Historically, Office's minor and major bugs only show up over time. XP may eventually encounter similar troubles. Though the Task Pane is an innovative tool, unlike toolbars, it is not customizable. Dictation recognition for MS Office's audible commands is decent but not great. The accuracy rate tops off at almost 90 per cent based on limited testing.
Office also has clumsy speech recognition.
XP forces you to manually switch between dictation and command mode by clicking its toolbar. Also Office XP's speech does not work with Inter Explorer, so you cannot surf vocally. Microsoft Office XP's online and collaborative tool improvements make it a smart upgrade for businesses and groups, but it is not worth the cost, time, and effort for single or home users. Its built-in translator is an attractive change. Microsoft plans to offer additional languages by the final release date.