Online-overlord Barry Collins has been fiddling with the Office 2010 beta for the last couple of days, and his reaction to it has been terrifying. Barry greets technology in only two states: the apoplectic fury of a man for whom every hollow promise is the death knell of another dream, and the rapture of somebody who’s just discovered that Nirvana’s a theme park with a £35 admission price.

What terrifies me is that he’s greeted Office 2010 with an almighty ‘meh’. There’s been bafflement and a few half-hearted jokes, but not once has the office fallen still at the ominous ticking of the Barry bomb which sits at the core of his being.

I must stress that this conclusion is drawn only from my observations of him in the last couple of days. We sit next to each other, you understand, I’m not stalking him – only the Grizzly Man would be foolish enough to stalk Barry Collins, and he got eaten.

I’m sure Barry will divulge more detailed thoughts on the beta in due course, but from what I’ve seen while peeking over his shoulder, much of Office 2010’s additions are pointless tinkering. And yet, there was one feature missing from Office 2007 that seems so self evident, so perfect and useful that I can’t believe the hive mind at Redmond hasn’t already spotted it: tabs.

The joy of what I do is that I get to write lots of words, on lots of subjects, on lots of documents. Over the course of the day it’s likely I’ll have around seven different documents running concurrently. Having each of those documents under a separate tab within Word, easily identifiable and accessible, would be so helpful I collapse in a giggling heap just thinking about it.

Consider the browser before tabs and after. There’s no going back, and a similar revolution needs to be made if Office is to progress. So please, please, please Microsoft, stick some tabs in Word. Pull Barry from the mists of ‘meh’ he’s stumbling around in, and give me a reason to upgrade to Office 2010. Because from where I sit, there’s precious little reason to do so right now.