Interesting move by Microsoft... they spent a lot of time and effort making improvements to the Office 2007 UI, and now they are letting developers use the look and feel in their own applications for free. I haven't read through all of the terms of use, but here are some quotes from the FAQ:

• What limitations are there?  The primary limitation is that licensees need to comply with the Design Guidelines.  That means creating an application that has consistent overall functionality as well as look and feel.
• Can any applications use the license? The license is available for applications on any platform, except for applications that compete directly with the five Office applications that currently have the new UI (Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Access).  We wanted to make the IP available broadly to partners because it has benefits to Microsoft and the Office ecosystem.  At the same time, we wanted to preserve the uniqueness of the Office UI for the core Office productivity applications.   

Apparently developers across platforms can use the UI whether the apps are web based or traditional, you just have to be true to the original design and not compete directly with the main office products.

p.s. Somewhat related free plug for a SharePoint 2007 blog aggregator I created called SharePointFeeds.com, check it out if you are interested in SharePoint.

There are no comments for this entry.