Information Technology Leader

Office 14 (2010) has only been out a few months now, but a leaked pre-alpha build of Office 15 suggests that Microsoft is planning a new application known at this point only as “Microsoft Lime”. Very little is known about Lime at this point, however ZDnet blogger Mary Jo Foley claims her contacts describe it as a “user-interface utility for Office”.

Based on this description it is hard to tell if Microsoft Lime will indeed be a stand-alone application, or perhaps just a new feature similar to the ribbon. The speculation was further heightened by a Linked-In profile update from a former Microsoft Intern who claims he helped work on a “major new feature” in the upcoming Office 15.

It’s hard to imagine what if anything Microsoft could add or change to make Office anymore capable than it already is. They clearly have some work to do tying together their online and offline offerings, but it doesn’t sound like Lime is it. Office 15 probably won’t ship until at least 2013, so we have plenty of time to speculate on this one.

Related posts:

1. Microsoft Launches Multi-Level Certification Program for Office 2010
2. Microsoft announces Office for Mac 2011: New UI, Web-based tools, no Entourage
3. Microsoft Launches Multi-Level Certification Program for Office 2010
4. Microsoft Launches Multi-Level Certification Program for Office 2010
5. Microsoft to Launch Office 2010 in May for Businesses