Microsoft pumped out its service pack 1 (SP1) for the 2007 Office suite yesterday, which it said should cheer up customers unhappy with the number of system failures in the previous release.

Microsoft Office boss Reed Shaffner admitted in a statement (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2007/dec07/12-11Office2007SP1.mspx) that customers had been hacked off with the amount of crashes experienced with the first release of the software.

Shaffner said SP1, which was spat out earlier than expected, should improve overall stability of the product that was first released a year ago somewhat in the shadow of the firm's late-arriving Windows Vista operating system.

"Crashes are one of the most frustrating experiences customers have, and the team worked hard with SP1 to make our products more stable. We've also included most of the previously-released hotfixes that also help reduce the incidence of crashes in Office applications," said Shaffner.

Microsoft said other changes built into the latest release include an Outlook fix for opening large mail files, better indexing for its enterprise customers using search functions in Sharepoint Server 2007, and support for AJAX.

Redmond reckons it has also beefed up security in SP1 to address a number of loopholes in the previous release.

Shaffner also acknowledged that customers had been slow to adopt the latest version of Office, although he didn't mention why that might be. Google Apps anyone?

He said: "We're optimistic that with the shipment of SP1 we're removing any residual barriers that may have impeded deployment and that adoption will only accelerate." ®

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