No recount needed here: Microsoft Office has a mandate. Whether the voters spoke with their pocketbooks or Microsoft crushed competition with predatory practices is immaterial; the fact is, more small businesses run on Office than any other suite.
The second and most recent beta version of Office 10, the hopefully temporary name for the next edition of the suite, came out last month. The suite is far from ready for release -- it's too flaky and way too slow for work-a-day chores and chews up system resources faster than Jim Carrey changes personalities -- but from what I've seen so far, Office 10 shows some small business smarts in four areas.
