One of the challenges for smartphone owners, looking for mobile productivity, is keeping in step with file format changes in the desktop product they and their colleagues use to create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. It is no less of a challenge for developers, particularly where they are building applications for platforms that compete with Microsoft's own offerings.

The release of Quickoffice 5.0 solves this problem for users of S60 devices; with the ability to view Office 2007 Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files and features for editing Word and Excel files. (PowerPoint 2007 editing will be added in a future update.)

While Office 2007 will be the major attraction for many, there are a number of other improvements that will make Quickoffice 5.0 of interest to those not yet seeing Office 2007 documents.

"An issue for a small company like ours is that we get used to the way our application works. This familiarity means that certain feature that seem intuitive to us, may not be for our users," says Paul. "For Quickoffice 5.0 we were fortunate to get feedback from a series of usability studies. As a result we have made a number of improvements that make Quickoffice easier to use." To illustrate these improvements, Paul notes that in the old version of Quickoffice a new document could only be created when the user was browsing the phone's memory or its memory card. "The usability feedback told us this was not intuitive," says Paul. "So in Quickoffice 5.0 there is now a 'New Document' item on the main browser page. We also changed the names of the items users can create to document, spreadsheet and presentation, from Quickword, Quicksheet, and Quickpoint as these names did not necessarily mean much to most users. There have been a lot of similar usability improvements that came about as a result of the study, although most of them are really just minor tweaks. I believe it has been a very valuable exercise and Quickoffice is the better for it."

Documents can now be created from the main browser.

Other examples of the usability improvements include:

• Additional shortcut keys, for users with full keyboard devices, which follow the standard Microsoft conventions.
• Improved access to font and paragraph formatting features.
• Marquee scrolling of long file names, in the file manager and in the status bar for open files.

Changing a font size is now 5 clicks faster and the paragraph formatting options are easier to find.

The usability improvements in Quickoffice 5.0 are subtle. Too often usability "improvements" in desktop software can be frustrating for experienced users, who might spend weeks figuring out where once familiar features have been "hidden". The changes in Quickoffice certainly do not fall into this category; they are not so great that experienced users will find them frustrating, while at the same time are significant enough to offer new users a more intuitive experience.

Integration with Adobe Reader 2.5 has also been added. PDF documents are displayed in the Quickoffice file manager and can be opened directly into Adobe Reader 2.5.

Users with Adobe Reader 2.5 can now open PDFs directly from Quickoffice.

Printing support has also been brought back into the upgraded version. On S60 devices with printing support - which means Nokia Eseries devices - the platform version of Quickoffice offers printing, however any users who upgraded to Quickoffice 4.5 lost this feature. Quickoffice 5.0 now restores printing - where it is supported by the device.

Quickoffice 5.0 offers printing support on the Nokia Eseries devices.

There have also been several improvements in Quickmanager. One issue with software purchased from Quickmanager was that an upgrade of the device's firmware would remove any upgrades or applications install by the user. With the new version of Quickmanager users who expect to upgrade their firmware can buy an application or upgrade through Quickmanager but then choose to download it to their PC and receive a registration code by email (rather than the software being delivered OTA, then installed and registered silently.)

"Giving users a copy of their software so they could install it again after a firmware upgrade was only part of the reason for the change," says Paul. "We have many users who are still on metered data tariffs. Understandably these users are cautious about over the air downloads. Given the Quickoffice upgrade is a 3MB download, many users prefer the ability to download off-line, so they can manage their data traffic usage better."

The use of after market upgrades is firmly part of Quickoffice's strategy. "Rolling features into the S60 platform has a lead time," says Paul. "The software has to be fully integrated into the platform some time before new phones are released. So, for example, when S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2 phones start shipping users will see some of the features of 5.0, such as the improved usability and updated Quickmanager, but some features will require an upgrade. Upgrades also allow us to deliver new features to our users as early as possible, so they can maintain the investment they have made in their phone; it's an important part of the value we offer our users."

While Quickoffice 5.0 becomes available today (at a full price of $69.95) Paul noted that Quickoffice 4.5 will be retained as a purchase and upgrade option for the time being. "Office 2007 has not yet achieved critical mass, so we felt not all our users would necessarily need the 5.0 upgrade," says Paul. "But clearly we are now able to offer Office 2007 support to those who need it."

To upgrade your device to Quickoffice 5.0 select Quickmanager from the main browser or select the right tab in the drive browser. Then select "Updates & Upgrades" and choose "Quickoffice 5.0 upgrade". It is then simply a matter of following the purchase and download instruction. It is worth noting that Quickmanager uses the same secure SSL connection your desktop browser would use when transmitting your credit card details, so Quickmanager is a safe purchase option.

Also see www.quickoffice.com for more information.