Prepare for a shock. The next version of Microsoft Office doesn't have menus. In their place is a context-sensitive ribbon bar, with icons that change dynamically depending on what the user is working on. Tiny tooltips are also out, replaced by chunky, detailed help panels. Select an option, and auto-preview shows what it would do to your document. The rumours are true; Office 12 has a radically different user interface - see a few screenshots here, shown for the first time here at PDC.

It's a bold move for Microsoft. Most people here seem to like the new look, but will the average office worker appreciate or resent these major changes? There is no "classic mode"; you have to use the new interface. If it catches on, it will make near-clones like Open Office look dated; if it's just too different, it could boost the competition. Personally I like it, and as one delegate told me, "it's great to see Microsoft doing some UI innnovation at last." I should add that the build on show here is an alpha, so lots could change; we are promised a beta in the Spring, and a final release to conincide with Windows Vista at the end of next year.

So what eles is new? Bill Gates gave an effusive keynote and introduced a demo of Windows Vista; it now sports a sidebar which hosts "gadgets", not unlike those seen in Google Desktop or for that matter the widgets in Apple's Dashboard. We saw some striking visual effects created using XAML, the markup language of the Windows Presentation Foundation, formerly known as Avalon. Microsoft has the RSS bug, and will be building an "RSS store" into the operating system, as well as including RSS feeds in the next version of Outlook. Group Vice President Jim Allchin also took the stage, and we heard about LINQ - Language Integrated Query - which extends the Visual Basic and C# programming languages with the ability to query data. ASP.NET guru Scott Guthrie showed Atlas, a new framework which lets you build more responsive internet applications using the Ajax concept. We also saw a laptop with a "sideshow" panel, an extra small screen that can run little applets even when the machine is on standby.

Is Microsoft doing enough to win mind share back from Apple, Google and other competitors? Probably not, though "Windows Vista might stop the bleed towards OS X", a university-based delegate told me. More PDC news soon.