Today I found the nice surprise of seeing Microsoft Office Labs live on the web.

As explained on their blog, the Office Labs team has been working on some very interesting ideas in Microsoft and it is very good to see them going live and make some of these available for everyone.

One excellent project I would recommend to anyone who installed Office 2007 and is learning how to use the new Fluent interface (AKA the Ribbon) is Search Commands.

Search Commands helps you find commands, options, wizards, and galleries in Microsoft Office 2007 Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Just type what you’re looking for in your own words and click the command you need. Search Commands also includes Guided Help, which acts as a tour guide for specific tasks.

One thing to notice is that all the projects posted on the site are not official Microsoft products but “concept tests”, which means that they are not betas, not Community Technical Previews and “don't even pretend to be complete product ideas”. The whole point about this is to stimulate feedback and discussion about innovative ideas which is think is a very commendable goal.