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There is lot of speculation over Microsoft Office 15 official name and many are saying that it could either be Office 2012 or Office 2013 .
Microsoft Office 15 is out in the open for everyone to see as Office 15 preview have been there on the web for a while. But the bigger question is exactly when is Microsoft’s next version of Office, codenamed Office 15 and also rumored to be Microsoft Office 2012 or Microsoft Office 2013, depending upon the launch timing or product branding decision of next Office version by elite intellectuals at the Redmund company.
Believing on those handful of people who have been lucky enough to get their hands on the preview version of Office 15, the key takeaway is that Microsoft hasn’t yet decided the final product branding for Office 15. There are genuine reasons for it as well.
First, Microsoft is not yet confirmed about the exact time-frame when Office version will launch to the market. It could be anywhere between October 2012 to April 2013. As Office versions have always been named in congruence of the year of launch, Microsoft is still facing dilemma over what should be the ideal product name.
Also, even if next Office version hits the markets in 2012, the product name will have to live most of its product lifespan with an outdated name. From that perspective, Office 2013 would be more appropriate name.
But ahead of all these things, lies a superstitious belief behind the number ’13’. Microsoft may not want to take a risk by naming their ace product, in a way that could cause superstitious believers, pass on to the next Office version. And we all know how badly we try to avoid number ’13’ in our daily lives and Microsoft is well aware of it.
All these reasons haven’t yet cleared the air over what the next version of Office is going to be called. Few observers also suggested the possibility of Microsoft naming Office 15 as something different than just the ‘year of launch’, something similar to what Microsoft did with Windows Vista.
But that seems highly unlikely as Microsoft has hardly experimented with naming policy of its Office versions in the past and may not wish to interrupt that sequence. A sequential naming helps connecting the dots between the previous versions and the upcoming ones and people easily related to getting upgraded in this sort of naming policy.
Any final comments on this would be too early but still, we would like to bet on Office 2012 as the official name for Office 15, as that will validate the launch year, which will most probably be this year(2012) and this will also help Microsoft keep Office 15 from being associated with the number ’13’ by any chance.
Office productivity suite is the second biggest cash-cow for Microsoft and we can only see Microsoft playing a safe game with the product branding.
