Office 2010 now in public beta

As expected, Microsoft Corp. Wednesday launched its first public beta of Office 2010, posting the preview for download on its Web site.

In a keynote presentation at its annual Professionals Developer Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles, Kurt DelBene, Microsoft’s senior vice president of the Office business productivity group, announced the immediate availability of the Office 2010 Beta. “In the last few minutes, we have made available the public beta of Office 2010,” said DelBene during his time on stage at PDC shortly after 1 p.m. ET. “It’s now available on the Web, and we hope you all download it.”

Microsoft added a download link for the beta to its Web site Wednesday. At press time, there was no download link on Microsoft’s Canadian site.

The download is for Office Professional Plus 2010, a feature-laden edition that will be available only to enterprises and organizations that purchase licenses in volume when the final suite ships next year. Office Professional Plus includes Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, OneNote, Access, Publisher, InfoPath, SharePoint Workspace — formerly called Groove — and Communicator. The 32-bit version of the English-language suite runs 685MB, while the 64-bit edition tips the scales at 750MB.

IT World Canada Windows 7 Resource Centre

News, commentary, how-to articles and in-depth Canadian coverage of Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows 7, by IT World Canada

 

Users who download Office 2010 Beta are provided with a 25-character product key to activate the preview.

Earlier in the week, Microsoft made the beta available to developers and IT professionals who subscribe to the MSDN (Microsoft Developers Network) and TechNet services, hinting that the public version’s launch was imminent.

Microsoft also launched a public beta of Office Web Apps, its entry into the online Web applications market. Two months ago, Microsoft cranked up an invitiation-only preview of the online editions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, but delivered bare-bones versions. Word Web App, for instance, allowed testers only to view Word documents online, not edit them.

People who download Office 2010 Beta can try out the public preview of Office Web Apps by using a Windows Live account to create, edit, store and retrieve documents online. Office Web Apps require Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) or later on Windows; Firefox 3.5 or later on Windows, Mac and Linux; or Safari 4.0 or later on the Mac. Microsoft today launched a public beta of Office Mobile 2010 as well. That suite, which runs on Windows Mobile 6.5-based phones, includes scaled-back versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and new SharePoint Workspace Mobile 2010. It can be downloaded from the Windows Marketplace for Mobile, DelBene said.

DelBene did not set a timetable for the release of Office 2010, keeping to the company line that the suite will ship in the first half of next year.

Would you recommend this article?

0
0

Share

Thanks for taking the time to let us know what you think of this article!
We'd love to hear your opinion about this or any other story you read in our publication.

Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

Featured Download

Featured Articles

Cybersecurity in 2024: Priorities and challenges for Canadian organizations 

By Derek Manky As predictions for 2024 point to the continued expansion...

Survey shows generative AI is a top priority for Canadian corporate leaders.

Leaders are devoting significant budget to generative AI for 2024 Canadian corporate...

Related Tech News

Tech Jobs

Our experienced team of journalists and bloggers bring you engaging in-depth interviews, videos and content targeted to IT professionals and line-of-business executives.

Tech Companies Hiring Right Now