Office 2010 - Pros and Cons - Should You Upgrade?

"With Office 2010 set to launch in June, businesses of all sizes are considering if it is worth the money and hassle to upgrade, especially for small and midsize companies that never moved from Office 2003 to Office 2007.

The Pros:

It Breaks Down Old Boundaries

Forrester lists three features in Office 2010 that make it "boundary breaking": The use of SharePoint Workspace (formerly known as Groove) to share and edit SharePoint content both online and offline; easing enterprise security fears by making Office Web Apps available privately as part of a company's license agreement; and integrating social media tools from sites such as LinkedIn in Outlook through Outlook Social Connector.

These new integration features -- if they work smoothly -- give Microsoft an upper hand over more established online productivity suites like Google Apps and Zoho, according to the Forrester report.

Simplified Suite Options for Enterprises

There are seven total editions of Office 2010, but for volume licensing customers (mostly enterprise-size companies), Microsoft has reduced that amount to two: Standard and Professional Plus. This is half as many as Office 2007 (Ultimate and Enterprise editions have been eliminated).