The next version of the suite, MS Office 12, can be considered the main star at PDC 2005. Featuring a series of radical changes, Office 12 not only looks good, but it also promises a better organization of the menus and submenus, which crowded the monitor.

Windows Vista didn't enjoy what you'd call a warm welcome, but Office 12 could become the revolution Microsoft needs to evolve. Obviously, it's still early to give a verdict using only some images and video sequences, especially since nobody said anything about the hardware requirements for the new suite and there is no official beta version.

Will Office 12 be the product that will drive the migration towards Windows Vista? Certainly yes, and if you add the graphics suite, formed by Acrylic, Quartz and Sparkle, (which might not be so revolutionary, but you can bet your allowance money that it will offer perfect integration with Office 12), you get a pretty good image of the promoting strategy for Windows Vista.

In fact, imagining a Windows without MS Office it's like removing the iTunes out of the iPod equation and I don't know if there's a study, but I think that more than 60% of the users install MS Office immediately after finishing the Windows setup routine (ok, perhaps a firewall and an antivirus and then MS Office).

Anyway, if Microsoft succeeds to stick to the promised schedule, 2006 could be a year to remember for the Redmond company. If not…then Microsoft will be in 2.5GB of trouble.