Broader Office 14 testing coming by fall
Microsoft said this week that it will start widespread testing of the next version of the Office suite sometime in the third quarter, in preparation for a final launch of the product in the first half of next year.
The product, which has been code-named Office 14, will be dubbed Office 2010 (as I predicted), with all of its related components also getting the 2010 moniker.
Microsoft first talked about the browser-based abilities of Office 2010 (then code-named Office 14) at a developer conference last October. Click image for full gallery.
(Credit: Microsoft)Microsoft offered only limited details on the testing. In an interview, Office executive Rajesh Jha, who leads the Exchange team, said technology previews are more limited than public betas and typically go to hundreds of thousands more technical users as opposed to public betas, which go to millions of people and are something that "much more closely resembles a final release."
The schedule is not as ambitious as the one Microsoft laid out last October, which had called for a technology preview last year to be followed by a beta this year. Some very early testing of Office 14 did take place in 2008, but Microsoft confirmed earlier this year that the final version of Office 14 would not come until 2010.
Jha said that the technology preview will include both the traditional desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote as well as the browser-based "Office Web Apps" that Microsoft is building. The browser-based versions will be somewhat more limited than their desktop counterparts, but will include basic editing abilities, Microsoft has said. The software maker has also said the browser-based applications will run in Safari and Firefox, in addition to Internet Explorer, which will take Office onto both Linux computers and the iPhone.
"As you know, IT is being asked to do more with less and keep people more productive," Jha said. "With the next wave (of Office), we really wanted to address these challenges. Let's help people be more productive, whether it be from a PC, or a browser or a phone."
The roadmap for Office 2010 testing came as an aside within a Microsoft announcement that it will launch this week a public beta of Exchange 2010, the next version of its e-mail server. That product, part of the Office 14 wave of products, will ship this year, Microsoft said.
As noted earlier on Tuesday, Office 2010 will come in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Could you try posting your comments again, perhaps this time with some relevance to the story or... at least by making some sort of sense? Right now they appear to be ramblings with no real direction or purpose. I'm not making fun of your comments- they just don't appear to be complete or have any meaning.
How about asking the CEOs of GM, Chrysler, Ford, the Banks... to show you the economic projections; and, what was missed years............... ago. Then, this might start making some "sense" to you.
Hope you understand the "Economic Analysis" capabilities.......(long overdue) with which "Office 14, Lotus Symphony et al" should now come!
2 IMPORTANT QUESTIONS:
Have they mentioned their plans for the Outlook PST file? Outlook 2007 had been advertised as being able to maintain a 20 GB PST file. In reality, an Outlook 2007 personal folders file taps out at around 5 GB. PST files should have a limit of the available hard drive space. Normal people like having all of their emails in a single PST file. Multiple PST files just get messy.
Among many things, Microsoft had killed the grammar check explanations in Office for Mac 2008, and they had significantly changed it for Office 2007. Will they be doing the same with Office 2010?
I use this tool for teaching English to ESL students.
How can I address these concerns to Microsoft?
from corporate view, PST should not be allowed and server side archiving should be improved internally in exchange 10 (see exchange 10 beta)
the only annoying thing is that sometimes you have to save docX as doc because some people dont have the new. So you cant save some of the new features
- by dougjake April 15, 2009 1:52 PM PDT
- I like Commander Spock's comments. For some reason they remind me of that classic Star Trek episode where those beautiful women steal Spock's brain. Not a huge fan of the ribbon. Not sure why Microsoft felt they needed to fix a menu system that wasn't really broken. Not only that but it takes up quite a bit of real estate on your screen. That being said it wasn't that hard to get used to and is very functional when combined with a customized Quick Access toolbar containing my favorite commands.
- Reply to this comment
-
-
- by Commander_Spock April 15, 2009 3:34 PM PDT
- Thank you for that compliment "dougjake". It appears that "Vegaman_Dan" would rather have it all on a "Golden Platter" and for the longest while it is believed that he is on the Redmond Payroll. The thing is - I sometimes feel sorry for GWB who may not have known where to lay some of the blame for the performances in the U.S Housing and Banking sectors in particular (where it all appeared to have started).
-
-
(22 Comments)We all know what is said about "The Bad Worker And His Tools" - Huh!
Now, let us imagine if (beyond those analytical tools for the banking industries) all those American families who have lost their homes, jobs.... had the right "analytical tools" also from the get go! Would they be in the situations they are now - Question is: Will/can Microsoft Office 14 do what some want it to do for them?