or office suite. While I can understand the need for NDAs at times, the really stupid thing going on here is that internal Microsoft people as well as some external people have been posting screenshots and discussions of both software packages like mad, with no retribution from Microsoft. While I'm enjoying some of the stuff coming out of the Microsoft bloggers (Jensen Harris' stands out above the others), what I really want is to learn about the cool new stuff from people I have come to respect, like Ed Bott. Instead, he's muzzled by this ridiculous lopsided NDA. Over a month ago, Robert Scoble promised to look into this situation. There's been no mention of it since then on his blog. C'mon Scoble, what's up? This is a stinky situation that gets smellier by the day.


Fortunately we don't have to wait much longer - according to Patrick, we can expect beta2 by the end of February. If you want to know more - register at the Office 12 Preview site

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