Is Office 2007 the Innovation of the Year?

These are the people Apple's otherwise loathsome "I'm a PC..." ads have in mind: PC World has anointed Microsoft's Office 2007 as the most innovative product of the year, despite it being intrinsically, inescapably, and intentionally derivative.

The most striking change is a "ribbon" at the top of the interface that replaces the traditional cascading menus and taskbars, and can expose functions you never knew were there.

Now you too can more easily explore the hitherto undiscovered wonders of autoformat preferences, data merge management and document protection.

It's not that they didn't notice Blu-Ray, electronic paper, and two new game consoles: they're all in the list. It's just that they though them less inventive than an incremental UI improvement on a decades-old productivity suite.

The 20 Most Innovative Products of the Year [PC World]