Microsoft

Microsoft said Thursday that it has finalized the code for Exchange 2010, the next version of its e-mail and communications server.

Exchange 2010, which has been ahead of the rest of the Office family in development, becomes the first of the Office 2010 wave of products to be finished.

"Our senior leadership team has signed off on the final code, and it has been sent to our early adopters for one final look before its public release.," Microsoft said in a blog posting.

The product will become broadly available in November, Microsoft, said with a launch planned for the TechEd Europe conference, which runs Nov. 9-13 in Berlin. Other parts of Office 2010, such as the new versions of Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Outlook, are not due until next year, with a beta slated for later in 2009.

Among the features in the next Exchange is an ability to ignore a particular e-mail conversation, as well as "MailTips," which offers warnings when one might be about to commit an e-mail faux pas.

Microsoft developed Exchange 2010 as a service first, using it to power its Live@edu mail service and then worked to create the server version of the software--a reversal of the past way Exchange and other products have been created.

The technology preview of Office Web Apps allows users to edit Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations and view (but not edit) Word documents.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft plans on Thursday to start public testing for the first browser-based version of Office, although the technology preview is at least as notable for what it doesn't include as what it does offer.

The limited test of the so-called Office Web Apps includes versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, but not the OneNote note-taking application. And while Excel and PowerPoint offer the ability to edit and create documents, the current Web-based version of Word can only be used to view documents, essentially the same capability it already offers as part of its current Office Live Workspace product.

Microsoft said the Web versions of OneNote and Word share "the same editing surface," and that the technology is still being worked on.

"We made the hard decision to turn off editing in the Word Web App at Tech Preview, in order for people to have the best experience at this early stage," Microsoft said.

Microsoft plans to offer the Web Apps preview first to users of Windows Live SkyDrive, giving them 25GB worth of storage.

The Office Web Apps are scheduled to be launched along with Office 2010--the next version of Office, with both browser-based and desktop programs due out in the first half of next year. The Office Web Apps will be made available to consumers as a free, ad-supported part of Windows Live, while businesses will be able to offer them to workers via their own SharePoint servers or through the Microsoft Online subscription service.

Microsoft said it will have editing abilities for Word and a version of OneNote by the time the Office Web Apps launch in final form. The current technology preview will be made available to tens of thousands of users, with a broader beta planned for later this fall. However, Microsoft would not commit to offering editing abilities for Word by the beta release.

Once finished, the browser-based versions will all offer editing, though not all of the capabilities of their desktop counterparts. Excel and OneNote will feature live co-authoring abilities, while all the Office Web Apps will work only while a user is connected to the Internet.

Microsoft also takes a different approach when it comes to sharing documents than do its rivals. While Google Apps lets users share a document directly, Office Web Apps enables sharing at the folder level--meaning that to share a document, a user must save it into a folder on Windows Live SkyDrive and then share that folder.

Forrester analyst Sheri McLeish said that the Office Web Apps do appear to be more complicated than rivals such as Google Docs or Zoho Office.

"Google and Zoho are very easy to get started on today, requiring just a step to register before being able to work on a document or spreadsheet," McLeish said. "Microsoft's Office Web Apps do not seem to match that level of ease to get started."

On the plus side, McLeish noted that Office offers a depth not found in its online rivals.

"Once you are in the Web Apps the experience is very much the same as the desktop suite," McLeish said. "And for enterprises, deployment choices to host the Web Apps themselves on-premise is a big differentiator from Google and Zoho."

As for the current release, Microsoft noted that it is still in pre-beta form and has a number of known issues.

"It's still going to be rough around the edges," said Ural Cebeci, a senior product manager in Microsoft's Office unit.

The Office Web Apps are being certified to work in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari, and may also work in Google's Chrome--although Microsoft isn't guaranteeing Chrome compatibility.

Microsoft had previously indicated on several occasions that the Safari compatibility meant that users would be able to edit documents on their iPhone, but Cebeci said that iPhone users will only be able to view documents--capability similar to that offered on other smartphones.

In a reversal, Microsoft says it will now charge all small businesses an annual domain registration fee, even those companies it had promised free Web site registrations for life.

Starting October 1, all customers will have to pay $14.95 a year to renew their custom Web address. Microsoft offers Web site registration as part of its Office Live Small Business service. In some ways, it's understandable, given that Microsoft has to pay fees each year in order to keep renewing the domains.

However, the move does mean the software maker is going back on a promise it made last year. As part of a series of changes made in February 2008, the company said that new customers of Office Live Small Business would have to pay for domain renewals after the first year, but promised that early customers of the services would get their domains registered for free "in perpetuity."

In a statement, Microsoft acknowledged the shift.

"Yes, it is a change," Microsoft said in a statement to CNET News. "As you know, we made a decision in February 2008 to begin charging $14.95 (per) year for custom domain name renewals for new customers. Now, we're asking all customers to pay this same fee once their domain comes up for renewal."

Microsoft did say that the price is quite competitive and noted that the majority of its Office Live small business services are still offered for free. Those that want a Web site for free have the option of moving their site from a custom domain and onto their own portion of the Office Live domain.

However, Microsoft notes that while the Web site will transfer, other data could be lost.

"All e-mail accounts on the expired domain name will be automatically removed and e-mail messages will not be saved," Microsoft said on its Web site, adding a link to a page offering methods of backing up such data.

The move comes as Microsoft is shifting more of its online attention toward bringing the full Office suite on to the Web, as opposed to ancillary services. Free, browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote are coming next year as part of Office 2010.

The Office Live Small Business tools date back to the earliest days of Microsoft's Live push, first announced in late 2005 and released in final form in November 2006.

As noted by blogger Long Zheng, Microsoft has snapped up the Office.com domain.

The address would seem to make for a logical home for the forthcoming Web-based version of Office, though Microsoft declined to say how it plans to use the address.

"At this point it's too early to share details on our plans around www.office.com," a Microsoft representative said on Thursday. Microsoft launched a technical preview of Office 2010 last month, but the Web-based versions aren't slated to start public testing until later this year. Microsoft has said that the browser-based Office Web Applications will be a free part of the Windows Live service and will work with Safari and Firefox, in addition to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

As for Office.com, Microsoft appears to have acquired the domain from ContactOffice, which has its own Web-based suite of tools. As of Thursday morning, a message on the Office.com site warns users that they are being moved to the ContactOffice.com domain.

"As you know from the recent email we sent you, we will be transitioning the operation of your Virtual Office account to ContactOffice.com during the next 30 days," reads the current message on the site. "As part of this transition, on Monday, June 29, 2009, we changed email addresses in the office.com domain to ones in the contactoffice.com domain."

Microsoft declined to offer any details about its acquisition of the Office.com domain. A representative of ContactOffice did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

Update: Robin Wauters at TechCrunch notes that the Office.com site wasn't owned by ContactOffice itself, but operated under a revenue-sharing agreement with the U.S.-based owner of the site.

(Credit: CNET News)

Microsoft is releasing the second service pack update to Office 2008 for Mac, the company said Monday.

The free update, which is expected to be available later on Monday from Microsoft's Web site, is designed to improve speed and stability as well as add new features for connecting to SharePoint servers and to Microsoft's Office Live Workspaces.

"With SP2 we are not only delivering on top customer requests midcycle, but also taking a first step in bringing Microsoft software plus services to Mac users," senior product manager Mike Tedesco said in a statement. "This connection unlocks the door for Mac users to Microsoft services for easier collaboration and file sharing with colleagues, customers and classmates."

With the update, Mac Office users will be able to save documents to Office Live Workspace. The site also is expanding its Mac browser support to include Safari 4, in addition to Firefox.

Microsoft declined to offer any details on the next major release of Office for the Mac, but a representative said that the company is "on track with the next release and that is based on the standard 2-3 year release cycle."

Office 2008 was released in January of last year.

Those attending Microsoft's TechEd event will not only get to hear about Office 2010, they will also be among the first to get to try it out.

Microsoft said Monday that it will launch an invitation-only Technical Preview Program of the new Office in July, and said that those at this week's Microsoft conference in Los Angeles will be among the first to get to kick the tires on the new version of Microsoft's flagship software.

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)

Whereas Office 2007 introduced new file formats and a major overhaul of the user interface, Office 2010 is a more modest change to the desktop programs. However, in conjunction with the release, Microsoft is also releasing browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, known as Office Web Applications. It will also be the first version of Office to come in a 64-bit version, as well as the traditional 32-bit variety.

Microsoft had previously said that a test version would come sometime in the third quarter. Microsoft said it will scale the test version to users beyond those at TechEd, but did not give a time frame.

The final version of Office 2010 is due out next year.

To run the desktop versions of Office 2010, Microsoft said that users will need either Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista, or Windows 7. Hardware that is capable of running Office 2007 should also support Office 2010, Microsoft said.

In addition to announcing the timing of the Office technical preview, Microsoft is also using the first day of the TechEd event to announce more details on the next versions of SQL Server and Windows Server and to confirm that it will release Windows 7 in time to be on PCs this holiday season.

Exchange 2010's conversation threading feature, as seen in a screenshot of Outlook Web Access.

(Credit: Microsoft)

The next version of Microsoft's corporate e-mail server will not only offer the ability to view e-mail by conversations, but also the option of "muting" any thread that a user would rather not take part in.

Conversation threading, a popular feature from Google's Gmail, and the mute option are several of the new features in Exchange 2010, the next version of the company's e-mail and calendar server. The software is entering public beta on Wednesday, with a final launch slated for the second half of this year.

Among the other features of the product, which has been code-named Exchange 14, is something Microsoft has dubbed "MailTips," which offers warnings when one might be about to commit an e-mail faux pas.

"MailTips is kind of like a guardian angel before you send the mail," Microsoft's Rajesh Jha said in an interview this week. For example, it will warn a user if they are about to send an e-mail to a large distribution list or if they are going to send an attachment outside their company's firewall.

Microsoft is also building in new archiving features into Exchange 2010, features that will allow companies to store a user's e-mail archive as well as make archived messages available to users when they are not at their desktop or laptop PC.

Many of Exchange 14's features work in the Web-based Outlook Web Access program, but to use them on the desktop will require Office 2010, which isn't due out until the first half of next year, Microsoft said.

"Exchange is leading the way," Jha said.

Microsoft is already using Exchange 2010 to power its Live@edu service for schools and universities. Customers of Exchange Online, Microsoft's hosted service for businesses, will have the option of moving to the new Exchange after the server software is released, Jha said.

For a bit more on Exchange 2010, here's a video I shot with Jha during an interview at his office earlier this year.

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.

Microsoft on Tuesday confirmed that the next version of Office, code-named Office 14, will come in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

The 64-bit version is a first for both Office and for Microsoft's mainstream desktop applications, though a number of its server products, such as SQL Server, are already available in 64-bit versions.

Office 14, which is expected to be called Office 2010, is slated to ship next year. Among its other notable features is the fact that Microsoft will offer browser-based versions of Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and OneNote, in addition to the traditional Windows-based desktop programs.

By extending the browser support to Firefox and Safari, in addition to Internet Explorer, Microsoft has said it will have the effect of also bringing Office to the iPhone and to Linux-based computers for the first time.

The existence of the 32-bit and 64-bit versions was noted on Tuesday by Ars Technica and in March by ZDNet blogger Ed Bott.

Software designed for a 32-bit processor can still run on a 64-bit machine, but likely, the 64-bit version of Office will have some performance advantages over its 32-bit sibling when running on a 64-bit machine.

Computers with 64-bit processors have been shipping for years, but it is only in the last year or so that most new PCs have started to be sold with a 64-bit operating system--required for running a 64-bit application.

While most desktop applications still run only in 32-bit mode, the server side has switched over more quickly. Some of Microsoft's server products, such as Exchange 2007 the upcoming Windows Server 2008 R2, come only in the 64-bit variety.

The big selling point of 64-bit software is its ability to directly accommodate more than 4GB of physical memory.