Yes, I know of all the complaints that portmanteau products like Microsoft Office are much too big, too complex, and contain hundreds of features that most people don’t need and will never use.

Granted. But that’s the nature of the beast. Try using Google Documents and Spreadsheets for anything more than simple projects. And you need to be online to use them.

I’ve had Office 2007 for a couple of months now, and while I haven’t yet got round to trying out every program bundled in there, I have to say I’m very impressed. I came to it directly from Office 2000, so missed the intermediate experience of the 2003 version.

At first, the so-called Ribbon feature was a bit baffling, like all supposedly intuitive controls are. But once I found my way around the different groupings of features and learned what all of the icons stood for, I began to revel in its clean simplicity and ease of use — I’m usually wary of geeks being “intuitive”, because more often than not, they’re not.

However, Office 2007 is a triumph of design and utility. Nowadays, we expect software will be over-engineered, just to get ahead of the competition, but invoking dread and misery in customers, who have to surmount a huge learning curve to get it working satisfactorily in their interests.

I’m not going to go into fine detail here — that’s for another day — but I believe Word to be the best word processor around now, and Excel to be irreplaceable. No, I haven’t got Microsoft shares, and I don’t speak with forked tongue.

Smaller features too stand out. Like most folk I don’t need the massive clout of Photoshop for my image handling activities. But I do want something better than the cheaper programs out there. One surprise is the Microsoft Office Picture Handler which comes bundled in with the Office suite. It really is a doddle to use and has all the functionality I need, without the baffling overload of some other programs.

I’ll be returning to this review in more depth later, but first impressions are : well done Microsoft.

It’s not often you hear that, is it?

I’ve had Windows Vista for a month now on brand new computers intended to replace our XP boxes, which are still running alongside the new Vista machines.

However, the proportion of time spent on Vista has increased to 90 percent and more. The exceptions are jobs which require the printers. None of the old ones will work with Vista, so I’ll be replacing them very soon.

Of course, I’d switched a lot of stuff online before moving over : all email is now done on Gmail — a huge relief on new computers — and much else too.

Thankfully, the desk-top-publishing program works seamlessly on Vista, but not the image-handling one. As a temporary measure I’ve been using the Office image software bundled with Windows itself. It works so well, I’ll probably stick with it for the duration.

I know a number of people are looking for new computers with XP pre-installed, as they don’t trust Vista yet. Let me tell you, put your doubts aside. Get as much as you can online — Google is a blessing here, buy new printers, tweak your internet connection, and you won’t look back.

The “Protection Mode”, which is the default setting for Vista, may have to be temporarily disabled while you add new stuff or get your broadband connectivity working. Thereafter, it’s surprising how quickly you will adapt to the loss af admin powers, which is what it effectively does.

My advice? Go for Windows Vista now. There’s nothing to keep you on XP but your fear of the unknown.

Microsoft opens its web-based Small Business Summit this week : “… a nationwide event that provides small businesses with the tools and information they need to help their business soar”.

I’m guessing they hope to sell a lot of proprietary software off the back of this. It will be interesting to see which products they are pushing. Windows Vista and Office 2007 are sure to figure hugely.

Let’s remember though that Microsoft was a small business once It began as a startup in a garage by two geeky kids called Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Bill even dropped out of Harvard to do it. That’s the motor of all entrepreneurial activity.

More than 30,000 small-business owners and partners from around the country are expected to participate in this free event held online with a first-day event in Redmond, Washington. The summit features more than 58 sessions covering small-business topics including branding, sales and marketing, security, business efficiency and mobility, and participants have the flexibility to join online from their home or office. In addition, small-business owners can go to their local participating CompUSA store to watch the webcasts, network with peers and have a direct dialogue with Microsoft and CompUSA representatives who understand their unique technology and business needs.

Here’s yesterday’s transcript of keynote remarks by Kevin Turner, Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft Small Business Summit 2007.

Mary Jo Foley asks : “Is Windows Vista … the last big-bang release of Windows.”

At a Convergence conference yesterday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had no doubt. A questioner asked him : “With all the hoopla here at the conference around SharePoint Server, is it correct to think of SharePoint as almost like an operating system?”

“Microsoft officials increasingly are talking up ‘Software + Services’, as opposed to ‘Software as a Service’ in explaining Microsoft’s future. So how does Microsoft keep the growing family of business services it is introducing tethered to on-premise software?”

SharePoint Server is the obvious answer, avers Foley. No, not Windows. And not Windows Server either. Not even Office. But simply SharePoint.

Ballmer answered the questioner in positive terms :

“SharePoint is the definitive OS or platform for the middle tier.” It is the “missing link”, Foley explains, “between personal productivity and line-of-business applications”.

“SharePoint is just like Office; it’s a bunch of point products gathered together into a suite. Although Microsoft is not fond of calling out the six or so servers that comprise Office SharePoint Server, it is a bunch of server apps loosely joined.”

Microsoft is currently experimenting with making SharePoint Server “the new, must-have platform for its business users. Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) is the captive laboratory for Microsoft’s Software + Services experiments.”

How will that affect the consumer end of the market, we wonder?