Learn about the latest version of Microsoft Office and what the new features can do for your organization.

Microsoft Office is a productivity suite that’s largely ubiquitous in work environments around the world. Qualified organizations can request donated Office packages through BiGTech, paying only a small administrative fee.Office 2010, the latest version of Office for Windows, will be available in June, 2010.

Is your organization ready for a move to Office 2010? Will any of the new features benefit your organization? Will an upgrade to Office 2010 impact compatibility with older versions of Office or other productivity suites? In this article, we’ll briefly outline the new features in Office 2010. Next, we’ll discuss the package’s touted collaboration features and discuss how they might change your organization’s workflow. Finally, we’ll look at compatibility issues with older versions of Office.

New Features in Office 2010 (H2)

It would be unwieldy to list every new feature in Office 2010, but here are a few of particular interest to organizations.

Co-Authoring and Office Web Apps (H3)

The most significant changes in Office 2010 are its improvements to collaboration, both within an office environment and over the Internet. For more information, see the next section of this article where we’ll discuss the Web Apps features in more detail.

Improvements to the Ribbon Interface (H3)

Office 2010 forges ahead with Ribbon , a new type of menu that Microsoft introduced with Office 2007, with a few improvements. You can now create your own Ribbon tabs for quick access to functions that you frequently need. 

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Photo Editor (H3)

Office 2010 includes a simple photo editor that you can access from Word or PowerPoint to make quick edits to your graphics. It’s not nearly as advanced as Adobe Photoshop or similar programs, but when all you need to do is brighten a photograph or make a similar edit, it’s a convenient alternative.

Video Editing and Export (H3) 

PowerPoint 2010 adds an editor for making changes to videos embedded in PowerPoint presentations. For example, if you insert a long video interview into a PowerPoint file but only want to include a short portion of it in your presentation, you can make the appropriate cuts from within the PowerPoint interface rather than switching to a video-editing application. The new version also boasts an “Export to Video” function, letting you turn your PowerPoint presentations into videos that you can burn to a DVD or share on video sites like YouTube.

Social Connector (H3) 

Outlook 2010 lets you sync your contacts with those in popular social networking websites. When a social networking contact updates her phone number, for example, your Outlook address book will reflect the change. You can also view contacts’ status updates and other online activities, as well as send messages and post updates to your networking profiles from within Outlook. 

This feature could be very useful for many nonprofits: it could help bridge the gap between online interaction with your audience and more personalized, direct requests. In the Beta version, this feature works only with professional social networking site LinkedIn , but Microsoft has said that Facebook  and MySpace will both be available in the full version. For more information, watch this video demonstration  of the feature and read a blog post about it  from the Outlook team. (This feature works only with 32-bit versions of Office )