The main thing that is different design wise is that it has the ribbon like other 2007 Office programs. They must have done some significant work to make it snappier because it definitely is. I’m guessing using the 64bit version helps as well.

Here are some of the great features that it has.

1. It is 64 bit.
2. Does not crash as much as my 2007.
3. Organizes emails into conversations. This is similar to gmail. (at first I was annoyed but now I like it)

The quickness of it vs. 2007 and that it has a 64 bit version is a huge improvement, but beyond that it doesn’t seem to me there are too many other reasons people will want to upgrade. For me these two are enough, but others may think about holding off.

I suspected that there was likely an easy way for us to share our calendars but I just has not taken the time to look into it.

How it is done…

In Outlook:

1. In Outlook with your calendar selected select “Publish Online” from the ribbon bar (I’m using Outlook 2010)
2. You will want to select Publish to Office Online
3. I made my calendar publicly availible to anyone just to avoid any annoying permission issues.
4. You can then select to share your calendar with others.
5. You will be given a link that you can use in Google Calendar that will read in your calendar

Back in Google:

1. In Google Calendar under “Other Calendars” click settings
2. Then click “Import Calendars”
3. Then select the Add URL tab.
4. Copy & Paste the link you were given in Outlook into the Google Calendar area.
5. Now your Outlook Calendar is shared to Google Calendar.