Microsoft Office 2007 went gold today (that is, RTM, or release to manufacturing). Overall I really like the ribbon UI despite my earlier concerns about a usability issue called target acquisition (read this post by Jensen Harris if you want to geek out on Fitts’ Law).
My only hope now is that the search in Outlook has improved for RTM. While the search in Beta 2 was a big improvement over Outlook 2003, it was not nearly as good as Lookout, which Microsoft acquired presumably to integrate into Outlook. I hope it wasn’t acquired in order to kill it. As much as that might sound crazy, Lookout was getting a lot of attention and was surely going to compete with Microsoft’s future desktop search offerings.
Note from Slipstick about Lookout:
Windows Desktop Search 3.0 disables the MSN Toolbar and LookOut in Outlook. LookOut and the MSN Toolbar are now considered to be old versions of Microsoft products. To offer users the clearest and most integrated search experience for Outlook 2007, Outlook disables these add-ins when Outlook starts.
In Beta 2 there is no way to re-enable these add-ins.