In today’s business and academic circles it’s rare to see a presentation that doesn’t involve PowerPoint (or its Mac cousin, Keynote). For better or for worse, we’ve grown accustomed to the visual cueing and pacing functions that these tools provide, both as audience members and as presenters. This mode of presenting has become so entrenched that all manner of problems have been ascribed to over-reliance on these kinds of presentations.

Thus its interesting to see attempts at innovation in this space. In particular, I am thinking of Prezi, a recent startup that is pushing a more interactive, hierarchical presentation model in which you can move from overview to details and back in smooth transitions, and rather than structuring your presentation around a single narrative, you can define multiple aspects that can be explored interactively. In addition, Prezi has neat-o animated transitions among the views you define.

So does this mean that Microsoft’s stranglehold on presentation software is at and end?
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